posted 04-15-2020 10:22 AM
   
This is a more specific thread to an older one of mine, which talked about data recovery of these tapes and others.A quick rundown: I bought several NASA mainframe computers reels on eBay about two years ago and send them to somebody in America who runs a data recovery company on these kind of antique mediums. The collection consisted of two sets: Pioneer tapes from the state university of Arizona with mostly imagery data. The other set were computer tapes with Apollo and Skylab launch vehicle IDs and matching dates. The data recovery on the Switch Action Table tapes and Pioneer 10/11 tapes has concluded with a success. Switch Action Table tape 1179 mounted in tape streamer.  Pioneer imagery data from the Pioneer tapes was converted to PNGs for easy viewing on modern computers, metadata was saved in modern text files. Switch Action Table data was all IBM EBDIC, basically IBM's version of text data. The data was converted to ASCII so it can be easily read with modern computer systems. Switch Action Table tape 1179, Apollo 16 launch vehicle ID, front:  Unfortunately we have not yet been able to identify the origin of these tapes, their data, and what they were finally used for in the program. These tapes originated from Generic Electric, Space Divison, Apollo and Ground systems. They were send to NASA's Marshal Space Flight Center. They date from the 70's. On the tapes are written launch vehicle IDs that match Apollo 16 and Skylab missions. Here are some samples of the text found on 1179. Header appears to be on block 0 to 12: - Block 10:
R/L 40M17360-11 E/O 8S-0412 REV L D/I 10/27/71 ECP 10-3216 E - Block 12:
R/L 40M17360-11 E/O 8S-0413 REV M D/I 10/28/71 ECP 10-3206 E 511 FRT-1 - Block 6954:
S 73 00 L DO 1728 IVB COLD HE XOVER VLV CLOSED NONE C J - Block 6955:
S 73 01 L DO 1729 IVB COLD HE XOVER VLV OPEN NONE C J - Block 6957:
S 73 02 L DO 1730 IVB LOX TANK PRESSURIZED NONE C J - Block 11407:
S 53 07 M DI 2767 IVB STATUS SAFE AND ARM SAFE NONE R J - Block 11408:
S 53 08 M DI 2768 IVB EBW NO 1 PWR ON NONE R J - Block 11410:
S 53 09 M DI 2769 IVB EBW NO 2 PWR ON NONE R J - Block 11411:
S 53 10 M DI 2770 IVB RSCR NO 1 PWR ON NONE R J - Block 11412:
S 53 11 M DI 2771 IVB RSCR NO 2 PWR ON NONE R J - Block 20981:
D D EE 4296 INT SPARE - Block 20982:
D D EE 4297 INT LEFT HOOK OPEN NO. 2 - Block 20984:
D D EE 4298 INT RIGHT HOOK OPEN NO. 2 - Block 20985:
D D EE 4299 EDS PAD ABORT REQUEST A OR B - Block 20987:
D D EE 4300 EDS PAD ABORT REQUEST A OR B
There are also IDs in the data such as LM, CMD, CM, guidance, etcetera.The complete dataset recovered from these tapes can be found at my archive.org archive. At: Download Options -> ZIP V -> SwitchActionTP####.zip I plan to donate one tape to an observatory for their Apollo display, and tell the story behind the tape. But we need to know what these tapes were used for... If anybody could shed light on these interesting artefacts that would be grand. If you know anybody who could help with this, feel free to share my mail. | 
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