A viewer donated an LVDC page assembly board that had been exposed to the elements in a salvage yard for over 40 years. This LVDC board was donated so that it could be disassembled and destructively reverse engineered down to the component level, so that once and for all the real technology beneath the surface could be understood, that could explain how the Apollo Launch Vehicle Digital Computer really worked.
And you can get a chance to be a part of it too!
This genuine LVDC board does not belong to me, or to any one person - It belongs to all of us. When I complete my initial investigation, I will be passing along this Apollo Saturn V LVDC board to another engineer... Who in turn must pass it on to another engineer.... and so forth... in order that this artifact will forever remain in our community, and that we may all have a chance to share and discover this piece of history for ourselves.
It is The Apollo Saturn V LVDC Project, starting soon!
Fran on Twitter - https://twitter.com/contourcorsets
Fran's Science Blog - http://www.frantone.com/designwritings/design_writings.html
Fran's Daily Updates - http://www.contourcorsets.com/daily/daily.html
And you can get a chance to be a part of it too!
This genuine LVDC board does not belong to me, or to any one person - It belongs to all of us. When I complete my initial investigation, I will be passing along this Apollo Saturn V LVDC board to another engineer... Who in turn must pass it on to another engineer.... and so forth... in order that this artifact will forever remain in our community, and that we may all have a chance to share and discover this piece of history for ourselves.
It is The Apollo Saturn V LVDC Project, starting soon!
Fran on Twitter - https://twitter.com/contourcorsets
Fran's Science Blog - http://www.frantone.com/designwritings/design_writings.html
Fran's Daily Updates - http://www.contourcorsets.com/daily/daily.html
Hi Fran, I had never heard of your channel until today … I'm here from Dave's EEVBlog. +1 LIKE. +1 SUBSCRIBE
Thank you for posting these videos. I have several LVCD page cards and a LVDC magnetic core memory module in my small space collection. A very impressive work of engineering.
Sounds like she reverse-engineers an alien computer… What secrets?! It's not like this is a top secret mechanism these days. Please get real.
Long live Apollo and the Saturn V! Our greatest achievement IMHO!
Fascinating! 😀
wow !!!!
Great video. The LVDC used triple modular redundancy — voting in case the outputs did not agree. The AGC had no redundancy–it had to work right the first time. The LVDC had to operate for a shorter time: during launch, TLI, and a little more. The AGC had to work through the entire mission.
I have been wracking my brains regarding technology from that era, especially with regard to solid core memory etc. From the digging around I have been able to do it seems this system used the standard solid core memory of the day (ferrite beads on an X/Y wire matrix). I'm pretty sure (but not certain) that SC memory was used with DTL not TTL. Also I'm pretty certain that TTL was not invented until the early 1970's as it required multi-emitter transistors.
Different technology, different designers, different computer. IBM's LVDC not MIT's AGC.
"Journey to the Moon" by Eldon C Hall goes into depth about this technology as used in the Apollo Guidance Computer. ISBN-10: 156347185X
ISBN-13: 978-1563471858
My Father helped design this computer for IBM in the 60s. He was originally in Owego, NY and they shipped him and a bunch of other engineers down to Huntsville in1962. I used to have a box of some of his proto-types that I hung onto as a kid. I've been meeing to see if any of his old buddies were still alive. I will see what I can dig up.
This is going to be awesome, add me to the queue!
… because… don't-cha know, this is way interesting!