The Charming Genius of the Apollo Guidance Computer [video]

The part about core rope memory was pretty interesting. Star charts and other bits of data were actually woven into a form of read-only memory via loom:

https://youtu.be/xY45YE7ggng?t=1155

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory

If you like this, you may also like this book that goes into crazy detail about the design and architecture of the AGC:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Apollo-Guidance-Computer-Architect...

See also Fran's pages; she does some reverse engineering with X ray micrographs:

http://www.frantone.com/designwritings/design_writings_LVDC....

Also of interest might be John Pultorak's DIY AGC[1]

[1]: http://www.galaxiki.org/web/main/_blog/all/build-your-own-na...