We have the Story of Mel from the 1960s, but this story of saving Voyager 1 is hard to beat and will hold a special place in programming lore.
Amazing talk. It kind of sounds like they don't have some kind of Voyager computer emulator? I find that hard to believe?
Sounds like they didn't even have perfect records of what software was deployed while they were trying to resuscitate the spacecraft? Because software deployed over the years to the same limited memory overwrote previous versions of software. Eventually they managed to get that memory dump (from a fail-safe and/or plain luck) which probably gave them a clearer picture of what they were dealing with.
They didn't even have perfect records of what hardware was deployed. They had to risk assess what version of the instruction set it was running!
Absolutely and completely fascinating and highly worth a watch. Reminds you how glorious engineering can be.
And there should be an emulation environment for us to try and understand the details. Unlike the moon landing controller it is still alive …
Apparently they don't have a lot of the details either, and may not even be allowed to make some of what they have public? Note the line at the bottom of the presentation: "This document has been reviewed and determined not to contain export controlled CUI."
Also none of the software at least is public domain. It was developed by CalTech and somehow it is insulated from FOIA. (Normally work done by contractors on behalf of a government agency is property of that agency)