Apollo AGC and my new favorite bug

[HP-ILnerd]

Here's a 48 minute talk at Code Mesh London on the Apollo Guidance Computer.  The first part is just historical background, but they get into a lot of nice (and at the time innovative) technical fiddly bits on the operation and design of the AGC.
As for my favorite bug:  The AGC on the LM was programmed to interpret a certain signal from the landing radar that it had landed.  Apparently there are just 3 craters on the moon that are shaped in a way that radar reflecting off of them would fool the LM's AGC into thinking it had landed, and shut off the engine prematurely. 



There's a couple spots where the presenter misspeaks (I know:  astonishing that such a thing could happen during a live presentation), but generally a really nice talk if the subject appeals to you.

[German_EE]

More AGC stuff here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBhPsyYCiM&feature=youtu.be

http://klabs.org/history/ech/agc_schematics/

http://klabs.org/history/build_agc/

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/computers/Part1.html

I'm also a space geek, can you tell?