I don’t have to tell you that today, the desktop computer is almost as commonplace as a toaster over. But few of us, especially the younger generation take the time to reflect on just how far this technology has evolved in just a few short years.
It’s a startling comparison to look at today’s $499 entry level system visa vie the IBM 360 used by NASA for the Apollo moon mission.
Five of these monsters were needed: one for flight control; another as a backup; and the other three, backups to the backup. Each cost approximately one MILLION dollars. And that wasn’t enough! All of the five had to be upgraded with a freezer sized box providing a measly 1 megabyte of storage. Today’s desktop model can hold about 6,500 of those freezers. The IBM 360s handled at the time, an astonishing half million instructions per second. Today’s desktop model works at least 40 times faster.
NASA also needed to communicate to the spacecraft and…
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