AGC

Computer designed to assist the Apollo 11 crew in making calculations nessecary to land on the moon in case the connection with earth was lost.

Development of what was to be the first digital computer in space started in April 1961 at MIT.

It consists of 4000 ICs, weights 32 kilogram (70 lbs) and measures 10 x 5 x 2.5 cm (24" x 12.5" x 6"). It works at 2.048 MHz and has 20 instructions with a 16 bit word length (including sign and parity bit) with 36K word ROM and 2K word RAM.

The unit can be controlled by 2 DSKYs.

Power consumption is 70W (28 VDC) at full operation and 15W in stand-by.

75 were produced.

Information is a summary of DDJ History of Computing #6 (February 2001) and various NASA sources.

Genetic code for the amino acid Serine (Ser., S). This amino acid is so massively useful it gets another five codons besides this one: AGT, and anything starting with TC.

AGC is an acroymn for Auto Gain Control. This term was used in old Sound Blaster card series (e.g., SB16) with its mixers.