NASA Computers from Apollo Era Found in Pittsburgh Basement

"Most of us don’t have anything really interesting in our basements, and certainly nothing of historical significance. In the case of a former engineer from Pittsburgh, his basement was home to a pair of NASA computers from the 1960s. After the unnamed engineer passed away, a scrap dealer was preparing to haul away the machines when he noticed the “Property of NASA” labels. The agency was contacted to figure out what the machines were and if they had any historical significance, but it’s all a bit mysterious."



Maybe we might learn how to get back to the Moon?

On a more serious note it's always interesting when scientific historically relevant objects turn up, hopefully they will end up in a museum.

www.extremetech.com...

a reply to: andy06shake

I would love to live in that basement.

a reply to: andy06shake

With the FWD. and Fast Forward buttons showing on the computer it is proof that this is a time machine.

We need to keep it intact. Its the only way to communicate with Vger when it comes home.

a reply to: andy06shake

I missed this one. Typical however here in the Burgh, we hoared everything and place them in the basement.

Here's another article with more pics of the basement.
arstechnica.com...

"Please tell NASA these items were not stolen," the engineer's heir told the scrap dealer, according to the report. "They belonged to IBM Allegheny Center Pittsburgh, PA 15212. During the 1968-1972 timeframe, IBM was getting rid of the items so [redacted engineer] asked if he could have them and was told he could have them."~article

Next line or sentence..

"You can read the entire report; the engineer’s identity has been redacted."
👆👆👆( click the red reprt⬆️in the article i linkd )
20 or so photo's PDF 61 pages.
Can you link PDF's from a tablet?

Those are the old Tape Storage units. Unfortunately , being magnetic , there is no data left after being stored in a basement , Would be interesting to know what they once contained.

After that long i'd be amazed anything would be readable, i've had to do jobs with ancient tapes and generally it never goes well unless they've been keep in a good environment and even then its hit or miss as it could be 30 years or more since the last time it was used.

14" size tape sounds like a standard 2400 foot tape, there was 24,12,6 hundred feet tapes as the general usage as there was no point wasting a large tape for a small bit of data.

Would love it to be in a museum certainly but getting it back to working order can be a problem due to getting parts and it may only be 1/3rd of a working system and lets just say things like asbestos and mercury delay lines didn't really awaken the H&S people at the time.

a reply to: Gothmog

"I conducted an initial assessment of the material on December 10, 2015. This assessment confirmed the approximate number of 325 magnetic data tape reels that each measured 14" in diameter with a magnetic tape dimension of ½” and contained by a metal reel. The assessment also showed that the magnetic tapes were in poor condition and almost all were affected by moderate to severe mould, which is identified as a health risk. Most of the tapes were not labelled and of the tapes that were labelled, the content appeared to be space science related with missions including Pioneer and Helios and the inclusive dates range was 1961-1974. A final assessment of the tapes on April 3, 2016 further broke down of the content of the tapes into the following:
PN8 [Pioneer 8]: 1 reel

PN9 [Pioneer 9]: 2 reel

PN10 [Pioneer 10): 40 reels

PN11 [Pioneer 11]: 53 reels

HELl [or] HEL-A [Helios 1]: 10 reels

HESA [possibly an abbreviation for Helios A]: 2 reels

Intelsat IV: 2 reels

Unlabelled or labelled without mission-related identifying information: approximately 215 reels"~quoted from article.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That's a lot of items to not find anything of value. Damn shame, but it gets musty here.

Woooooo. That's my hometown.

This kind of snobbery is what lead to Nasa erasing Apollo moon landing tapes.

NASA told the family of the deceased that it was not in the junk removal business. “No, we do not need the computers,” NASA told the family of the deceased. “We have no use for [them].”

a reply to: andy06shake

I would wager a slide rule would be more powerful.

After all... we put men on the moon with a slide rule.

Here is the background on the computer and software used by NASA in Gemini thru the Shuttle.

Link to Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience

This stuff does not seem to be part of the manned flight systems.

Bet there is some covert data on aliens that never got erased on there

originally posted by: Terminal1
I would wager a slide rule would be more powerful.

After all... we put men on the moon with a slide rule.

Actually, slide rules are good to three places. For the more exacting work, log tables were used as were big mechanical adding machines.

a reply to: andy06shake
OMG!!!!
Was this 'basement' under a 'film studio' in Pittsburgh?


SHADO HQ found!!!
Hiding things in plain sight?
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were disclosure agents back in 1970?

a reply to: Terminal1

More like with the power of a pocket calculator but that's not bad considering the ingenious systems were able to guide astronauts across 356,000 km of space from the Earth to the Moon and return them safely.

Another interesting story about archaic NASA equipment and abandoned tapes -

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The thread is by Zorgon who now has his own forum -

www.thelivingmoon.com...

I love to read about these kinds of things. I think it says a lot about the character of these retired NASA employees. They thought enough of their work and so believed in their mission that they made sincere efforts to preserve what the NASA bureaucracy was too shortsighted to save.

I hope some attempt will be made to recover the data on the tapes from this man's basement. There is no such thing as disposable information when it comes to the US space program. I don't care how old this stuff is. We need to preserve it because it is a huge part of our history. It's priceless.

Bumping, as this is a worthwhile thread.

in other news, they found Stanley Kubricks unedited video of the moon landing hoax on the flat earth with no forest

a reply to: CovertAgenda

Top photo appears to be IBM manufactured drives.
Middle photo appear to be CDC manufactured drives.