Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Apollo flight computer was the first computer to use silicon IC chips. [15] While the Block I version used 4,100 ICs, each containing a single three-input NOR gate, the later Block II version (used in the crewed flights) used about 2,800 ICs, mostly dual three-input NOR gates and smaller numbers of expanders and sense amplifiers.
Whereas the ICs for the onboard computers of the Apollo spacecraft were designed by Fairchild, most of them were produced by Raytheon and Philco Ford. [ 96 ] [ 67 ] Each of these computers contained about 5,000 standard logic ICs, [ 96 ] and during their manufacture, the price for an IC dropped from US$1,000 to US$20–30.
Moon Machines is a Science Channel HD documentary miniseries consisting of six episodes documenting the engineering challenges of the Apollo program to land men on the Moon. It covers everything from the iconic Saturn V to the Command Module, the Lunar Module, the Space Suits, the Guidance and Control Computer, and the Lunar Rover.
The result was an estimated reliability of 99.6% over 250 hours of operation, which was far more than the few hours required for an Apollo mission. With four memory modules, giving a total capacity of 16,384 words, the computer weighed 72.5 lb (32.9 kg), was 29.5 by 12.5 by 10.5 inches (750 mm × 320 mm × 270 mm) in size and consumed 137W.
Apollo Computer Inc., founded in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems , Apollo was one of the first vendors of graphical workstations in the 1980s.
Apollo Command Module primary guidance system components Apollo Lunar Module primary guidance system components Apollo Inertial Measurement Unit. The Apollo primary guidance, navigation, and control system (PGNCS, pronounced pings) was a self-contained inertial guidance system that allowed Apollo spacecraft to carry out their missions when communications with Earth were interrupted, either as ...
With the availability of reliable low cost ICs in the mid 1960s commercial third generation computers using ICs started to appear. The fourth generation computers began with the shipment of CPS-1 , the first commercial microprocessor microcomputer in 1972 and for the purposes of this list marks the end of the "early" third generation computer era.
By 1963, Apollo was using 60 percent of the United States' production of ICs. The crucial difference between the requirements of Apollo and the missile programs was Apollo's much greater need for reliability.