Apollo 11 touched down on the moon's surface on July 20, 1969, an achievement for all humankind that put a full stop on the first iteration of the space race. Neil Armstrong stepped into history as the globe watched and among the millions in awe was 17 year-old schoolboy Jim Storer.
Based in Massachusetts and with a considerable grounding in mathematics, thanks partly to his physicist father, Storer was inspired by the very concept of a moon landing: the precise calculations and control required to safely bring a huge chunk of aluminium to rest on a barren, unfamiliar surface. Storer's school had a PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer, and the young man set about writing a new program called "Lunar Landing Game".
