Anyone fancy some typing in?
From The Best of Creating Computer magazine Vol 1. Early 1970’s…
-Gordon
Anyone fancy some typing in?
From The Best of Creating Computer magazine Vol 1. Early 1970’s…
-Gordon
Hurrah! A bit of searching on key strings turned this up:
and also
http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-013/ROCKET.BAS
There are some quite groovy equations in there:
910 LET J=V+G*S+Z*(-Q-(Q^2)/2-(Q^3)/3-(Q^4)/4-(Q^5)/5)
920 LET I=A-G*S*S/2-V*S+Z*S*(Q/2+Q^2/6+Q^3/12+Q^4/20+Q^5/30)
I see we have some accounting of fuel mass:
620 LET M=M-S*K
Then there is the series that starts in the November 1977 issue on simulating motion, based on a lunar lander, from a NASA engineer.
Both of those start on page 18 of their respective issues.
Much clearer (and OCRd) scan of the Creative Computing article here:
Noticing these two header lines:
1 REM *** WRITTEN BY JIM STORER, LEXINGTON HS
2 REM *** CONVERTED FROM FOCAL TO BASIC BY DAVID AHL, DIGITAL
I just came across Jim Storer’s web pages - he’s a CS prof, and a puzzle enthusiast, and has some collected links on his Lunar Lander program here.
Jim Storer - Lunar Landing Game Related Documents
(Unfortunately, I came across his site because of his involvement as an expert in the SoftRAM95 controversy. See here and here and here.)
I had a discussion on Twitter about the topic “Lunar Lander”:
<script async src =" https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js “charset =” utf -8 ">I hate decoding chart stories …
- Joachim Boaz (@SFRuminations) May 8, 2021
J. G. Ballard’s “How Dr Christopher Evans Landed on the Moon” (1969) in New Worlds, # 187 (February 1969)
Is the joke that Evans runs out of fuel and will be stuck on the Moon?
Lots of numbers make me lock up. hah. pic.twitter.com/AZS0ZNkaMi
Well that’s odd - Evans helped Ballard write Crash, it seems, and this simulation shows the lander not crashing. It’s shown here and described as a spoof computer printout.
It’s very difficult to win at ROCKET, so I’m sure Evans was the pilot and Ballard was admiring the performance.
Here’s a close match to the program that’s running - it’s not close enough to land with this strategy, but nearly so. It’s converted from this one, which is close to this version on Storer’s site.
SoftRAM95 - that takes me back. Sigh, I miss DDJ and C Users Journal (and the might Byte magazine too).
There was at least one bug in my typed-in Lunar Lander effort. It does land, with the original inputs, but not quite at the same speed. I’ve continued my work over here on stardot.
Thanks @dtmb for the reinvigoration and the link to Ballard and Evans! (Christopher Evans being a crucial historical figure, probably kick-starting the UK microcomputer revolution.)