34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk on HackerTube: recommended by 9 Hacker News commenters across 7 separate months, 2018–2025.
talk · intermediate · evergreen
Michael Steil and Christian Hessmann's 34C3 talk explaining the Apollo Guidance Computer end to end: hardware design, operating system, and mission software.
Repeatedly called the best and most comprehensive AGC talk, with commenters rewatching it and treating it as foundational computer architecture learning.
“This is the best description of AGC I have seen so far, from hardware design to mission software, layer by layer”
10 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
Michael’s blog is one of my favorites. His “Ultimate Guide” talks are great and I rewatch them at least once a year. Ultimate Guide to the C64: [link] Ultimate Guide to the Game Boy: [link] Ultimate Guide to the Apollo Guidance Computer: ▶ this video
in “How MOS 6502 Illegal Opcodes Work (2008)” · View on HN
For a comprehensive exposition of the technical aspects of the AGC, look no further than the Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk: ▶ this video They not only do a brilliant job of exposing this niche system, but it is a foundational lecture for my knowledge of computer architecture in general
in “Virtual Apollo Guidance Computer” · View on HN
The best presentation I have seen on the AGC architecture: ▶ this video It does present addresses in hexadecimal, oddly. The computer was 15-bit and used octal in its display panel. I suppose the presenters thought the audience would understand hex better.
in “The Apollo On-Board Computers” · View on HN
This is the best description of AGC I have seen so far, from hardware design to mission software, layer by layer: "The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk" ▶ this video
in “Apollo 11 Had a Hidden Hero: Software” · View on HN
If anyone wants to learn more about the Apollo Guidance Computer, this talk[1] from 34C3 will teach you everything you wanted to know and more. The AGC had some really fascinating features for the time, including a cooperative multitasking system, interrupt driven IO, and even a virtual machine for doing linear algebra! [1] ▶ this video
in “Apollo 11 Had a Hidden Hero: Software” · View on HN
This is awesome. If you haven't seen this talk about the AGC you should definitely check it out: ▶ this video
in “Virtual Apollo Guidance Computer” · View on HN
Mandatory Light Years Ahead | The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer [link] 34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk ▶ this video
in “On rebooting: the unreasonable effectiveness of turning computers off and on” · View on HN
For anyone interested in the AGC itself I can recommend the "ultimative Apollo guidance computer talk" ▶ this video
in “ Software woven into wire: Core rope and the Apollo Guidance Computer” · View on HN
This is amazing to see - completely unpotted AGC! I've been following Curiousmarc's channel for a while and it's great to see this. Anyone interested in AGC stuff might also want to check out this video from the 34th Chaos Communication Congress that exhaustively explains how it works: ▶ this video
in “Apollo AGC Restoration Part 1 [video]” · View on HN
> Aren't system designers at fault for coming up with the idea of a context switch Context switching was in the Apollo 11 guidance computer ▶ this video The problem is that cycle-speed boosts left the industry cic. 2012-or-so. All the perf boost we get these days is by optimizing the instruction sequencing and multiprocessing. This is why languages like Go popped up (making the advanced programming topic of multiprogramming an entry-level accomplishment) and you now see the 'async' decorator plastered everywhere in C#, and so-on. Keeping the security context intact and separated is a gargantuan task. To me it makes more sense to add "lousy cores" to the die and force the operator to declare the launching threads are safe for SMT, else the job gets scheduled to the less-performing core where the pipelining is safer. It delegates responsibility to the chip-gobbler, forces them to understand the tradeoff for performance, until some elegant solution is found for side channel attacks like this.
in “Downfall Attacks” · View on HN