To celebrate the recent 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, you can play a brand new game for the computer that put humans on the Moon, courtesy of programmer David Given. That is, if you can track down a working machine.
As he outlined in a blog post and a video demonstration on Saturday, Given designed a lunar landing game using the same code that enabled the real lunar landings—the software of the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). The code will run on a real AGC, though since the machines are now scarce relics you’re probably better off using an AGC emulator that recreates their inner workings on modern PCs.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
