Consider your thoughts when downloading a ‘gadget’ for use with your computer. I see 200k and think to myself, “Huh! that can’t be capable of doing much.”
In 1969 computers had been around for twenty to thirty years. It was anticipated that they would take a massive part in the future of the World and so they have, haven’t they?
The computer aboard the LEM that left orbit around the moon to land on the surface had a computer that was relied upon to manage all aspects of the decent profile, thrust management and landing calculations. It used 40,000 lines of code and 160K of memory. Quite an achievement don’t you think?
I wonder how much space that computer system took up and what equivalent power could now be packed into the same space?
Aug 24, 2009
I think the specifications for that computer were to fit within exacly one cubic foot. The resulting cube is on display in the Computer Science department at Stanford University. To make the whole thing fit within that little space they had to take some risks and use a relatively recent technology known as transistors. Indeed a very humbling fact for all computer programmers.
Aug 24, 2009
I am surprised, I thought it would have taken much more space and that they wouldn’t have taken any risks with newer technology. I guess things were moving so fast at that stage that they needed to go with it. The weight versus power benefits couldn’t be ignored.
Still a stupefying achievement for that point in history measured against where we are now.
I gather the Shuttle has absorbed all the 8086 processors on the planet as they froze the design and will not change it. Something to do with knowing the system and being able to faulyt find it rapidly is they get a snag. I might be wrong with the detail…
Thanks for that Julien.