With the renewed attention on the Apollo Guidance Computer, I'll share some photos from a presentation I gave a couple of years ago on software documentation, featuring its source code.

The engineers who wrote the software that got astronauts onto the moon sure had a sense of whimsy!

Sources:
Archival scans: https://archive.org/details/Luminary99001J2k60
B/W scans: https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/ScansForConversion/Luminary099/
Transcriptions: https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11
Photo sources in alt text.

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The Apollo Guidance Computer keyboard and display system program was called "PINBALL GAME BUTTONS AND LIGHTS".

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A quote from Henry VI, adapted for the DSKY.

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The master ignition routine was called "BURN, BABY, BURN".

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HELLO THERE.
GOODBYE. COME AGAIN SOON.

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ASTRONAUT: PLEASE CRANK THE SILLY THING AROUND
OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD...

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@thalia hahaha I remember making similar comments in REM statements back in the Apple 2 days.

@thalia @a2_4am

… actually, come to think about it, my PhD thesis had similar comments scattered throughout it during development.

@thalia That's got to be legacy code still running on systems somewhere. It was damned by that comment. Like all such calls to temporary functions that will be removed "soon"

@thalia

We need a Luminary to understand this code 😉🖖