In 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission made history by landing humans on the Moon. But what’s mind-blowing is the technology they used: the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) had a clock speed of just 1.024 MHz and 4KB of RAM.

To compare: the average smartphone today has over 1 million times more processing power. Your iPhone could literally run the entire Apollo mission — and still stream Netflix.

The AGC had no screen, no keyboard, just a keypad with two-digit codes. Astronauts had to memorize a series of “verb-noun” commands like “Verb 06 Noun 20” to navigate.

Despite its simplicity, the AGC was revolutionary — it was the first computer to use integrated circuits, making it compact enough for spaceflight.

And yet, astronauts like Neil Armstrong had to land manually when the computer overloaded. Talk about trust in human skill.

It’s a humbling reminder: advanced tech isn’t always necessary — just the right team, a clear mission, and a bit of guts.