Inside a vintage aerospace navigation computer of uncertain purpose

64 · Ken Shirriff · May 29, 2024, 2:32 p.m.
Summary
I recently obtained an aerospace computer from the early 1970s, apparently part of a navigation system. Aerospace computers are an interesting but mostly neglected area of computer hardware, so I'm always delighted to examine one up close. In an era when most computers were large mainframes, aerospace computers packed dense electronics into a small package, using technologies such as surface-mounted components and multi-layer printed circuit boards, technologies that wouldn't reach the mainstrea...