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Was 1960s computing good enough?
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A phone today has a million times the power. How could 1969 do it?
The Apollo Guidance Computer ran on a clock of about 2 megahertz with roughly 2,000 words of erasable memory and 36,000 words of fixed memory woven by hand into “core rope.” [1][2] Today’s phones are millions of times faster.
Landing on another world in real time, with no do-overs, sounds like a job for far more computing power. If NASA lacked it, the argument goes, the landings could only have been staged.
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Apollo helped create the microchip industry.
The planar integrated circuit was invented in 1959. Apollo was one of the first big buyers, along with the Minuteman missile, and NASA chose to bet on the new chips in 1962. [1][2][3]
The AGC did not need to run graphics or apps. It integrated accelerometer readings, steered the engines and ran a few dozen programs written in tight assembly code. Its software was designed to drop low-priority jobs when overloaded, which is exactly what it did during the 1202 alarms on Apollo 11. [3][4]
Most of the heavy computing was on the ground. Tracking stations measured the spacecraft’s distance and speed, and IBM mainframes in Houston worked out trajectories and sent the numbers up by radio for the crew to load.
What we can’t tell you. Exact memory figures vary slightly between sources because the design changed between Block I and Block II.
Research / institutional history. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Research / institutional history. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
Primary institutional record. Carried from the first edition and re-listed 23 October 2026; cited for the specific point in the text.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THIS FILE
2 claims people make about this file, each rated documented, partly true, disputed, unproven or false. Think a rating is wrong? Use Dispute or Support, or join the Discussion.
NASA and Minuteman orders were early, big buyers of integrated circuits.
Who says it: Historians.
The guidance computer ran at about 2 MHz and did a narrow job well, backed by ground computers.
Who says it: Hoax videos.
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