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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Apr 12, 2024 8:21:42 GMT
Has anyone ever programmed in assembly? It is the raw language a computer understands, known as a low level language. For example, in a high level language adding two numbers would be trivial, e.g.
result = 14 + 10;
If we do it in assembly it would look like
mov eax, 14
mov ebx, 10
add eax, ebx
push eax
push fmt
call printf
mov eax, 1
int 0x80
Essentially what is going on in assembly is each operation the computer needs to do to add the numbers described explicitly. So how would you do it in 1960 if you wanted to program a nuke to hit Moscow? The trick is to get the missile to be going at the right speed and the right angle. That is all you need to do, and you do this in the first stage of the flight. Once you have the speed and the angle right, it is much the same as throwing a stone. After leaving your hand it will either hit the target or not, and no further control is necessary. The other thing you need is an accelerometer so you know what angle it is pointing at and so you know how much to correct it by. The problem is computers were the size of large rooms in 1960 and although you could control it by telemetry from a large room, the signal is a vulnerable to jamming and you can't be sure the control room would not be hit etc etc. Transistors were very new things at this time and were known to be unreliable. So what do you do?
Here is the solution that was used. It was called a D17 and it was a very strange computer using some rather weird solutions, including a multi-head hard disk drive which was used for what we use RAM for today and there were some flip flops as well. Flip flops are a couple of transistors that can maintain state by recording a single bit. It was a 24 bit machine though, presumably so it could achieve the accuracy. The issue being any systemic error in acceleration will be cumulative if you integrate with respect to time to get velocity and it gets worse if you integrate a second time to get displacement because you have a square term.
So here it is with full details on how you can program it yourself and we even have a simulator in Fortran. Everyone knows Fortran lol!
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 12, 2024 8:31:05 GMT
Flip-flop is an American term. The proper name is bistable multivibrator.
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Post by Vinny on Apr 12, 2024 8:56:48 GMT
In 1960 there were still manned bombers like the Vulcan and the Victor as the main nuclear deterrent.
The nukes they would have dropped had screws on the back spun by a prop on the back of the bomb, and after so many turns, they would mechanically trigger a detonator just like the bombs of WW2.
The shoot down of Gary Powers had an impact on policy as it was realised air defence missiles would be a threat to high flying bombers and even the USA's Mach 3 capable XB70 Valkyrie was cancelled.
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 12, 2024 17:14:47 GMT
I remember having a summer job in the drawing office at what used to be Avro at Woodford (home of the Lancaster as well as the Vulcan). The works bus would drop you at the main gate where the commissionaires would nod you through after the first few times looking over your pass. To get to the office we'd enter a side door and walk down through the final assembly hall for the Blue Steel stand-off missile, which served as the UK's nuclear deterrent until Polaris came online in the late 60s.
There'd be a dozen or so missiles in various stages of assembly and it still amazes me that I was never once questioned about what I was doing in what was presumably a top secret area. I can't say I thought much about it at the time though and certainly nobody else did.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Apr 12, 2024 22:21:17 GMT
Flip-flop is an American term. The proper name is bistable multivibrator. Yes the latter is the RS flip-flop, but there is also a more common one in computers called a D-type flip flop. I don't know which one they were referring to. In logic design it all just came to be called flip flips. The Americans built them after all. |
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Post by Dubdrifter on Apr 13, 2024 6:40:38 GMT
If you want to start a nuclear war with Russia … open threads with irresponsible titles like this one. 🙄
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Post by Vinny on Apr 13, 2024 7:40:09 GMT
Yet another defence of Putin? Don't be silly Dub.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Apr 13, 2024 12:20:06 GMT
If you want to start a nuclear war with Russia … open threads with irresponsible titles like this one. 🙄 It's just a bit of history for you. The guy in the video is a total anorak but he does provide some interesting original documentation and images of what was once very secretive. It'll help you widen your general knowledge. |
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Post by Dubdrifter on Apr 15, 2024 6:23:10 GMT
If you want to start a nuclear war with Russia … open threads with irresponsible titles like this one. 🙄 It's just a bit of history for you. The guy in the video is a total anorak but he does provide some interesting original documentation and images of what was once very secretive. It'll help you widen your general knowledge. Yes, I get that … but he didn’t use that as a title heading … and to Russians reading this with only a cursory grasp of English … such headlines are irresponsible(I expected something better worded from you) … especially at a time PEACE-LOVING HUMANISTS on here are trying desperately hard … sweating hours on narratives trying to STOP the World careering INSANELY. into a nuclear war and a nuclear winter that will inevitably wipe out most human and animal life not resilient to 1,000 years of harmful irradiation. |
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Post by Vinny on Apr 15, 2024 7:09:03 GMT
Russians are blocked from reading sites like this by Roskomnadzor, the mafia state internet censorship body.
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