[Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs

[Edward R. Cole]

Darrell,

WE forget how far computers have evolved.  In the 1970's I worked at 
Goldstone for NASA and the station computers were Dec-910s (TTL and 
core memory) and big reel-to-reel recorders.  I calculated the 
Doppler for Mariner Venus-Mercury (MVM-73) encounter at Venus using a 
HP desk calculator as we attempted to find the signal after the 
spacecraft exited from behind Venus (I was the station receiver 
project engineer in then-new PLL s-band Rx).  Computers were so 
untrustworthy they had five duplicates on Apollo and took a majority 
vote on calculations.  I was involved with Voyager/Pioneer/Viking 
missions.  I left JPL in 1979 (fun to think back).

In 1982 I worked as a programmer using one of the early IBM-PC with 
128K mem and dual cassettes (no HD).

73, Ed - KL7UW
------------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:12:11 -0400
From: AB2E Darrell <ab2e at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT:  Heathkit Catalogs
To: <w7aqk at cox.net>, <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <BLU152-W45F7989C87AAF2BCE9FCBE9B020 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"


Interesting info Dave. The computer on the 1970s Voyager space probe 
had a whopping 68K of memory total! And that was multitasking.
Source: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html

73 Darrell AB2E




73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45
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