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by po1nt8 hours ago |
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upvoteby beachy4 hours ago|
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I think the opposite. Hardware is hard, as they say. Building such complex electromechanical designs to military specs without modern CAD tools must have been the equivalent of writing code in binary, without high level languages or even assembler.
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upvoteby culi7 hours ago|
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It's a shame the only way to work on problems like these (and make a decent living) is to make tools of war.

The end game of much of silicon valley seems to be government (read: military) contracts. Probably because its the main branch of government that's thoroughly funded

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upvoteby hydrogen78001 hours ago|
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I'm shooting from the depths of my memory, but I recall reading that one of the earliest government needs for computers was for the decennial census. At some point, it was requiring more than the 10 years to process the previous censuses (sp?) results.
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upvoteby takipsizad6 hours ago|
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its also a branch of government that always need research so government contracts are plentiful
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upvoteby vjvjvjvjghv4 hours ago|
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Defense also got silicon valley started. So it goes full circle.
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upvoteby kens7 hours ago|
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> First microprocessors in jet fighters

Don't get me started on that...

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upvoteby eh_why_not6 hours ago|
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But let's say I got you started. What would you want to say about them?
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upvoteby kens6 hours ago|
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The short answer is that it shows what one can get people to believe through relentless self-promotion. For a longer answer on the first microprocessors: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-...
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upvoteby eh_why_not6 hours ago|
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Would you consider writing a computer history book?
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upvoteby kens5 hours ago|
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Maybe at some point. The main problem is that writing a book would require me to focus on one topic, which doesn't seem likely.
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upvoteby eh_why_not5 hours ago|
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Easy, just write multiple books simultaneously /s. Cheers.
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upvoteby SlightlyLeftPad8 hours ago|
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I’m with you. The complexity yet simplicity of these mechanical devices is fascinating.
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upvoteby echelon8 hours ago|
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Nothing is stopping us.

One life to experience the universe. Save up for a sabbatical. Find new engineering pastures.

It's always rose colored looking back. Not everybody got to work on this. Some people were storming the beaches...

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upvoteby therobots9277 hours ago|
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And some people, specifically Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians, were on the receiving end of your fun little brain teaser.

And other people, like Henry Kissinger, drew random dots on a map to tell it where to drop the bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu

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upvoteby kingleopold7 hours ago|
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another real fact: "Between 1964 and 1973, the United States conducted a covert "Secret War" in Laos, dropping over two million tons of ordnance during 580,000+ bombing missions, "
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upvoteby therobots9277 hours ago|
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I’m about to read King Leopold’s Ghost. Great choice in username.

I must say it’s a little disappointing that things like “secret bombing campaigns” getting declassified don’t lead to much public response.

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upvoteby stevenwoo2 hours ago|
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The revelation of secret bombing campaigns was one of the main reveals of The Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg. This arguably turned American public opinion against the war decisively as it revealed the USA had no cohesive strategy for winning and was repeatedly lying to the American public about the multiple fronts of the war in Southeast Asia for more than twenty years.
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upvoteby echelon7 hours ago|
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> And some people, specifically Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians, were on the receiving end of your fun little brain teaser.

To make it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR, I was referring to celestial navigation.

I guess we have to blame people who weren't alive at the time for wars we didn't participate in?

My wife is Vietnamese, btw.

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upvoteby therobots9275 hours ago|
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I’m sorry. I’m in a bad mood and that was unecessary. That being said, given the current hyper militarized climate in Silicon Valley, I find this detachment of the science / engineering from its use cases to be more than a little distasteful.
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upvoteby colechristensen6 hours ago|
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Eh, it's easy to get caught by the romanticism of working on things like this, but I assure you besides like 4 people in charge of the big picture, everybody else is dealing with things which are exactly as mundane as things these days. Like putting it through 1000 heat cycles of -40 to 200 degrees and then vibrating it at 2gs for 200 hours and then measuring the tolerances of each part... or being in charge of three lines in a standards document for 2 years negotiating the details with the DoD.
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upvoteby kens6 hours ago|
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I couldn't find the specification for the Angle Computer, but I've found specifications for other devices and you're exactly right: pages and pages of vibration requirements, fungus resistance, testing procedures, and then maybe if I'm lucky one page with useful information like the pinout. This is very annoying if I'm paying by the page. :-)
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