Digitized NASA data tapes

[Anonymous]

Disclaimer: We are not funded and/or endorsed by NASA.
Greetings,

I’m news, your generic young adult, wannabe teenager with NASA tapes.

The usual.

What have we done:

For the past half-year I and my team have been working hard to acquire and digitize NASA computer tapes from the 60’s to 70’s. By now we have been able to pick the fruits of our labor as we have digitized about 6 reels out of 10. We expect to be able to digitize an other one after our drive got upgraded. The tapes so far have been acquired from Ebay.

Here is a photo of one of our tapes from Apollo 16, in its fitting tape drive:

This tape came from General Electric, and is one of our four Switch Action Table tapes. The other Switch Action table tapes came from Skylab. We also got Pioneer 11 tapes, likely with image data. We are still working on decoding the binary data into modern images so you can open it in a modern computer. Any help with this would be great.

The raw binary data is saved in the SIMH .tap format, which is wildly used by museums and computer simulations to mount magtapes. If we know what kind of data it is, we will also convert it to ASCII. Like the Switch Action Table tapes and Pione-QK799H tapes which contained EBCDIC text that we converted to ASCII in a separated file.

What are we working on:
We would love to identify what the Switch Action table tapes were used for at NASA. The tapes were clearly meant for something Saturn-V related as the text file mentions many parts of it. If you know anybody with more info, please ask for their help. They are from early to mid 70’s. See tape photos for more info on the labels.

We don’t know the image format used in the Pioneer 11 tapes (Pione-) and would love to process the raw data into a modern image file so everybody can see them. The Pione tapes came from NASA and the state uni of Arizona. They are from the mid to late 70’s and mention the people “TOMASKO” shows up in the tape header, who turns out to be
Martin G. Tomasko of ASU. And Zellner.

In the tape you’ll see LWSA “Long wavelength small aperture” and LWR –
“Long Wavelength Redundant”

A sample from QK7992H:
“530 Vesta, 12 MIN,SM.AP.,LO-DISP
ZELLNER/MAY 21 1978 3
CCAM 2 IMAGE 1530 PROC VERSN 211
PARAM SET NO 8 4 C
NO LAMP-EXP TIME=719 SECS”

Where can you download the tapes?

You can find the data with photos and tape details here: https://archive.org/details/SpaceData

How can you help:
Help us identify what our tapes were used for, help us decode them into a modern format. If you know the location of tapes or any other medium for that matter, contact me to talk about data and info recovery. I can digitize a vast amount of mediums so do not be afraid to ask me!

So far we are running on Anarchy, everybody just does what they want, nobody is commanding anybody. So far it seems to work out for our small (But growing) team.
Contact: apollo16uvc@gmail.com

[Anonymous]

We have converted all six image files from the Pione-QK7992H tape to PNGs, and have processed multiple versions from them (contrast equalized, inverted, different colour combinations for duo-colour images).

All of the files will be published soon, together with information we could gather about the other six files we don’t know how to process yet. We have asked for help from old Pioneer scientists and employees to process the six remaining files.

All files have their own folder with the PNGs, binary data, metadata and miscellaneous info.

We asked a collector who bought the other 8-something Pione tapes if he wants his tapes digitized for free. But unfortunately he has no interest in preserving his collection for future generations, a shame!

As a preview, here is a GIF of the three B/W images:

And here are three different processings of a duo-colour image, combining the RED and BLUE colour channel in different ways:

[Anonymous]

Hans and Daschmid have been doing some great work on deciphering the Switch Action table tapes. They can be found on the archive.org link.
Here is some information we found recently.

Here are some more educated guesses about the format:

Example of header:
R/L 40M67790-6 E/O 2T-0038 REV AS D/I 11/10/72 ECP 10-3205 E

• The headers at the top of each file imply this is controlled
  engineering data. The strings starting with ’40M’ look like NASA
  part numbers, and the E/O (Engineering Order), REV (Revision) and
  ECP (Engineering Change Proposal) fields are familiar from other
  NASA documents.

Example of other lines:
S 04 11 M DI 0083 SIB THRUST FAILURE IND L DO 0083 ON C H

• Columns 7-12: incrementing ID?
• Columns 13-22: appear to describe the primary hardware operation
  associated with the measurement. There are a few different
  formats, but I think:

      {L,M} DI #### = Get Digital Input ####
      {L,M} DO #### = Set Digital Ouput ####
      D EE #### = Discrete Event Evaluator ####
  

The ‘L’- and’ M’-tags stand for the ‘Launch Control Computer Complex’ and ‘Mobile Launcher’.

• The three character field starting at column 24 is the systems
  area/responsible position for the measurement/command:

      SIC  - Saturn V 1st Stage
      SIB  - Saturn IB
      SII  - Saturn V 2nd Stage
      IVB  - Saturn V 3rd Stage
      IU   - Saturn Instrumentation Unit
      INT  - Integration
      EDS  - Emergency Detection System
      LSE  - Launch Support Equipment
      NAV  - Navigation
      PL   - Propellant Loading
      PWR  - Power
      OAT  - Overall Acceptance Test?
      EDV  - ?
  

• Colums 28-52: Measurement Nomenclature
• Colums 54-67: (sometimes) hardware operation to execute command
  e.g, if “SIC TERM COUNTDOWN SEQ RESET L DO 0131 ON”
  writing “ON” to Digital Output #131 would execute
  “TERM COUNTDOWN SEQ RESET”

I think this is a reasonable guess at the formatting.

Lets look at some tapes from Apollo 16 and Skylab 2:

Looking at the headers from each:

Tape 2909, Block 3:
R/L 40M17360-11 E/O 8S-0405 REV D D/I 06/15/71 ECP 10-3148 E 511 BASELINE

Tape 1179, Block 12:
R/L 40M17360-11 E/O 8S-0413 REV M D/I 10/28/71 ECP 10-3206 E 511 FRT-1

‘511’ is AS-511, the launch vehicle for Apollo 16. ‘FRT’ is ‘Flight Readiness Test’.

Detailed info on AS-511: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730025090.pdf

There’s a table of prelaunch milestones on page 3-2 (46). AS-511 had its Flight Readiness Test on 3/7/1972 and was launched 4/16/1972. Considering the long lead times for checkout and configuring hardware (AS-511’s S-IVB arrived at the Cape in July 1970), the dates on the tape seem reasonable. Note also that Tape 2909 has headers for revisions ‘A’-‘D’ and 1179 has revisions ‘E’-‘M’

Tape 2090, Block 0:
R/L 40M67790-6 E/O 2T-000000 REV D/I ECP 10-
Block 2 ends with:
40M67790-6 206 BASELINE

Tape 1820, Block 54:
R/L 40M67790-6 E/O 2T-0038 REV AS D/I 11/10/72 ECP 10-3205 E
Block 56 ends with:
40M67790-6 206 BASELINE

Here ‘206’ is SA-206, the launch vehicle for Skylab 2.

SA-206 flight manual: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740021163.pdf
SA-206 postlaunch evaluation: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730025087.pdf

Again the dates line up(With our tapes)

In the SA-206 postlaunch evaluation there’s some discussion of an anomaly at launch, where the ground Digital Events Evaluator (DEE-6), recorded a momentary “thrust failure indication and cutoff start indication”. These two discretes are present on the tape, although unfortunately the evaluation doesn’t say which discretes they were:

D D EE 0083 SIB THRUST FAILURE IND
D D EE 0085 SIB CUTOFF START IND

I doubt now that this file was associated with the LVOS. Based on IBM’s paper describing the system, it appears that it was first used on ASTP and wouldn’t have been in use at the time the tapes were created:

Click to access 19750051202.pdf

Very detailed information about the RCA-110A’s and their interfacing equipment: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19690001882.pdf

The ‘L’ and ‘M’ tags in the file are ‘Launch Control Computer Complex’ and ‘Mobile Launcher’. So:

S 04 11 M DI 0083 SIB THRUST FAILURE IND L DO 0083 ON C H

Defines Switch Action #0411:
Mobile Launcher Digital Input #0083
name=SIB THRUST FAILURE IND
on receipt: SET LCC Digital Output #0083 to ON

There’s a matching entry for L DO 0083:

S 04 11 L DO 0083 SIB THRUST FAILURE IND NONE C H

Which would correspond to a light or other indicator on a Firing Room Console.

There’s also a DEE entry, which I’m guessing tells the Digital Event Evaluator to log changes associated with that Digital Out:

D D EE 0083 SIB THRUST FAILURE IND

Check out these two extremely detailed docs:

Saturn Launch Computer Complex Programmer’s Manual: http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/SLCC_Programmers_Reference_Manual.pdf

AS-503 Verification Test Programs, 73V1201: http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/AS-503VerificationProcedures.pdf

You won’t find a definition of the the actual Switch Action Table tape format, but the tape is clearly describing the configuration information for the SLCC system.

On page 3-9/3-10 (56 in the PDF) of the programmer’s manual, it mentions the “Discrete Executive”:
“The Discrete Executive initiates logging at both computers. There are a number of different types of discrete tables each containing specific data. These tables are:
* LDO and MDO Profile table
* LCCC and MLC Discrete Status tables for IODC’s 5 and 7
* General Discrete Log table (LDI, LDO, and MDI Changes)
* MDO Issue table”

Section 4.1.1 on 4-3 (p.66) describes “Launch Vehicle Input/Output, Discrete Input/Output” and give details on LDI/LDO’s and MDI’s/MDO’s, which as suspected are LCCC/MLP Digital Input/Outputs.

73V1201 contains the test procedures for verifying the LCC computer software and interface to the launch vehicle are operating correctly. There’s a lot of interesting details here, but first check out “Discrete Initialization and Modification (NT98/NT99)” (p.24). Section 5.2.2 (p.27) says:
“5.2.2 Place cards in the card reader to perform the following action table modification:
MDI 0010 0N – LDO 1200 issued ON
MDI 1200 0N – LDO 0010 issued 0N
LDI 0033 0N – MDO 0619 issued 0N
LDI 0619 0N – MDO 0033 issued ON”

That sounds an awful lot like our tapes. My guess is they’re the input data for the NT98 Discrete Initialization Program, which unfortunately isn’t described in detail. If anyone can locate the following documents, I bet we’d find what we need there:

Specification for the Operating System for the Saturn V Launch Computer Complex, Volume 1, Revision 1.
MSFC No. III-4-440-4

Operator Reference Manual for SLCC Progranrning System,
MSFC No. lII-4-440-5, IBM No. 68-F11-0003, dated 15 June 1968.

User Instructions for Saturn V Launch Computer Complex Operating System and Test Programs
MSFC No. III-4-462-1

There are numerous references to specific LDI/LDO/MDI/MDO numbers in the test procedures and while all of them don’t match up with the data in the file, many do. On page 39 while testing the $DMON display monitor program, LDI0346 and MDI0459 are associated with the “ground camera arm switch” on the vehicle camera networks panel. Sure enough:

S 15 10 L DI 0346 INT GND CAMERAS ARM COMD M DO 0346 ON C B
S 15 10 M DO 0346 INT GND CAMERAS ARM COMD NONE C B
S 20 03 M DI 0459 INT GND CAMERA ARMED L DO 0459 ON C B

Another interesting example is the Launch Vehicle Data Adapter communication interfaces. See the “LVDA STATUS CODE CONVERSION CHART” on p.146. The LVDA sends back binary words on MDI0733-MDI0738:

S 31 13 M DI 0733 IU MODE CODE 1 IND L DO 0733 ON C G
S 31 14 M DI 0734 IU MODE CODE 2 IND L DO 0734 ON C G
S 31 15 M DI 0735 IU MODE CODE 3 IND L DO 0735 ON C G
S 31 16 M DI 0736 IU MODE CODE 4 IND L DO 0736 ON C G
S 31 17 M DI 0737 IU MODE CODE 5 IND L DO 0737 ON C G
S 31 18 M DI 0738 IU MODE CODE 6 IND L DO 0738 ON C G

For example, if MDI0736 and MDI0734 are ON that indicates “PREPARE TO LAUNCH WITH A PLATFORM”

My current thinking is that the tapes are describing the discrete I/O configuration of the two RCA-110A computers used to interface between the Launch Control Center and the Mobile Launcher. Switches and indicators on consoles in the Firing Room were wired into an RCA-110A computer (The “Saturn Launch Control Computer Complex”), and from there commands could be sent across a serial link to another RCA-110A in the Mobile Launcher. The Mobile Launcher computer communicated with relay racks and other equipment on the pad and LV, including the Saturn LVDC.

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