
Computer control of a machine for exploring Mars (1964) [pdf] - abrax3141
https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:th919jh6519/sc0524_1995-247_b27_f33.pdf
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ape4
Is there a program that can take a LaTeX file and create a PDF that looks like
a scanned type-written paper from 1964 ;)

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emj
The Automated Biological Laboratory
[https://archive.org/stream/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19660027176/#pa...](https://archive.org/stream/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19660027176/#page/n343)

In OPs link there is a committee that says "No pics from mars, it's too hard
to do", and then there is John talking about it like it's obvious pictures
needs to be taken..

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drzaiusapelord
Viking 1 landed on Mars only 12 years later. Interesting that a paper about
exploring the possibility of a computerized machine on Mars is written a scant
12 years before an actual landing of a fairly complex lander. Life between,
say, 1960 and 1980 must have felt at a breakneck pace.

Viking 1 lander's abilities:

[https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/viking1landata.html](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/viking1landata.html)

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ballooney
Others might also find this History of Lisp at JPL (used on both spacecraft
and rovers) interesting:

[http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html](http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-
lisp.html)

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abrax3141
Father of Lisp was also Grandfather of the Mars Rovers!

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jacobush
And the name of the proposed rover was "Beagle"!

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_joel
Unfortunate name for a Mars rover, in the passage of time at least

~~~
jacobush
Made me wonder if Beagle 2 was in fact inspired by that robotic thing from
1964...

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Steve44
I saw a TV programme about this last week, it was named after Charles Darwin’s
ship - H.M.S. Beagle.

A bit of interesting reading here
[http://www.beagle2.com/author/beagle2/](http://www.beagle2.com/author/beagle2/)

~~~
jacobush
Yes, I know, but I mean maybe there was a hidden meaning to it.

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kazinator
I'm surprised he recommended a time interrupt of around 1000 Hz, for a machine
with microsecond memory cycle times.

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unixhero
It's got some Carl Sagan in it. Very good find.

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phil9987
Great vision from a great man.

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abrax3141
Hey, HN Admins, is it really necessary to micro-manage the titles?! I had “by
John McCarthy” (which is highly relevant, and in the next line in the doc)!
It’s just a bit prissy to have to have the titles your favorite way all the
time. Please stop it, and if you need to micromanage peoples posts, you should
be working for Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah, I know ... OFF TOPIC!

~~~
dang
I know it feels like prissy micromanaging when your title is changed, but what
you're really asking here is for us not to do our job. Having titles be
neutral and (to use pg's original word) bookish is one of HN's key features
and a far bigger deal than it might seem. If we didn't maintain that, HN would
go to seed.

There are important principles behind everything we do with titles. In this
case the principle is that HN works better when the emphasis is on content
over personalities, so we edit out most author names and/or celebrity names in
titles. This has been consistent for a long time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7518157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7518157)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668408)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7950730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7950730)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671822)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9919304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9919304)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12573986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12573986)

~~~
abrax3141
Yes, fine, but most of the point of this particular post was that it was John
McCarthy, who is the father of Lisp. Otherwise, as someone said, it's just old
flaming about mars landers. Moreover, if you take all personality out of
science, you're doing science a disservice.

