Community Project: NASA source code

http://kottke.org/12/04/source-code-for-apollo-and-gemini-programs

We should build (in the long term) a system to run this software in a type of emulator.  Right now, I'm just interested in how much interest there is with you guys.  If theres none, I'll just do it myself and tack on a chapter to my book in the more computer sciencey section.

http://kottke.org/12/04/source-code-for-apollo-and-gemini-programs

We should build (in the long term) a system to run this software in a type of emulator.  Right now, I'm just interested in how much interest there is with you guys.  If theres none, I'll just do it myself and tack on a chapter to my book in the more computer sciencey section.

Ah, another excuse to keep the plausible denial of publication going for another year at least. Well done.

Stop harassing me.

Stop harassing me.

I'm not harassing you, I am extremely keen to read your book, but I genuinely believe you are not telling the truth when you say it exists. This is based on the evidence you have provided that it exists, which is -273.15 degrees celsius. This is a zetetic observation, you should be pleased I am using this method to ascertain the existence of your book.

Stop harassing me.

Sorry that you got harassed (at least in your opinion), but you did invite the comment. I was going to say exactly the same.

This plan is doomed from the start. If you get it to work you will say that it was done as part of the simulation of the whole fake mission, to tell the conspiracists what to claim happened. If you fail, (which is the most probable scenario) you will use your failure to show that a Lunar Expedition is impossible, and therefore faked by the Conspiracy.

But most probably you will tell us, year after year, that you are at the verge of cracking the whole Conspiracy, and that you just need another few months to perfect the simulator. And that you have 11 boxes of papers with your work on the simulator, almost ready to publish.

Quote from: John Davis on April 25, 2012, 11:33:27 AM

Stop harassing me.

I'm not harassing you, I am extremely keen to read your book, but I genuinely believe you are not telling the truth when you say it exists. This is based on the evidence you have provided that it exists, which is -273.15 degrees celsius. This is a zetetic observation, you should be pleased I am using this method to ascertain the existence of your book.

You are harassing.  It slides because this is the internet and we all have to have a bit thicker skin that in real life. It's well known that when people can converse anonymously (or at least very near) they are dicks.  But you do not HAVE to act this way.  Imagine that you knew someone in real life that was working for years on publishing a book, which is hard work.  He's not getting paid to do it and has to find time to balance the work between a job, a family, and a life.  Now, this person wishes to tell his peers about an aspect of his project and every time he does, you chime in by calling him a liar.  I seriously doubt you would say the things you say to someone face to face, it's simply not socially acceptable.  Again, I know this is the internet, but that does not mean you need to forgo all sense of social decency.

On a side note, imagine you were watching the exchange described above in real life.  Someone says something about their book (real or not) and another immediately, and in this case, persistently, accosts the author about what they feel is fraudulent.  What opinion would you form about the accuser? 

Quote from: The Knowledge on April 25, 2012, 11:40:10 AM

Quote from: John Davis on April 25, 2012, 11:33:27 AM

Stop harassing me.

I'm not harassing you, I am extremely keen to read your book, but I genuinely believe you are not telling the truth when you say it exists. This is based on the evidence you have provided that it exists, which is -273.15 degrees celsius. This is a zetetic observation, you should be pleased I am using this method to ascertain the existence of your book.

You are harassing.  It slides because this is the internet and we all have to have a bit thicker skin that in real life. It's well known that when people can converse anonymously (or at least very near) they are dicks.  But you do not HAVE to act this way.  Imagine that you knew someone in real life that was working for years on publishing a book, which is hard work.  He's not getting paid to do it and has to find time to balance the work between a job, a family, and a life.  Now, this person wishes to tell his peers about an aspect of his project and every time he does, you chime in by calling him a liar.  I seriously doubt you would say the things you say to someone face to face, it's simply not socially acceptable.  Again, I know this is the internet, but that does not mean you need to forgo all sense of social decency.

On a side note, imagine you were watching the exchange described above in real life.  Someone says something about their book (real or not) and another immediately, and in this case, persistently, accosts the author about what they feel is fraudulent.  What opinion would you form about the accuser?

Internet or no Internet, feelings hurt. This does not change the fact that John Davis has used his soon to be published book as evidence of a myriad wonderful (or magical) phenomena and has promised his book all this time. He could have refrained from using his book as evidence, but he has not. He can stop the alleged harassment by not using it as evidence. Or, he could give even a slight piece of evidence that he is really working on it, to shut his detractors up. If he has lots of boxes filled with evidence, he can find a few documents he can share without endangering his whole copyright.

This thread is not about John's book.  It's about peer reviewing the NASA source code.  Does anyone here speak machine code?

Quote from: Pongo on April 25, 2012, 12:11:48 PM

Quote from: The Knowledge on April 25, 2012, 11:40:10 AM

Quote from: John Davis on April 25, 2012, 11:33:27 AM

Stop harassing me.

I'm not harassing you, I am extremely keen to read your book, but I genuinely believe you are not telling the truth when you say it exists. This is based on the evidence you have provided that it exists, which is -273.15 degrees celsius. This is a zetetic observation, you should be pleased I am using this method to ascertain the existence of your book.

You are harassing.  It slides because this is the internet and we all have to have a bit thicker skin that in real life. It's well known that when people can converse anonymously (or at least very near) they are dicks.  But you do not HAVE to act this way.  Imagine that you knew someone in real life that was working for years on publishing a book, which is hard work.  He's not getting paid to do it and has to find time to balance the work between a job, a family, and a life.  Now, this person wishes to tell his peers about an aspect of his project and every time he does, you chime in by calling him a liar.  I seriously doubt you would say the things you say to someone face to face, it's simply not socially acceptable.  Again, I know this is the internet, but that does not mean you need to forgo all sense of social decency.

On a side note, imagine you were watching the exchange described above in real life.  Someone says something about their book (real or not) and another immediately, and in this case, persistently, accosts the author about what they feel is fraudulent.  What opinion would you form about the accuser?

Internet or no Internet, feelings hurt. This does not change the fact that John Davis has used his soon to be published book as evidence of a myriad wonderful (or magical) phenomena and has promised his book all this time. He could have refrained from using his book as evidence, but he has not. He can stop the alleged harassment by not using it as evidence. Or, he could give even a slight piece of evidence that he is really working on it, to shut his detractors up. If he has lots of boxes filled with evidence, he can find a few documents he can share without endangering his whole copyright.

Exactly. And if I was writing a book about something, and was accused of lying about it, I'd present some sort of evidence to my detractors. And if I was unwilling to do so, then I would be throwing away my right to be indignant when accused of making the whole thing up. If you refuse to make any attempt to prove me wrong, you are tacitly admitting tolerance of my accusations.

This thread is not about John's book.  It's about peer reviewing the NASA source code.  Does anyone here speak machine code?

Thank you.

I wish I was more computer literate, John.

Quote from: Pongo on April 25, 2012, 12:11:48 PM

Quote from: The Knowledge on April 25, 2012, 11:40:10 AM

Quote from: John Davis on April 25, 2012, 11:33:27 AM

Stop harassing me.

I'm not harassing you, I am extremely keen to read your book, but I genuinely believe you are not telling the truth when you say it exists. This is based on the evidence you have provided that it exists, which is -273.15 degrees celsius. This is a zetetic observation, you should be pleased I am using this method to ascertain the existence of your book.

You are harassing.  It slides because this is the internet and we all have to have a bit thicker skin that in real life. It's well known that when people can converse anonymously (or at least very near) they are dicks.  But you do not HAVE to act this way.  Imagine that you knew someone in real life that was working for years on publishing a book, which is hard work.  He's not getting paid to do it and has to find time to balance the work between a job, a family, and a life.  Now, this person wishes to tell his peers about an aspect of his project and every time he does, you chime in by calling him a liar.  I seriously doubt you would say the things you say to someone face to face, it's simply not socially acceptable.  Again, I know this is the internet, but that does not mean you need to forgo all sense of social decency.

On a side note, imagine you were watching the exchange described above in real life.  Someone says something about their book (real or not) and another immediately, and in this case, persistently, accosts the author about what they feel is fraudulent.  What opinion would you form about the accuser?

Internet or no Internet, feelings hurt. This does not change the fact that John Davis has used his soon to be published book as evidence of a myriad wonderful (or magical) phenomena and has promised his book all this time. He could have refrained from using his book as evidence, but he has not.

Show me where I have used my book as evidence supporting phenomena in, lets say, the last 6 months.   

Quote from: John Davis on April 25, 2012, 11:33:27 AM

Stop harassing me.

Sorry that you got harassed (at least in your opinion), but you did invite the comment. I was going to say exactly the same.

This plan is doomed from the start. If you get it to work you will say that it was done as part of the simulation of the whole fake mission, to tell the conspiracists what to claim happened. If you fail, (which is the most probable scenario) you will use your failure to show that a Lunar Expedition is impossible, and therefore faked by the Conspiracy.

But most probably you will tell us, year after year, that you are at the verge of cracking the whole Conspiracy, and that you just need another few months to perfect the simulator. And that you have 11 boxes of papers with your work on the simulator, almost ready to publish.

I don't believe in a conspiracy.  And I certainly did not invite the comment.

I wish I was more computer literate, John.

Yeah, I figured most of those who were interested would not have the necessary skills.  Who knows though .

This thread is not about John's book.  It's about peer reviewing the NASA source code.  Does anyone here speak machine code?

I don't think you can really 'read' machine code. It's too raw to translate.

You can read machine code.  I've had to do it in some undergrad classes and in a few personal projects.   Clearly the CPU "reads" machine code .   Hopefully (I haven't had a chance to look this over much) there are some specifications to aid in our reading of it however as without a machine it might be hard to reverse engineer.

As it turns out, the site that has the source code also has an emulator for the AGC.
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/

This thread is not about John's book.  It's about peer reviewing the NASA source code.  Does anyone here speak machine code?

I speak several machine codes, from 8080 microprocessors to more advanced 80x86 current microprocessors, and from old IBM/360 machine code to UCSD and Java pseudo-machine codes. The problem would not be understanding the machine code, it would be understanding the Input/Output structure connected to the processor. If you have both a description of the machine language and a description of the equipment it controlled, including its I/O interfaces, the code should be partly understandable. Without those documents, it is gibberish.

As a computer science expert with a soft spot for history I might have a look at the code, just to see how similar it is to known machines. But unless it is accompanied by literally thousands of pages of I/O interface descriptions and thousands of diagrams, I would not even care to give my opinion on whether the code is what they say it is.

But unless it is accompanied by literally thousands of pages of I/O interface descriptions and thousands of diagrams, I would not even care to give my opinion on whether the code is what they say it is.

The site seems to have a pretty good documentation page:
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/assembly_language_manual.html

stop harassing NASA and the good hard working people that work for it, and other space agencies.

How do we know that this is the actual source code and not merely the source code for the training simulator that simulated the craft?

In such simulators, the code is usually real but the hardware is fake.

How do we know that this is the actual source code and not merely the source code for the training simulator that simulated the craft?

I imagine we would find that out while working with it.  NASA is prone to mistake.

I'm going to spend some time this weekend hopefully looking this code and documentation over.  I'll then see what we can do reasonably based off the response I get here.

Speaking of which, people are always yelling and crying about us never doing any serious work.  When I suggest a reasonable project to review NASA, instead of reasonable friendly responses the majority of what I get are unsupported jabs concerning my book and attacks calling me a conspiracy theorist despite myself not being one.  Rather than possibly have an opportunity to learn and change one's worldview, apparently the typical round earther would rather resort to off-topic nonsense and attacks thrown from their dilapidated ivory tower than to actually practice,  in any way shape or form, the science they hold as religion.

stop harassing NASA and the good hard working people that work for it, and other space agencies.

Who exactly is harassing NASA?

Quote from: iwanttobelieve on April 25, 2012, 04:26:14 PM

stop harassing NASA and the good hard working people that work for it, and other space agencies.

Who exactly is harassing NASA?

Here's one harassing post:

Quote from: Tom Bishop on April 25, 2012, 04:27:47 PM

How do we know that this is the actual source code and not merely the source code for the training simulator that simulated the craft?

I imagine we would find that out while working with it.  NASA is prone to mistake.

Quote from: John Davis on April 26, 2012, 07:14:35 AM

Quote from: iwanttobelieve on April 25, 2012, 04:26:14 PM

stop harassing NASA and the good hard working people that work for it, and other space agencies.

Who exactly is harassing NASA?

Here's one harassing post:

Quote from: John Davis on April 26, 2012, 06:19:41 AM

Quote from: Tom Bishop on April 25, 2012, 04:27:47 PM

How do we know that this is the actual source code and not merely the source code for the training simulator that simulated the craft?

I imagine we would find that out while working with it.  NASA is prone to mistake.

Unless they are aware of my posts, which I seriously doubt they are, I would hardly call that harassment.   Though as markjo pointed out, this isn't about harassment and its not about my book.  I should have returned to the original topic, though I will now;   I urge others to follow my belated example.

I'm a software developer, so I might be able to help clarify things. Although assuming it's adequately documented, I don't see why you would need any expert help.

Is there anything specific you're hoping to discover through this?

I also develop software.  But yeah, I imagine so.  Though like I've said, I haven't looked at it at all yet really.

And no, nothing specific.

How do we know that this is the actual source code and not merely the source code for the training simulator that simulated the craft?

How would we know the contrary?

Quote from: Tom Bishop on April 25, 2012, 04:27:47 PM

How do we know that this is the actual source code and not merely the source code for the training simulator that simulated the craft?

How would we know the contrary?

And more importantly, what does it matter? Tom Bishop seems fundamentally confused about what software is. His question is akin to looking at a physics equation and asking "how do we know if this is an equation for a car or a bicycle?" It doesn't make a difference -- only the variables change. The code would have needed a simulated environment during development before being deployed to the real hardware anyway. Source code inherently has nothing to do with hardware.