Today is the 40th anniversary of the MOON LANDING as I’m sure you all know. I was interested to hear on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning, about the lack of technology for some really key elements of the trip - not least navigation. Although MIT had produced the Apollo Guidance and Navigation System , the crew had to use an old fashioned sextant for fine tuning their exact position. But hardly surprising when you consider:
” … that the computer, designed by MIT and built by Raytheon, had less memory (74 kilobytes of ROM, and 4 kb of RAM) than today’s low-end cell phones, and that its software was literally hard-wired, so that any changes required starting over with the manufacture of a whole new “rope memory.” Built at a time when most computers filled large air-conditioned rooms, the one-cubic-foot Apollo Guidance Computer was a unique device that foreshadowed the advent of personal computers.” (MIT)
The Apollo guidance computer with the display keyboard. Photo courtesy / Richard H. Battin
To put this into the educational context of the UK you might want to take a look at the National Archive of Educational Computing, which documents the development of learning technology through its invention, application, organisations and people over the last half century. The archive and its web site is maintained by Richard Millwood of Core Education UK
Tags: Innovation1 Comment
Good post Sarah - it’s amazing to think about when we look back at how much has advanced in those 40 years! Incredible to think that my very first computer (Commodore64) had only about the same computing power as the guidance system on this initial venture.