OT: The Geek Test

Tiberius

spinning at around 18K RPM and 16 floating heads. Power loss meant a drum replacement. The computer weighed about 180 lbs. and was plated with gold for EMF protection.

I worked with a CDC 6400 in college, it used 64 bit words. It was upgraded to a Cyber 170 the second year. That one used 128 bit words, ran at 100 MHz. The same model was used at Vandenberg as the range safety mainframe in 1987.

When I left England in 1990, we were still using the Burroughs 1100 in a couple of shops and as the mainframe for the maintenance data collection system. Multiplexed remotes running at 1200 baud. We also were using the Burroughs word processing systems, proprietary Z80 base systems running CPM.

You're old :)

How many points do I get for having lunch with George Takai? In 1968?

steve

Let's knock that crap off. That doesn't demonstrate you're a geek.

Now, knowing who said "SCE to AUX", and why, THAT proves you're a geek... Or, who the "Pad Fuhrer" was... Or, knowing who DIDN'T say "Failure is not an option"...

David Erbas-White

None. Now if it had been George Takei, then it would be worth 1000 quatloos. ; )

Randy

John Aaron durring the flight of Apollo 12 after a lightning strike. Fortunately Alan Bean was enough of a geek to know where the SCE switch was located.

Mario Perdue NAR #22012 Sr. L2 for email drop the planet

"X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, two-one-five-six, transmission concluded."

How many do I get for being on the same stage as George Takei and Isaac Asimov in the late '80s?

David Erbas-White

Two.

And Pete Conrad didn't...

David Erbas-White

Do'h! Damn spell checker!

steve ( I called him Sulu, anyway) :)

Spelling is not your only problem Steve.

impressive answer! would you happen to know the name of the popular tool to format diskettes in any format you select?

- iz

He is a CERTIFIED geek.

AAAARRRGHHH!

IIRC, I read somewhere that Aaron knew about the functionality of that switch as the result of someone tripping over and unplugging the power cord for the simulator unit (or something like that).

From "Apollo: The Race to the Moon", by Murray and Cox, pp375-377 (and I get 5 geek points for knowing where it was and retyping it here...)

"About a year earlier, Aaron had been sitting in the MOCR at midnight as part of a small team led by Glynn Lunney. They were "watching" a test at K.S.C.--just one more way of familiarizing themselves with their systems. The test was proceeding normally when the parameters on Aaron's screens suddenly chnaged to a strange pattern--not zeros, but an incomprehensible set of values. Then the numbers returned to normal."

"The morning after the test, Aaron retrieved a hard copy of the anomalous screens from the computer and took it back to his office--there was no particular reason for doing so, just Aaron's uncommon curiousity. Aaron couldn't make any sense of the numbers he had seen. As persistent as he was curious, Aaron got Lunney to call the Cape and find out what had happened. The Cape wasn't pleased to have Houston call and demand to know how they had screwed up, but they disclosed nonetheless that a test conductor had accidentally dropped the power system on the C.S.M. to unusually low voltages."

"Aaron went looking for one of the instrumentation specialists at M.S.C., trying to find out why the screen had reacted in such a peculiar way under low voltage. They spent hours on it. Finally, the instrumentation guy zeroed in on the signal-condition equipment, S.C.E., a box of electronics that performed an obscure role in translating the information from the sensors into the signals that went to the displays in the spacecraft and on the ground. It had a primary and an auxiliary position. In the primary position, where it was ordinarily set, it had a sensor that would turn the S.C.E. off under low voltage. In the auxiliary position, the S.C.E. would attempt to run even under low-voltage conditions. "You know," the instrumentation guy told Aaron, "that signal-conditioning equipment had tripped off because you were in primary. Now, if you'd gone to auxiliary, you would have wiped this circuit out and you would have got your readings back." Aaron thought that was interesting."

"It is part of flight-controller etiquette to credit the back room reflexively. Whenever flight controllers are reminiscing about a memorable call, the formula is always, "Ol' Bill had been working with the boys in the back room, and they came up with..." Steve Bales, who had done that with Jack Garman on Apollo 11, put it best when he compared the men in the back and front rooms to two mountain climbers roped together. And virtually without exception, the assumption that the back room was involved in a major call is correct. In the case of John Aaron on Apollo 12, it is not. There was no time. When Griffin asked Aaron, "How's it looking?" Aaron was just starting to call his back room."

""Is that the S.C.E.?" he asked, already sure of the answer."

""Boy, I don't know, John," a worried voice came back, "It sure looks--""

"Griffin, getting no answer to his first call to EECOM (he could not hear Aaron's exchange with the back room over his loop), tried again, needing an answer quickly: "EECOM, what do you see?""

"Aaron cut off his back room and punched up the Flight loop. "Flight, EECOM. Try S.C.E. to Aux.""

"Griffin was surprised. In the first place, he was ready to call an abort, and was already preparing himself for that irrevocable step. In the second place, he had no idea what "S.C.E." referred to. Never in any of the simulations or the Mission Techniques had that switch been mentioned. Griffin wasn't sure he'd heard Aaron right, and in fact he hadn't."

""Say again. S.C.E. to 'Off'?""

""Aux," corrected Aaron. The MOCR's was truly the most economical language in the world."

"Griffin played it back to Aaron, needing to be sure: "S.C.E. to Aux.""

"As he confirmed, Aaron loosened up, using two whole words: "Auxiliary, Flight."

"Griffin still had no idea what Aaron was talking about, but once again trust made the system work."

""S.C.E. to Aux, CapCom," Griffin said."

"CapCom sat immediately in front and to the left of the flight director. Carr turned his head and looked back up at Griffin with a "What the hell is that?" expression on his face, but his was not to question why. In this situation, CapCom had two responsibilities: to communicate clearly and to radiate confidence. Carr did both, his voice sounding as if he were relaying a standard procedure that would make everything okay: "Apollo 12, Houston. Try S.C.E. to Auxiliary. Over.""

""What panel, EECOM?" Griffin asked. He was asking Aaron on which instrument panel in the spacecraft this hitherto unknown switch was located--if Carr, an astronaut, didn't seem to know what S.C.E. referred to, it was entirely possible that Conrad and his crew didn't either."

"Pet Conrad, riding on top of a Saturn V in a spacecraft whose alarm panel was lit up like a pinball machine, seemed as mystified by the instruction as Carr and Griffin had been."

""N.C.E. to Auxiliary," he said dutifully."

""S.C.E, S.C.E., to Auxiliary," CapCom repeated. This time the crew heard right. Al Bean, the lunar module pilot, knew where the S.C.E. switch was, and clicked it to the position labeled "Auxiliary.""

"Griffin was still worried that the crew didn't know hot to put S.C.E. to Aux and asked again, "What panel, EECOM?" But by this time everything had changed."

""We got it back, Flight," Aaron said laconically, meaning that the data--interpretable data--had come back up on his screen. "Looks good." Now that he had data, Aaron could also deduce that the fuel cells that powered the C.S.M. had, for reasons unknown, been disconnected."

I say 10 for knowing and a bonus 5 for the typing.

Hmmm, there's a nostalga game that I need ported to the PDA...

But do I get points for having TWO different Star Trek episode databases on my PDA? Plus the Rules of Acquisition? And a log of all US space flights through July 2001.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

I didn't know that MAC came in data center sized configurations.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!