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Title: Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer (Library of Flight Series)
ISBN: 156347185X
Author:
Eldon C. Hall
Publicate Date: 1996-09
Publish: 1996-09
List Price: $58.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $58.36
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $50.00
Amazon Merchant Price: $58.95
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Great book for geeks!
As a high-school then college student during the development of the Apollo missions, I found the book very interesting. In 1967, our senior class math teacher took us to Bowling Green State University to learn how to program BGSU's new IBM 360 computer using Fortran and punch cards. I designed a small computer the year before that could count from 0 to 7 as a science fair project, so the details on how they selected components for the Apollo computers was very interesting. During my senior year in high school, using my new knowledge of computers, I designed and built a computer that computed poker odds using just diode arrays, so the construction techniques used to develop the AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) was even more interesting. I watched Apollo 11 land on the moon on my 20th birthday on July 20th, 1969, so I have always had an interest in that great program. It depicts admirably what this country can do when challenged.
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2: Fantastic!
A great read. I couldn't put it down. Technical enough to engage the scientifically savvy. Humorous and personal too. A must for those interested in how we became surrounded by computers in our daily lives.
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3: This book was great
Even though the marketplace is getting bigger, many publications today are either "academic level" or "dummed down" for general consumption. This book is positioned between these two extremes and is just what I was looking for. One of many surprising things I learned was how the AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) was the largest consumer if integrated circuits in the 1960s and was mainly responsible for kicking off this industry.
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4: Excellent content, astronomical cost
This text is a very narrow treatise on an archaic topic; specifically, the history of the Apollo Navigation Computer. This computer was compact and versatile, being the first major effort to use integrated circuits extensively but before microprocessors.
The book is well written and interesting to me. There are many color photographs and diagrams that bring the author's description's to life. His narrative is enlightening for technically knowledgeable readers though the author also takes time to explain some basic concepts without slowing the work down.
The only problem with the book is that it costs 58 bucks. This is very expensive for a paperback book and that amounts to almost $3 dollars per page. This is probably due to being printed in small numbers by a specialty press. For this much money, though, I expect a hardcover.
Due to the specialization of its content and its high cost, I recommend this book only to those with great interest in either in early manned spaceflight or the history of computers.
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5: Superior and Detailed Account
Eldon Hall has done something rare with this book. He has taken a very complex subject, nearly forgotten due to time, and made it utterly relevant and engaging. For anyone with an interest in either space or computer history, this is a vital book. It is somewhat technical (I had no idea how they made rope memory modules, an early ROM format before this book for instance), but Hall is very careful to explain things in terms that an average reader can readily understand. The book itself documents the Apollo Guidance Computer from conception through numerous iterations and changes, to final successful lunar landings. Although the AGC capabilities seem trivial today, the AGC was the world's first Integrated Chip computer, and had enormous hurdles to overcome. In the end, of course, we know that Hall and his fellow employees at MIT did a good job...what I didn't know before was exactly what they had to do and the challenges they had to overcome.
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