Apollo 11 Moon Landing - 50th Anniversary - Computer System Info

[jcgriff2]

I was very young when America landed on the moon in July 1969. I remember vividly watching it on TV while our family was on vacation.

What fascinates me are the two computers the Orbiter and Lunar Landing Module vehicles used.

Two identical computers served Apollo 11 measuring 24 inches by 12.5 inches by 6 inches, weighing 70.1 pounds, and requiring 70 watts at 28 volts DC.

Apollo 11's two systems each had 1 MHz clock speed, four 16-bit registers, 4K RAM (some report only 2k RAM), and 32K ROM.

The coding (likely written in Assembler (??)) was done by MIT.

Apollo 11's Lunar Landing Craft gave off constant "1202" error codes as the vehicle neared the lunar surface/ landing site, translated simply as "the computer is overloaded" forcing the astronauts to fly the vehicle manually.

The Apollo 11 computers were used for "guidance, navigation, and control" - whatever all that encompasses is unknown.

I honestly do not know what, if anything, the average person today could do with a system with such specs (not very much, I suppose!).

 

[A Guy]

The first footsteps on the moon belonged to two men, but they may never have made it there if not for Margaret Hamilton.
The software engineer developed the onboard computer programs that powered NASA's Apollo missions, including the 1969 moon landing.

Her software put men on the moon. Fifty years later, Margaret Hamilton got a glowing moonlit tribute

A Guy

 

[Digerati]

And to think at the time, they felt those computers were extremely powerful. I remember it well. I was 17, living in Tucson and watched it with Walter Cronkite and my "both" my parents. This was a rare event as my dad rarely ever watched TV.

 

[plodr]

I was 21, close to turning 22 and watched with my parents on the only tv in the house, a black and white.
I've watched several programs this past week with archival footage and it is nice to see it in color.

At the Smithsonian, we saw the foil wrapped lunar module and didn't think it was real because it looked so chintzy. Last night they remarked that the module was wrapped in foil that was so thin that when a workman bent over with a screwdriver in his pocket, he ripped the foil. After seeing it up close, I can believe that.