Comparing Your iPhone to Apollo’s Computers

When JFK launched the moon race, engineers made it happen using slide rules. Computers still used magnetic tape and took up entire rooms. Today we have more computer power in our phones than the Apollo astronauts had at their disposal. But those old computers were better than you might think. From Popular Mechanics.

Yes, the modern smartphone is powerful than the computer used by NASA during the Apollo mission, but that overlooks how impressive the Apollo computers actually were. For starters, there wasn’t just one computer, there were four.

NASA’s computers, specifically the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) were at least ten years ahead of their time from a commercial tech perspective, its strength unmatched until a decade later with the advent of computers like the Apple II. Youtuber Curious Droid works through the misconceptions and gets to how impressive these computers were.

Read more here.