DSKY Rules
“A magnificent piece of computing history brought to life on the iPad. Is the DSKY the many times removed ancestor of the iPad?” by Awsquared
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Dsky simulates the look and feel of the original Apollo DSKY keyboard and user interface used by the Apollo astronauts to navigate to the moon and back in the 1960’s and 70’s. Dsky is a photo-realistic simulation, based on actual photographs of original Apollo DSKY hardware, realistically animated for the iPad to be as close as possible to the real thing.
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) and DSKY user interface were installed in every Apollo Command Module (CM) and Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) that flew in the Apollo program. They were used to navigate and control the spacecraft in all phases of flight. The AGC and DSKY were designed and programmed by MIT for NASA, and although they were among the most advanced electronics of their time, the DSKY user interface was necessarily limited and simple. Now you can use this exact same interface to do your own navigation! Its harder than using a Tom-Tom, but you know, this actually is rocket science. And its free!
Although you can’t use Dsky to maneouvre your LEM or land on the moon, you can use it for some real-world down-to-earth applications:
- -Current GPS Latitude, Longitude and Altitude
- -Current attitude using the iPad acccelerometers.
- -Distance-to-go, time and velocity, using the iPad internal GPS.
A subset of the original DSKY verbs and nouns is faithfully implemented, allowing you to program and use the Dsky just like the Apollo astronauts did.
Unlike the original DSKY, you can configure Dsky to use your own choice of units: Meters, Nautical Miles or Statute Miles. See the iPad Settings page.
A comprehensive help page and usage instructions is included (look for the little ‘i’ at the bottom right of Dsky).
Available free on the iPhone App Store
Questions, feedback, bug reports to dsky@AirSpayce.com
