Monday, September 3, 2012

Apollo Guidance Computer

This is the type of computer that went to the moon in the Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972.

There was one computer in the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) and one the mothership (CM) circling above. It was the first use of integrated circuits [chips]. It's cycle time was 1 Mhz, 11 instructions. It had 1K of 16 bit words of erasable (RAM) core memory and 12K of read-only memory (ROM). The ROM held the "Colossus 249" flight control software. There were no disks or tapes in the flight system.

How to build one in your basement, with many useful references.

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