David A. Moon, Wayland High School, Wayland,
Massachusetts
This is a greatly improved version of the Apollo simulation
game which has been running on almost every timesharing
system in the country. The user is pilot of a lunar module,
which he can steer in two axes. It is free to move up and
down, and parallel to the lunar surface. The user must con-
trol attitude thrusters and the descent engine by typing in
numbers. The program reports time, range to landing site,
attitude, velocity components, fuel reserves, etc. every 5
seconds of simulated time. A small random error is introduced
into these figures to simulate real conditions. After the
module reaches the lunar surface, the program reports on its
condition and makes remarks about the pilot's skill. This
version of Apollo has been found to be considerably more
challenging than the version which permits only vertical
motion, since there are far more variables to control.
| Minimum Hardware: | PDP-8 with Disk (must be able to
run LIBRA)
|
| Other Programs Needed: | FOCAL-69 (DEC-08-AJAE),
LIBRA (DEC-08-AJ5E or DEC-08-
AJ6E)
|
| Storage Requirement: | Two library blocks (1400 words)
|
| Source Language: | FOCAL-69, LIBRA
|
| Catalog:
| July 1973
|