Software Archaeology - Learning from the Landing on the Moon

Explore the groundbreaking software engineering achievements of the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) in this 50-minute conference talk. Delve into the history of the moon landing and its impact on modern software development. Learn about priority scheduling, multitasking, and real-time operating systems implemented in one of the first embedded systems. Discover how a virtual machine provided mathematical functions and hardware abstraction. Examine the robustness and error handling that prevented mission failure. Journey through the Artemis program, Sputnik shock, Kennedy's speech, and the Space Race. Investigate the AGC's hardware specifications, computer architecture, and user interface. Witness a short demo of the AGC simulation and explore its realtime operating system, state vector, and digital autopilot. Gain insights from Margaret Hamilton's contributions and the importance of shared responsibility in software development. Conclude with valuable lessons learned from this pioneering project that laid the foundation for modern software engineering practices.

Introduction
Artemis program
Sputnik shock
Kennedys speech
Space race
Germany program
Apollo program
Details
Review
Apollo 8 Wonderful Patch
Apollo 10 Dress rehearsal
Apollo Guidance Computer
Hardware
Weight
Computer architecture
Integer range
Precision
Heavy constraints
Memory banking
Clock rate
Data rate
User interface
Web page
Simulation
Short demo
Realtime operating system
Interest
State Vector
Virtual Machine
Apollo Guidance
Program Alarm
Executive Overflow
The Interpreter
Rendezvous Radar
Margaret Hamilton
Human errors
Shared responsibility
Digital autopilot
GitHub
Short example
What we learned
The most important principle
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