Columbia Space Shuttle cockpit: 2 x HP-41C.

[Danito-Danone]

Hello everybody,
Maybe I am wrong but... In the History Channel documentary "Failure is not an Option 2 - Beyond the Moon" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSiOwBx6gLQ) there are two HP-41C during the cockpit testing process (centre of the screen, left: 32 m 58 sec). Isn’t it?
D-D.    

[Richard Garner]

I have read that not all of the software for the shuttle's de-orbit, re-entry and landing had been finished. Those calculation were programed into the HP 41C and run manually for the first half dozen flights. There is an HP 41C on display in the Air & Space Museum in DC that Sally Ride used on her fights. Until the HP 48GX came out the HP 41C was a standard tool on most shuttle missions.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

The HP-41 was used (or at least taken) on several Shuttle missions. A few years ago, I got the Space Shuttle DVD from World Space Flight
News. It has just about every type of shuttle manual including the:

Hewlett-Packard 41 Calculator/Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer Training Manual.

It's a 45 page manual dated November 1985. It covers both
the HP-41 and the Grid Computer. A lot of it covers pretty
basic HP-41 operating procedures.

But there are a few tidbits of interest:

1. HP-41C were used on the early flights. They were retired
to be used as training units once the HP-41CV became available.
What's interesting is that they did not use the HP-41CX,
even though they were using the time module on some programs.

2. The 41C was outfitted with x-functions, two x-memory
and the time module under normal use.

3. Programming is not covered.

4. All of the shuttle flight programs must be run in
the User mode.

5. Programs are loaded from the digitial cassette drive.
Reading in the programs also reassigns the keys,
initializes the variabes and sets the flags.

6. A brief description is given for the six programs:

Center of Gravity
Orbit
Alarm/Hex
Landing
Proximity Operations
Tail

7. Now for the real teaser - They refer you to the
"HP-41 Flight Procedures Handbook" for details
on each program. That handbook is not on the DVD and,
so far, I can find no other reference to it.

8. One very interesting plug in module is the
"HP-41 Tone Amplifer". This would plug in place
of one of the other modules and be used with the
Alarm/Hex program.


That's about it. Sure wish I could find that HP-41
Flight Procedures Handbook.


Bill
Smithville, NJ

[Ángel Martin]

Appreciate your sharing those details, I always wondered how come barely anything was known about what was the actual program contents of those units - not that it was a public domain of course but regardless...

Are there listings of those programs you have details for? It'll be cool to put them into a SHUTTLE ROM as an homage ;-)



PS, BTW those two keyboard-like shapes in the D-D picture don't look like HP-41's to me...

[Dieter]

(07-20-2017 08:41 PM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  PS, BTW those two keyboard-like shapes in the D-D picture don't look like HP-41's to me...

Hmmm... to me this looks like two '41s with attached keyboard overlays. There even is something that resembles the yellow shift key. And there are four keys in the lower rows and more in the upper ones, so all in all... what else should this be?

Dieter

[ggauny@live.fr]

Hi,

Here is some pictures of HP 41 in shutle from HP keynote that I was receiving in
the past years.

I hope it is interesting somebody.

Good day.

[Bill (Smithville NJ)]

(07-20-2017 08:41 PM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  Appreciate your sharing those details, I always wondered how come barely anything was known about what was the actual program contents of those units - not that it was a public domain of course but regardless...

Are there listings of those programs you have details for? It'll be cool to put them into a SHUTTLE ROM as an homage ;-)

A number of years ago, a friend of mine that was doing work for NASA tried to contact some current and retired engineers to see if anyone had kept a copy of the program listings. But he didn't have any luck with his enquiries.

Bill
Smithville, NJ

[Dieter]

(07-21-2017 09:31 AM)ggauny@live.fr Wrote:  Here is some pictures of HP 41 in shutle from HP keynote that I was receiving in the past years.

This seems to be vol. 5 no. 1 (January – April 1981) and vol. 6 no. 2 (March – May 1982).

(07-21-2017 09:31 AM)ggauny@live.fr Wrote:  I hope it is interesting somebody.

It does. There is a sentence that caught my attention:

"The search for a calculator soon narrowed down to two machines, and a "fly-off" was held between the two. The HP-41C was chosen, NASA said, for a variety of reasons, chief of which was the HP-41C's alphanumeric display."

It is also said that "the most important initial factor was large memory". This leads to the obvious question: What might have been that mysterios unnamed "second machine" the 41C was compared with? For me "large memory" and "no alphanumeric display" sound like a TI59.

What do you think ?-)

Dieter

[Didier Lachieze]

It was effectively the TI 59 as described here.

[Dieter]

(07-23-2017 07:00 PM)Didier Lachieze Wrote:  It was effectively the TI 59 as described here.

OK, this was the obvious "other choice". ;-)

But... I cannot access hpinspace.wordpress.com, actually it didn't work for me over the last few days: I wanted to post a link to these pages myself. ;-)

Dieter

[EugeneNine]

site werks for me, it just wants to install flash.