We like to see old technology come back to life, especially when it is done in the context of how the equipment was originally intended to be used.Double when it is space equipment, like what [Curious Marc] When they manage to do Light up several real Apollo DSKY displays.
The “display and keyboard” form the human-machine interface of the Apollo guidance computer. The Apollo guidance computer is a specially manufactured machine that allows the Apollo mission to fly to the moon, land safely, and return to Earth.The complete DSKY is difficult to obtain, but a lucky collector named [Marcel] A pair of electroluminescent panels can be scored, one is a prototype, and the other is a flight-qualified spare.He gave them to the AGC master [Carl Claunch], He worked out all the details to make the display work again-for a device that requires 800 Hz and 250 volts, this is an extraordinary task.
The first third of the video below mainly deals with the background stories and historical aspects of the artifacts displayed by DSKY; skip to around 12:30 to learn about the technical details, including the surprising use of relays to drive various parts of the display. Once you realize that the transistor in the mid-1960s is not up to this task, it becomes meaningful, and it must make the Apollo spacecraft a great place. We are also interested in the clever way of keeping the total number of relays to a minimum, because we realize that not every segment combination is valid for every seven segment display.
The video has several cameos, such as [Ben Krasnow]When it comes to electroluminescent displays and DSKY replicas, he himself will not slack off. We also caught a glimpse of the famous component slicer and MONSter 6502-tamer [TubeTime] and also.