Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Travel To The Moon With Only Your Ears
By bohus
This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the first US landing on the moon. There are lots of ways to study the historic adventure, but one of the most interesting is to experience it all in real-time. Check out wechoosethemoon.org. The site is playing back the audio of the moon mission in its entirety, counting down to the moment of the actual landing 40 years ago. You can follow along with the many accompanying diagrams and animation that illustrate where we are in the mission at any one time.
The audio helps reveal just how complex a mission this was, as well as how professional and surprisingly mundane it all sounds. We've all heard the historic audio from the moment of the landing itself, but now is your chance to hear all the important chatter that led up to that moment. I'll have the website open over the next few days on my computer's desktop so that I can follow along on this historic odyssey. You can even stream the audio alone via a popup player (great while you're doing other things with your computer), Shoutcast, and get updates via Twitter & more.
Feel free to share your thoughts & memories in the comments section of this post, or chat with other Retro Thing readers on our forum.
