this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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She wrote all this code by hand to take humanity to the Moon (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by MakunaHatata to c/nextfuckinglevel
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Margaret Hamilton, NASA's lead developer for Apollo program, stands next to all the code she wrote by hand that took humanity to the moon in 1969

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I used to collect mechanical calculators.

You couldn't calculate a re-entry vector with one but you could add a long list of numbers quickly and efficiently.

They were called comptometers.

The ads for them are fascinating:

https://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/comptometer_ads.htm

This one in particular... https://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/images/comptometer/ads/big/1910-07-02%20The%20Argus%20%28Melbourne%29.jpg

Pay seven pounds for some training and a guaranteed job as a skilled comptometer operator.