Apollo Guidance Computer, Block I
The "Block I" Apollo Guidance Computer represented the initial design by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory to meet NASA specifications for on-board Guidance, Navigation, and Control needed for a Lunar Mission. It was replaced by a more advanced design, called "Block II," as the Apollo program matured. Block I computers were flown on three unmanned Apollo tests between August 1966 and April 1968.
This computer is an unflown, fully functional unit. It was built by the Raytheon Corporation, and used about 4,000 Integrated Circuits supplied mainly by the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation.
Early in the Apollo Program, NASA decided that the spacecraft would need some on-board computer system to perform Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) functions, to complement the elaborate Mission Control facility based on the ground. The MIT Instrumentation Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts (later renamed the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory) drew on its experience in designing a computer for the Polaris Missile, and on a study it did for an unmanned mission to Mars, to propose an all-digital design. (Most missile guidance and aircraft control computers of that time were analog.) NASA selected the Lab's proposal, and in August 1961, development of a system to meet those requirements began.
Mission requirements evolved as these computers were being built, especially after 1963 when plans for the Lunar Module first took form. NASA specified that the Command and Lunar modules use the same hardware, but the missions of each, and their computing needs, differed so much that the initial design was deemed unsatisfactory. The result was the designation of "Block I" to the computers of the original design, and "Block II" to the later design that was installed on the Command and Lunar Modules that carried human beings. The Block I design nevertheless embodied a number of advances in computing technology, which later became commonplace for space and aircraft computers. These include a compact, rugged packaging scheme, an all-digital design, the control of a craft by a digital computer in real time, the use of a digital display and keyboard (DSKY), and the use of Integrated Circuits. When production of Block I computers began in 1963-64, they consumed a considerable fraction of all the integrated circuits then in existence in the world. Raytheon built about 12 of these computers, at least three of which flew on test flights.
Block I computers played a transitional role in Apollo, and as such are of secondary importance to their successors that were used in manned missions. Nevertheless, Block I computers incorporated most of the dramatic technical breakthroughs in digital technology that one identifies with Apollo. They occupy a special place in history as one of the first places where the now-common silicon "chip" was first used.
Mac computers did not come along until the late 80's. Now if you want to split hairs and say they used the same programming language then that would not work either. Now if you want to say that the firmware was the same, that don't work either.
But if you want to say that the MAC had the same computing power as the Apollo computer then that would be wrong too. The first PC ever made had more computing power in it than the computers on the Apollo missions.
So I'll take the bet. MAC's had nothing to do with NASA and the Apollo mission.....
