speed - How do modern smartphones compare to Apollo mission computers?

07
2014-07
  • Justin

    I saw an article some time ago that compared smartphones to the computers that had put mankind on the moon. I can't remember the exact comparison and I can't find an accurate comparison online, as they vary from site to site and essentially just confirm that "yes, smartphones are significantly faster than the Apollo mission computers."

    According to Moore's Law: It's been 45 years since Man on the Moon. 12*45=540 months. 540/18=30. So in theory, processing speed has doubled 30 times since the 1969 moon landing?

    I was just wondering if someone could be more precise. Like, is my iPhone faster than all of the computers used in the Apollo missions (combined)? Or maybe 100 times or 1000 times faster? I would like to directly compare the two if possible.

    • Answers
  • Keltari

    The problem with this question is that it a variable point in time comparison. Although the speed of the Apollo computers is fixed, smartphones change constantly.

    Here is an excerpt from a good article about the Apollo computer speed:

    The IBM PC XT also ran at a dizzying clock speed of 4.077MHz. That's 0.004077 GHz. The Apollo's Guidance Computer was a snail-like 1.024 MHz in comparison, and it's external signaling was half that -- actually measured in Hz (1/1000th of 1 MHz, much as 1 MHz is 1/1000 of 1 GHz).

  • David

    Comparing the speed of computers directly is difficult, but for fun I decided to to compare a roughly standard mobile device to the Apollo Guidance Computer.

    AGC vs. An average new smartphone:
    RAM size: 4KB vs ~4GB = 1,000,000x Larger
    RAM speed: 8MB/s (??) vs. 6400 MB/s ~= 800x faster
    Weight: 70 pounds vs. ~100g ~= 3000x lighter
    Cost: $150,000 vs. $500 ~= 300x cheaper
    Power Reqs: 70W vs 1.3W/core(?) ~= 50x more energy efficient

    I'm not sure I got the RAM size and speed right, as I had to convert them from archaic units of measurement. In addition the other numbers are all very approximate, as they are not fully able to represent the changes in architecture, Instruction set, and general knowledge since the 1960's. I hope this gives you a rough idea of how far we have come.


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  • Daniel A. White

    Here is an answer from serverfault.

    http://serverfault.com/questions/28194/is-there-a-tool-to-compare-values-in-ini-files

  • 8088

    Try IniCompare

    alt text

    Or have a look at this list of Ini editors/compare tools, though a differencing tool would be the easiest probably

  • TFM

    You may use a comparison tool for that, like Winmerge, an open source and free differencing tool for Windows. It shows the two files side-by-side, colormarking the differences.

    Supports Microsoft Windows 98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7.

  • Maksee

    Use file compare command-line utility (in any windows) from the command prompt (enter cmd intor start/run dialog)

    fc inifile1.ini inifile2.ini

    The result will be typed aftewards. If you would like to review the results 

    fc inifile1.ini inifile2.ini > results.txt

    After the latter you will see the report in the file results.txt

  • Szetak

    I found a lovelly windows freeware utility called ExamDiff the other day that will do exactly what you want, is user friendly and free. It will even do directory comparisons if you pay for the 'pro' version.

  • CoreyH

    I've been using Beyond Compare by Scootersoftware for over 10 years now. http://www.scootersoftware.com/