The sweet spot for home turntable enthusiasts on a budget seems to be the $200 mark. This might be the best of the bunch.
One can only imagine the sake-fueled club hopping that led to the development of the Seiko Frequency drum machine watch.
Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer
By James Grahame
Back in 2004, John Pultorak wrote a guide to recreating the flight computer that guided the Apollo moon landings:
"This report describes my successful project to build a working reproduction of the prototype for the Block I Apollo Guidance Computer. The AGC is the flight computer for the Apollo moon landings, with one unit in the command module and one in the LEM. I built it in my basement. It took me 4 years. If you like, you can build one too. It will take you less time, and yours will be better than mine."
The original AGC was designed by M.I.T. in 1964. It was the world's first microchip computer, with 12K fixed memory (ROM) and 1K RAM. Its clock ran at 1.024 MHz and it incorporated around 5000 ICs.
Pultorak's recreation was built from the original M.I.T. design documents. It includes a mind-numbing 15,000 hand-wrapped connections and 3500 feet of wire, which required 2500 hours of effort to assemble. Best of all, the machine runs vintage NASA flight software. Now if only someone would post plans for a Saturn V rocket...
Apollo Guidance Computer: How to build one in your basement [via Hack a Day]
