[GlenTheMachine]

Yes, given the size, power, and reliability constraints. There were, of course, far more powerful computers around… but not ones you could fit in a spacecraft the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

The Apollo program consumed something like half of the United States’ entire IC fabrication capacity for a few years.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230516-apollo-how-moon-...

[db48x]

The AGC was 2 ft³. I believe the volume was written into the contract for development of the computer, and was simply a verbal guess by the owner of the company during negotiations. On the other hand, they had been designing control systems for aircraft and missiles for over a decade at that point so it was not an entirely uninformed guess.

The amazing thing is that they did manage to make it fit into 2 ft³, even though the integrated circuits it used had not yet been invented when the contract was written.