Apollo Guidance facts
While investigating facts about Apollo Guidance Computer and Apollo Guidance Computer Simulator, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Seamstresses literally wove Apollo's guidance computer's instructions into wire.
how did the apollo guidance computer work?
Margaret Hamilton, the woman responsible for the Apollo guidance source code and probably the mother of modern software.
What did the apollo guidance computer do?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 11 of the best facts about Apollo Guidance Computer Code and Apollo Guidance Computer Schematic I managed to collect.
what was the processing power of the apollo guidance computer?
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The Apollo Guidance Computer calculated using metric (SI) units but displayed the information in Imperial units.
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The Apollo Guidance Computer which took people to the Moon and back again had 36k of storage and 2k of RAM. Its performance is comparable to the first generation of personal computers like the Apple II and the Commodore 64, and unlike a modern smartphone, designed to be crash proof.
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The memory module for the Apollo Guidance Computer was actually 'programmed' by being physically woven together by female factory workers.
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the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions to the Moon had it's own, triple redundant, guidance computer in the third stage, separate from the Apollo Guidance Computer in the Command Module.
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The Apollo Guidance Computer, or AGC, had just 64KB of memory and only 0.043 MHz of processing power.
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The NASA Apollo guidance computer used 'Rope Memory' - actual woven ropes of copper wire bound in ferrite cores - as contemporary computer disks could never survive the radiation of space
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Margaret Hamilton's work in the Apollo Guidance Computer software prevented an abort of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
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The Apollo Guidance Computer that took men to the Moon had only 73KB of memory. For comparison, a 32GB iPhone has more than 2 Million times that memory.
