It’s been a running joke, or at least a comment, for decades: the immense computing power required to land a man on the moon back in the 1970s, could now easily fit in the palm of your hand.

So that was the joke and, even for those of us who knew it was true, no one could ever test the actual theory. At least, until now.

British start-up, Apollo Instruments, has been able to shrink the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) to the size of a wristwatch. It is now possible that anyone can wear the display and keyboard system, affectionately referred to as the DKSY (pronounced “diss-key”), that astronauts used on the command and lunar modules.

“The DSKY Moonwatch is more than just a timepiece; wearers can interact with it just like the Apollo crews did,” says Apollo Instruments CEO Mark Clayton.

And if the mysterious network ever fails, it won’t be because Mark and his team ever took their eyes off the ball, Clayton assures us.

Using original archival drawings from MIT and NASA, Mark and his team set about scaling down the DSKY. “We were pushing our manufacturing equipment to its limits, producing something so intricate and small,” he said.

Half a decade in the making, Apollo Instruments’ DSKY Moonwatch is designed to replicate the DSKY aboard the Apollo 11 lunar module at a 4.6:1 scale, featuring identical fonts and color backlighting.

A great deal of emphasis was placed on materials quality and precision manufacturing techniques. To that end, the DSKY Moonwatch features a robust 316L stainless steel case with a military grade ceramic coating paired with an authentic Italian Nappa leather strap.

“We wanted to create a quality product that would be attractive to both discerning space watch collectors and space enthusiasts. We felt a profound responsibility to get this right.”

Equally revolutionary to the AGC’s small size was the way the Apollo astronauts interacted with it. Rather than carrying thousands of punch cards into space or relying on a sprawling bank of switches and lights, as was typical for computers of the time, MIT designed one of the first display and keyboard systems, which was then used to action routines by entering Verb and Noun codes.

To those accustomed to modern point-and-click setups, the AGC’s approach can appear challenging to grasp. In essence, the Verb defines the action to be performed, and the Noun defines the data that is to be operated on.

For the DSKY Moonwatch, Verb and Noun codes also allow users to adjust the watch’s time, date, alarm, stopwatch and GPS navigation functionalities, continuing the theme of an authentic DSKY experience.

The watch’s open-source core code was written to be user-friendly and open up wide-ranging possibilities for programmers.

Porting the original AGC Luminary code onto the DSKY Moonwatch is just one of the ways Mark envisions people interacting with the watch. “You can upload your own custom code,” he says. “The possibilities are limited only by the user’s imagination.”

The Apollo Guidance Computer and DSKY were groundbreaking developments in both space exploration and computing; without them, the moon landings wouldn’t have been possible. For Mark and his team, the goal with the DSKY Moonwatch was to create a replica you could wear on your wrist that captures the spirit and experience of the Apollo missions.

Exciting stuff, right? But true moon geeks will need to wait a bit longer. That said, the DSKY Moonwatch is available for pre-order now at apollo-instruments.com. Run don’t walk. ◊