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View the alarm codes |
Because of some current bugs
(07/19/04) in the way I initialize Colossus, there will be
some program alarms at startup, and the PROG indicator will
light to inform you of this. You can view the alarms
by keying in V05N09E at the DSKY. (In normal AGC
shorthand, 'V' is short for "VERB", 'N' is short for "NOUN",
and 'E' is short for "ENTR". So "V05N09E" means to hit
the keys VERB 0 5 NOUN 0 9 ENTR.) Program alarms 1105 and 1106 happen to be "downlink too fast" and "uplink too fast". Uplinks or downlinks refer to exchange of telemetry information with ground equipment. |
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DSKY lamp test | At the DSKY, key in
V35E. This will light up all of the DSKY annunciators,
flash the VERB/NOUN labels, and display 88 or +88888 in all
of the numerical registers. After about 5 seconds, the
test stops—you can tell, because the flashing stops, though
the numbers remain—and you can continue. When the accompanying screenshot was taken, I didn't yet know how the AGC controls the DSKY's STBY and RESTART indicators, so those weren't turned on by the test. Because of a bug in the simulator (as of 07/19/04), the PROG indicator doesn't re-light after the lamp-test completes. Therefore, you may or may not see the PROG indicator lit if you try the sample operations below. |
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Display memory-bank checksums | The core-rope (read-only)
memory is divided into 36 banks, numbered 00-43
(octal). A so-called "bugger word" has been stuck at
the end of each bank—yes, I get the joke, so please don't send me an
explanation (and if you don't
get it, don't ask me)—which causes the checksum of the bank
to come out to a known value. This known value is the
same as the bank number when possible, and is the logical
complement of the bank number otherwise. (For example,
the checksum of Colossus
bank 00007 is 00007, but the checksum of bank 00006 is
77771. Both are correct.) Colossus's
"show-banksum" program can be used to display the bank
numbers, one by one. You can execute the show-banksum
program by keying in V91E on the DSKY. After a few
seconds, the statistics for bank 00 will be shown: R1
(the topmost 5-digit display) will contain the computed
checksum; R2 will contain the bank number; and R3 will
contain the bugger word. Each of the displays will be
in octal, as indicated by the fact that the +/- sign is
blank. To advance to the next bank, key in V33E.
(Hitting the PRO key does the same thing.) If you have
the patience to advance through each of the banks, the next
V33E (or PRO) after bank 43 will wrap-around to bank 00
again. To terminate the show-banksum program, you can
key in V34E. By the way, the bank-6 bugger word shown (05143) is for Colossus 249. If you ran the Artemis 072 program, it would have been 04275, while if you ran the Luminary 131 program, it would have been 63402. |
|
Monitor the current time | If you key in V16N36E or
V16N65E, it will cause the current time to be
displayed. (Since we haven't set the time in any way,
this will be the time since AGC power-up). R1 (the
topmost 5-digit display) will be in hours, R2 will be in
minutes, and R3 will be in 100ths of a second. This
display is updated once per second. In the accompanying screenshot, the time is 06:58:33.86. |
|
Setting the current time | If it annoys you to see the
time since power-up, you can change the time (for example,
to mission time) by keying in V25N36E. R1 will go
blank, enabling you to key in the current hour. Make
sure you start with a + sign (this is how the AGC knows
you're using decimal rather than octal), and make sure you
enter all five digits (including the leading zeroes).
In case you make a mistake, you can clear R1 any time before
pressing ENTR by using the CLR key. After you hit the
ENTR key, R2 will clear and you can enter the current
minutes. Finally, you can key in the number of seconds
in R3. Don't forget that the number of seconds is
actually in 100ths of seconds, so that if (for example) you
want 30 seconds you'd key in +03000E. In the accompanying screenshot, it just happened to be 06:55:25 am., so that's how I set the clock. |
|
Examining the contents of the core-rope | Key in V27N02E. This
allows you to enter the address of a word in the core-rope
into R3. This address will generally be in octal, and
therefore should not be preceded by a + sign. Also,
unlike entry of decimal data, in octal you can enter just as
many digits as you need, and don't need to enter a full five
digits. The addresses will be 00000-01777 for memory
bank 00, 02000-03777 for memory bank 01, and so forth, up to
76000-77777 for memory bank 37. (I'm not sure how to
examine banks 40-43.) The binary listing of the core
rope is at the very back of the Colossus 249 assembly
listing, which can be downloaded from MIT if you have some
spare time and disk space. (See my links page.) In the accompanying screenshot, we see that address 4000 (octal) of Luminary's core-rope contains the value 00004. This just happens to be the first instruction executed after power-up. It is an INHINT instruction, and disables interrupts. The contents of R2 (the middle 5-digit register) are not cleared, and thus are just whatever lingers from before. |
|
Examining the contents of erasable memory | Key in V01N02E. This
allows you to enter the address of a word in erasable memory
into R3. The addresses will be 00000-00377 for
erasable bank E0, 00400-00777 for memory bank E1, and so
forth, up to 03400-03777 for memory bank E7.
Alternately, you can "monitor" a memory location (i.e., get
updates for it once per second) by using VERB 11 rather than
VERB 01. For example, V11N02E25E will monitor register
25, the "TIME1" register, which is an internal counter that
increments every 10 ms. In general, of course, the
numbers won't mean much unless you reference them to the
Colossus 249 assembly listing. In the accompanying screenshot, we actually do look at the TIME1 register, and discover that at that instant it contained the value 20245 (octal). Of course, you'll see something different. Display R2 is not changed, so it just contains whatever it contained before. |
|
Altering the contents of erasable memory | Key in V21N02E, and enter an
octal address as above, and then enter a new value to be
stored at that address. It goes without saying that
you need to know what you're doing when you do this! In the accompanying screenshot, I've chosen to reload the TIME1 register with the value 12345 (octal), which probably won't cause too many adverse effects. Display R2 is not changed, so it just contains whatever it contained before. |
|
Fresh start | Key in V36E. This
apparently restarts the "pinball" program—i.e., the program
that is responsible for accepting verbs and nouns and
displaying stuff on the DSKY—and it's useful for clearing
garbage from the DSKY's display, as the accompanying
screenshot demonstrates. In the accompanying screenshot, a side-effect of the fresh start is the thoughtful re-display of the PROG (program alarm) which the earlier DSKY lamp-test had wiped out. |
|
(Your
picture here.) |
Do-it-yourself research | The file
yaAGC/Colossus249/ASSEMBLY_AND_OPERATION_INFORMATION.s lists
the verb and noun tables,
so perhaps you can figure out some neat stuff
yourself. If you do, let me know and I'll
add it to this list. |
Jonathan D. Addelston, A.
Peter Adler, Rama M. Aiyawar, Ramón
Alonso, R. R. Bairnsfather, Hugh
Blair-Smith, Norm Brodeur, George W. Cherry, Edgar
M. Cshika, Ed Copps, Steve Copps, Bob Covelli, J. D.
Coyne, Danforth, Dana Densmore, DeWitt, Bart DeWolf,
Stan Eliassen, Al Engle, Don Eyles, Fagin, Filene, Naomi
Fisher, Jim Flanders, Follett, Gauntt, Richard D. Goss,
John Green, Margaret
Hamilton (also, Hamilton
Technologies,
Inc.), R. Hirschkop, Mike Houston, Eileen T.
Hughes, Lowell G. Hull, T. James, G. Kalan, Don Keene,
James E. Kernan, Kilroy, Allan Klumpp, Tom Knatt, Alex
Kosmala, Krause, Dan Lickly, Lonske, Lu, Fred
W.
Martin, R. Melanson, Jim Miller, John Miller, Ray
Morth, N. M. Neville, North, Olsson, Rhode, Robertson,
S. Rudnicki, Phyllis Rye, Joe Saponaro, Robert Schlundt,
George Schmidt, Schulenberg, P. Shakir, Smith, Robert F.
Stengel, Gilbert Stubbs, Sturlaugson, Richard
Talayco, W. H. Vandever, Ken Vincent, P. Volante, P. S.
Weissman, Bill Widnall, P. White, Willman, Craig Work,
Saydean Zeldin. |
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The procedure developed to work around the
erroneous abort signal on Apollo 14 was as follows: (1) After the NOUN 62 countdown starts (an automatic display of the countdown toward engine ignition), but before ignition, key in VERB 21 NOUN 1 ENTER 1010
ENTER
107 ENTER to set the mode register to 71 to indicate that an abort had already occurred. Note that the numbers are in "octal" (i.e. based on the root of 8 not 10) so that the number "107" actually means "71". (2) Exactly 26 seconds after ignition, manually advance the descent engine throttle to 100%. (3) Key in VERB 25 NOUN 7 ENTER 101
ENTER
200 ENTER 1 ENTER to enable the landing guidance equations. The equations were prevented from starting automatically because the mode register is set to the phony value of 71. (4) Key in VERB 25 NOUN 7 ENTER 105
ENTER
400 ENTER 0 ENTER to explicitly disable the abort monitor. This clears the FLAGWORD bit that controls the abort monitor. (5) Key in VERB 21 NOUN 1 ENTER 1010
ENTER
77 ENTER to set the mode register to its proper value of 63. (6) Return the manual throttle to its minimum setting. The throttle stays at 100% because it is now being commanded by the guidance equations. But if this step were omitted the throttle would be forced to stay at 100% when the guidance equations later request partial thrust, with bad effects. |