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Apollo Core Rope Memory (Apollo Guidance Computer Part 30)

CuriousMarc · 759.4K views · 2023-10-27 · 49:03

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Overview

CuriousMarc's Apollo Guidance Computer restoration series looks at core rope memory, the ROM that held the Moon landing programs. Mike Stewart builds a custom reader to recover lost AGC programs.

On Hacker News

HN commenters recommend it as the deepest explanation of how AGC rope memory works and how it differs from core memory.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2023–2026

Topics

History of computingSpace exploration & spaceflightDemoscene & retrocomputing
Search by tags
core rope memoryapollo guidance computervintage computingrestorationrom

What people said

dadadad100 · 2023-11 · Strong recommendation

Obligatory shoutout to curiousmarc and Mike Stewart. I’m stunned by the amount of work that have put into making this national treasure (partly) operational again [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]

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FullyFunctional · 2023-12 · Recommendation

Delay lines are fascinating, but I don't see why this is easier than core memory; seems like you are trading an electronics problem for a mechanical one. Regardless, at the speeds they are targeting, I think delay lines might be difficult. Another interesting option (for ROM) is core rope memory. CuriousMarc has the ultimate explanation: [VIDEO]

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dadadad100 · 2023-11 · Recommendation

Here,s a deep, deep dive into AGC rope memory. My mental model was stuck on core memory until I saw this and finally got the difference. Tl;dr Way higher information density. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by CuriousMarc, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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