1201 Alarm Press
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Adult AD/HD: Hitting the Target, Not the Alarm
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1201 Alarm History
On July 20, 1969, as the Apollo 11 lunar module (the first
manned lunar landing) was descending, the computerized guidance system began repeatedly reporting a “1201 alarm.”
The computer¹s most vital function during this critical phase of the mission, determining the altitude and position of the craft, suffered a serious disruption. Because of a mistake in the astronauts' checklist, equipment was continuously operating when it should have been inactive, consuming too much of the computer’s processing capacity.
This mistake created delays in some guidance calculations while leaving others unfinished. Had the 1201 alarm—a warning that the computer’s calculations were off and could not be trusted—not gone off, the lunar module likely would have crash-landed in a field of boulders, and astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong would have perished.
1201 Alarm Press views this near-catastrophic event as analogous to the human condition called Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), in which the brain is misprocessing information and causing problematic behavior, but often so subtly that it appears to be functioning normally.
As with the Apollo 11’s computer misprocessing, AD/HD is not so damaging as to prevent superficially normal operation. Yet the misprocessing is significant enough to create many serious effects that can eventually destroy both body and spirit.
Because the magnitude of AD/HD's effects is often underappreciated by the general public as well as many healthcare professionals, we established 1201 Alarm Press in 2008 with the mission of educating the public about this common and highly genetic condition.
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San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California