Suggested title: "The remarkable capabilities of the Apollo computer"
The computer history is very interesting, but the title is clickbait. It acknowledges that the smart toaster is computationally far more capable, and unconvincingly tries to justify the title by arguing that the moon landing is more important than toast, which I doubt anyone's ever disputed.
Agree, but the issue is with the article, not the title (which is directly from the source). The article even leaves off with:
> The lesson, maybe, is simple: If your phone is so much more powerful than the computers that put humanity on the moon, then why are you just staring at Instagram all day?
He could say the given the limitations on the hardware, that writing the software was something that required a level of technical prowess hardly found in your smartwatch. If we define brilliance as the ability to make every cycle count, every memory location count.
Then, I'd agree, that indeed it was an art form.
But given the same engineers, with the amount of processing power of a budget scientific calculator today, they would achieve the same results, with faster processing speed, more redundancy, an infinitely better user interface, more safety and in less time with less people.
I'm reasonably sure that given access to the doorbells processor, you could, in fact, guide a spaceship to the moon.
I mean, the killer advantage that the Apollo computer had in getting to the moon was the giant rocket atop which it sat, but if you're talking functionally (as in, correct outputs for a given set of inputs), I've no doubt that pretty much any computing device could easily run the necessary software.
I believe it could be theoretically done, but I doubt it would be economically viable. Consumer grade electronics is produced with much lower quality standards and designed for much lower physical endurance than aerospace or military electronics. So while they may come with plenty of compute power, they may not withstand harsh conditions in space and you possibly don't want to risk losing a multi-million dollar rocket due to a fault in a $2 doorbell controller.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 49.6 ms ] threadThe computer history is very interesting, but the title is clickbait. It acknowledges that the smart toaster is computationally far more capable, and unconvincingly tries to justify the title by arguing that the moon landing is more important than toast, which I doubt anyone's ever disputed.
> The lesson, maybe, is simple: If your phone is so much more powerful than the computers that put humanity on the moon, then why are you just staring at Instagram all day?
It's a pretty miserly take overall.
But toaster has no hands. No money to buy a candle. No access to Apollo computer.
And the author somehow thinks it’s the toaster’s fault that it fails.
Technology Connections produced a fantastic teardown video of it a while back. https://youtu.be/1OfxlSG6q5Y
https://philip.greenspun.com/humor/eecs-difference-explained
The tiny processor that runs the bluetooth radio in your phone is more powerful than the Apollo Computer.
The Cortex m0 used in many USB-C PD compliant wall chargers is more powerful than the Apollo Computer.
It's what you use it for that matters.
I wish some wealthy eccentric would fund this competition.
I mean, the killer advantage that the Apollo computer had in getting to the moon was the giant rocket atop which it sat, but if you're talking functionally (as in, correct outputs for a given set of inputs), I've no doubt that pretty much any computing device could easily run the necessary software.
All radios, processors and sensors must come from consumer IoT devices and be worth no more than a total of $x
(I should have clarified earlier, I think it should be a completely fun challenge for the maker community)
1. Apollo computer
2. Smart toaster
3. Contrarian writer producing nothing but complaints about people building better lives.