Rebuilding Apollo's Control Panel on a Raspberry Pi: Michael Newton's DSKY Project, Explained
Historic flight hardware usually survives only behind museum glass. In Calgary, Alberta, commercial aircraft avionics engineer Michael Newton takes a different route: outside working hours he reconstructs aerospace hardware from past decades using present-day tools, and his open source project Recreate Apollo puts the actual astronaut interface — not just a picture of it — back under a user's fingers.
The computer that flew to the Moon
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was introduced by the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966, three years before Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon. Each Apollo Command Module and Lunar Module carried one aboard. Its capability matched an Apple II class machine, with less than 100kB of memory and a clock speed of 1.024MHz. Michael Newton's emphasis, however, is on what that machine made possible: navigation routines, autopilot manoeuvres, burns, orbital rendezvous and Earth entry, all executed by astronauts from their spacecraft. It was also the first computer to be based on silicon integrated circuits.
What the Recreate Apollo build consists of
A Raspberry Pi computer running the Virtual AGC emulator powers a 1:1 scale, 3D-printed DSKY — the Display and Keyboard used by Apollo astronauts — and because the build specifically runs the Apollo 13 Command Module software, it becomes a hands-on piece of computing and space history. That the project landed in the same window as a Raspberry Pi Official Magazine issue devoted to weather-monitoring projects says something about how magnetic space-themed work remains.
The enclosure tracks the original so closely that the panel reads as spacecraft hardware rather than a workshop print.
From archived engineering documents to a printable file set
“My interest in the project began many years ago when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of Apollo enthusiasts began translating the original MIT Instrumentation Lab engineering documents into modern-day CAD files with the eventual goal of 3D printing,” Michael recalls. Those documents became available after a public records request and were archived by the Virtual AGC group.
This DSKY is a prototype for an improved version, and every printed part is modelled on archived NASA drawings.
He adds, “I lost touch with most of their progress as life carried on, but about a year ago I came across another maker named Eric who runs a blog called mkme.org and I saw that he had created a DSKY based off of the now nearly-completed drawings uploaded on GitHub. Unsure where he sourced his files, I went on the hunt for them myself. I found many in different GitHub repos or other open-source projects, but other parts needed some work to refine and some others still I had to model on my own. After a few weeks of work, I had a full set of .stp files ready to print that I was satisfied with. I purchased a 3D printer and began learning that world.”
Three jobs, handled in strict sequence
Teaching himself as he went, Michael separated the work into three main tasks:
- Case — print it, finish it, paint it.
- Hardware — organise and wire the electronics.
- Software — write the code and the supporting software.
“I tackled each part of the project over a few months, in that order, taking my time and learning as I went along,” he explains, and continues: “But one of my biggest goals for this project was documentation. I wanted anyone who is interested to be able to build one of these, even those with no prior knowledge. My guide, available on GitHub, is the fruit of those labours.”
The CAD models, the schematics and a 100-page build guide are all free to use and view on GitHub.
How far the fidelity goes
Affection for the Apollo mission and for the AGC set the target of maximum authenticity. “Physically, the DSKY is about 90% authentic,” Michael states, and “From the outside, I strived for a perfect visual representation and I’m satisfied where it’s at.” Within the case, the mounting points for the microcontrollers and the Raspberry Pi computer required adjustment.
“I also needed to get a bit creative with the screen mounting, since the PCB that the screen mounts on is physically larger than the part designed to hold the original,” he notes, adding, “I modelled a clip-style holder for the screen and made a few minuscule adjustments to get the fit down perfect. The keycaps were also made a bit differently than the originals, since the lettering was too small for me to print with great definition. Even though the font matches the historical one (yes, someone recreated the font!), the words are just a bit larger.”
Why the Raspberry Pi was the natural host
“It is nearly purpose-built for this project,” Michael says of the board, and “It integrates through microcontrollers via USB, it doesn’t need a lot of power, it has wireless LAN built in for SSH and remote applications, and it also runs cool. Raspberry Pi OS is very easy to install, too, and you can create a custom distribution to send an entire OS instance to other users, which makes that section of the build easy to copy.”
The emulation goes deeper than appearance
More important than the fit, the Raspberry Pi easily runs yaAGC, the VirtualAGC computer program that replicates every characteristic of the real AGC. “This includes the unique asynchronous timing (interrupt) that saved Apollo 11 (1201/1202 alarm codes), the 15-bit-plus-one-parity word length, and the archaically slow 1.024MHz clock speed,” he says.
The original Apollo Guidance Computer shown with its DSKY, as flown on Apollo spacecraft.
Source: Wikipedia
The AGC handled data in a way that is fundamentally different from modern engineering: the individual 1s and 0s are arranged as a 15-bit data block with a single parity bit used for error checking. Michael describes the emulation as extremely difficult to achieve, yet the programmers reproduced the AGC's logic and its timing exactly.
| AGC characteristic | How the rebuild treats it |
|---|---|
| Word format | 15-bit data block plus one parity bit for error checking |
| Clock speed | 1.024MHz, kept at its archaically slow original value |
| Interrupt behaviour | Asynchronous timing preserved, including the behaviour credited with saving Apollo 11 (1201/1202 alarm codes) |
| Memory contents | Virtualisation of the code that was woven into core rope ROM and magnetised in the RAM |
Michael explains, “Fundamentally, the exact same constraints are preserved in this emulation because the timing of the AGC is kept intact and the memory that the computer reads is virtualisation of the real code that was woven into core rope ROM and magnetised in the RAM,” and adds, “In fact, it emulates the real computer so well that, to me, VirtualAGC is not an emulator. It’s a real Apollo Guidance Computer that borrows your processor.”
Keys, a networked peripheral mode, and a heavier successor
The finished result is an amazing, fully usable device operated through a keypad. For that interface Michael selected off-the-shelf mechanical keys offering the highest actuation force and the most solid ‘click’ he could find. “I settled on Kailh Box Navy,” he says, and “They feel and sound OK, and they are easy to get, but they are far from the real keypad.”
Long-pressing one key switches the panel into a ‘peripheral’ mode, so the DSKY can serve over a local network with Project Apollo – NASSP, an add-on released on the PC for the Orbiter space flight simulator, which simulates all of the Apollo missions.
Michael is now working toward a much more premium DSKY with a full aluminium body, better annunciators and maybe a real electroluminescent display, which, he says, would incorporate a better keypad.
The engineering lesson underneath the build
Beyond the object itself, the Recreate Apollo project has let Michael and others learn much more about the AGC, and the ingenuity of those behind the original computer is unmistakable. “The memory alone was an ingenious design of magnetism and did you know that the Apollo Guidance Computer used only ONE type of logic gate: the 3-input NOR? All the mathematics, data movement, navigation, autopiloting, burns – everything, was just voltage levels going through 3-input-NORs, and the occasional diode arrangement. Truly incredible minds were necessary to design that kind of thing.”
For anyone tracking how legacy systems are kept alive, the value here is procedural rather than sentimental: archived drawings, open source CAD files, an accurate emulator and a documented guide turned a mission-critical 1960s interface into something a hobbyist can build, operate and extend.