iPhone vs Apollo Flight Computer

[lz2112]

Saw this little tidbit that kinda makes you think.

# of transistors - iPhone has 130,000 times more than Apollo
clock frequency - iPhone is 32,600 times faster than Apollo
instructions per second - iPhone is 80,800,000 times faster than Apollo
overall performance - iPhone is 120,000,000 times faster than Apollo

or 1 iPhone 6 could theoretically guide 120 million Apollo rockets at the same time


And how those numbers were arrived at:

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a built of 4100 ICs, each of which was a a 3 input RTL NOR gete for a total of approx 12,300 transistors. It ran at 43 KHz and could complete an instruction in 24 ms. for a total performance of about 41.6 Instructions per Second.

The iPhone 6 uses an Apple designed 64 bit Cortex A8 ARM architecture composed of approximately 1.6 billion transistors. It operates at 1.4 GHZ and can process instructions at a rate of approximately 1.2 instructions every cycle in each of its 2 cores. This results in an instruction processing performance rate of approximately 1.4b * 1.2 * 2 = 3.36 billion Instructions per Second. When comparing this to the Apollo computer, there is additional power consideration due to the fact that the A8 is a 64 bit processor and the AGC is 16 bit. This does not mean that it has an additional factor of 4 in performance, however, when 64 bit calculations are required, the A8 can complete these as 1 instruction and the AGC would have to perform many instructions to achieve the same result. Conservatively I would give this architectural feature and additional 50% performance advantage to the iPhone.

[Walter]

Aug 30, 2016 18:50:37 GMT -5 lz2112 said:

Saw this little tidbit that kinda makes you think.

# of transistors - iPhone has 130,000 times more than Apollo
clock frequency - iPhone is 32,600 times faster than Apollo
instructions per second - iPhone is 80,800,000 times faster than Apollo
overall performance - iPhone is 120,000,000 times faster than Apollo

or 1 iPhone 6 could theoretically guide 120 million Apollo rockets at the same time


And how those numbers were arrived at:

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a built of 4100 ICs, each of which was a a 3 input RTL NOR gete for a total of approx 12,300 transistors. It ran at 43 KHz and could complete an instruction in 24 ms. for a total performance of about 41.6 Instructions per Second.

The iPhone 6 uses an Apple designed 64 bit Cortex A8 ARM architecture composed of approximately 1.6 billion transistors. It operates at 1.4 GHZ and can process instructions at a rate of approximately 1.2 instructions every cycle in each of its 2 cores. This results in an instruction processing performance rate of approximately 1.4b * 1.2 * 2 = 3.36 billion Instructions per Second. When comparing this to the Apollo computer, there is additional power consideration due to the fact that the A8 is a 64 bit processor and the AGC is 16 bit. This does not mean that it has an additional factor of 4 in performance, however, when 64 bit calculations are required, the A8 can complete these as 1 instruction and the AGC would have to perform many instructions to achieve the same result. Conservatively I would give this architectural feature and additional 50% performance advantage to the iPhone.

Yeah, but what about an IPhone vs an army of guys with crewcuts, short sleeve shirts and ties, pocket protectors, horn rim glasses and a slide rule?
That more than evens the playing field.

BTW....I ran across my old college slide rule in the back of a drawer about a year ago, and I swear, I couldn't figure out how to do anything. I mean NOTHING. Not even simple multiplication.
I have absolutely no recollection of how to work the thing.

[lz2112]

Aug 30, 2016 19:58:30 GMT -5 Walter said:

Aug 30, 2016 18:50:37 GMT -5 lz2112 said:

Saw this little tidbit that kinda makes you think.

# of transistors - iPhone has 130,000 times more than Apollo
clock frequency - iPhone is 32,600 times faster than Apollo
instructions per second - iPhone is 80,800,000 times faster than Apollo
overall performance - iPhone is 120,000,000 times faster than Apollo

or 1 iPhone 6 could theoretically guide 120 million Apollo rockets at the same time


And how those numbers were arrived at:

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a built of 4100 ICs, each of which was a a 3 input RTL NOR gete for a total of approx 12,300 transistors. It ran at 43 KHz and could complete an instruction in 24 ms. for a total performance of about 41.6 Instructions per Second.

The iPhone 6 uses an Apple designed 64 bit Cortex A8 ARM architecture composed of approximately 1.6 billion transistors. It operates at 1.4 GHZ and can process instructions at a rate of approximately 1.2 instructions every cycle in each of its 2 cores. This results in an instruction processing performance rate of approximately 1.4b * 1.2 * 2 = 3.36 billion Instructions per Second. When comparing this to the Apollo computer, there is additional power consideration due to the fact that the A8 is a 64 bit processor and the AGC is 16 bit. This does not mean that it has an additional factor of 4 in performance, however, when 64 bit calculations are required, the A8 can complete these as 1 instruction and the AGC would have to perform many instructions to achieve the same result. Conservatively I would give this architectural feature and additional 50% performance advantage to the iPhone.

Yeah, but what about an IPhone vs an army of guys with crewcuts, short sleeve shirts and ties, pocket protectors, horn rim glasses and a slide rule?
That more than evens the playing field.

BTW....I ran across my old college slide rule in the back of a drawer about a year ago, and I swear, I couldn't figure out how to do anything. I mean NOTHING. Not even simple multiplication.
I have absolutely no recollection of how to work the thing.

lol. I'm just enough younger than you that the slide rule was only taught as an historical thing, rather than it's proper use.

And your point of 100,000 folks with slide rules is a good one. OTOH, it demonstrates that one phone can replace 100,000 really smart fuckers 50 years later.

I used the 100,000 number because 400,000 worked on the Apollo program, and I estimated 25% were using slide rules.

[Walter]

Aug 30, 2016 22:56:24 GMT -5 lz2112 said:

Aug 30, 2016 19:58:30 GMT -5 Walter said:

Yeah, but what about an IPhone vs an army of guys with crewcuts, short sleeve shirts and ties, pocket protectors, horn rim glasses and a slide rule?
That more than evens the playing field.

BTW....I ran across my old college slide rule in the back of a drawer about a year ago, and I swear, I couldn't figure out how to do anything. I mean NOTHING. Not even simple multiplication.
I have absolutely no recollection of how to work the thing.

lol. I'm just enough younger than you that the slide rule was only taught as an historical thing, rather than it's proper use.

And your point of 100,000 folks with slide rules is a good one. OTOH, it demonstrates that one phone can replace 100,000 really smart fuckers 50 years later.

I used the 100,000 number because 400,000 worked on the Apollo program, and I estimated 25% were using slide rules.

Totally agree with your premise.
Last thought...The slide rule I used throughout my college years was a really beautiful, top of the line (for the time) hand me down from my father, who was issued the thing while working in the Signal corps of the US Army. I could do all kinds of advanced math problems with it. Quite an amazing machine.

[frmthegrav]