About This Project
This is a digital archive dedicated to the work of Margaret Hamilton — the mathematician, software engineer, and systems thinker who led the development of Apollo’s on-board flight software at MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory.
Why This Archive
Section titled “Why This Archive”Hamilton’s contributions to computing are widely acknowledged but rarely studied in depth. Her published papers, the technical reports from her NASA work, and the AGC source code itself are scattered across government archives, IEEE databases, and hobbyist preservation sites. This archive brings them together in one place, with full provenance tracking and contextual documentation.
What’s Included
Section titled “What’s Included”- Hamilton’s published work — Papers and retrospectives from 1976 through 2019, covering Higher Order Software, the Universal Systems Language, and Development Before the Fact
- Apollo context documents — NASA technical reports, MIT documentation, and post-program analyses that frame Hamilton’s contributions
- Apollo 11 AGC source code — The complete Comanche055 (Command Module) and Luminary099 (Lunar Module) programs, with annotated guides to their most significant routines
- Full provenance chain — Every document tracked from source to extraction, with SHA-256 verification
Attribution
Section titled “Attribution”All NASA documents are in the public domain. Academic papers are cited with full bibliographic information. The Apollo 11 AGC source code was originally transcribed by the Virtual AGC project and is available on GitHub.
This archive was assembled as a research and educational project. It is not affiliated with NASA, MIT, or Hamilton Technologies, Inc.
Hamilton continues her work on the Universal Systems Language through Hamilton Technologies, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. See the Compendium for current contact information.