Henry Gilkens at the TLM 1232 I/O console.

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This is all pretty standard gear except for the white blob on top of the speaker on the shelf next to the sellotape dispenser. I made a 4 inch circular piece of perspex and mounted it on a wire bracket fixed to the two screws on the back of the speaker. On the perspex I stuck a piece of white quartz rock (found outside) with Araldite glue. In front of the rock there was a small engraved label which said ‘Moon Rock’. (Roll your mouse over the image.)

This rock sat there throughout, from A8 till at least the time that I left (1974). I wonder what became of it. It was amazing the number of (gullible) tourists that asked ‘was it real’. A great piece of nostalgia.

The computer room.

Note the CMD mag tape unit’s extended rack partly obscuring the single 1299 switch rack.

Next is the Collins UDB (up-data buffer, serial/parallel converter). It had the capability of being able to switch to either USB sys 1 or 2 PAs under software control from the 642B CMD software.

Next to it is the small DTU (data transmission unit or serial/parallel converter). This shifted the 30 bit computer words (telemety data) out to the COMMS modems in either 6,7 or 8 bit words to MCC-H at 2400 kBps (wow!)

Next is the tall PCS rack (peripheral comms syst). This accepted the parallel binary coded decimal data from the station timing system in USB. Also it controlled the Motorola high speed printers (computer desk and ops console). It also accepted inputs from the CAM keyboard (computer address matrix) on the ops2 console.

Ron Hicks is probably showing Clive Cross how to play music on the 642B control panel.

I don’t know who that is sitting down at the 1232 I/O CMD console. Shame the PA speaker isn’t straight.

(That’s Bryan standing at the 1232 I/O CMD console.)

The 1218 area.

That little circular thing with the handle and clamped onto the 1232 I/O console in the foreground is a winder for the rolls of punched paper tape which was used extensively for the 29-point messages and the track data for the APP in USB (Antenna Position Programmer). Maybe up to 20 or more yards of 5 level TTY punched tape for a 12 hour Alsep track.

Large, Larger (2.6MB).

John Mitchell at SDDS.

John Mitchell at the SDDS equipment doing some ‘patch work’.

Note the symmetry with system 1 & 2 speakers separated by the patch racks.

Note also the stovepipe trousers and the cool suede shoes.

That looks like one of those old fashioned manual word processors on the desk!

See the contrast between the hi-tech and view of trees and bush through the window.

Recorder section.

The bluish chart recorder on the LHS was for biomed EKGs etc. Second rack is the 16 track voice recorder. Loops and nets 1,2 & 3.

Then there are two WB [wideband] and two NB [narrowband] data recorders and associated jack fields.

On the extreme RHS is the is the early config of the slow scan video. Note the rectangular screen shroud.

All the oscilloscopes on trolleys were the same. I think they were Tectronix model 547. The aluminium box underneath housed different plug-in signal amplifiers.

This pic was before the two partitions were removed, sometime post Apollo 8 or Apollo 9. Paddy Shea (the carpenter) arrived one morning in the computer room and calmly said ‘remove all this shit, I'm going to knock down this partition’. We were all aghast. Ron Hicks hot-footed it around to the front office only to have our worst fears confirmed.

The Ops Console.

Honeysuckle as viewed from near the Powerhouse.

The Moon and the Honeysuckle 85' Antenna.

Cherrypicker at the Antenna.