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UK's Oldest Computer To Be "Rebooted"
Smivs writes with this interesting piece of computer history, excerpted from the BBC: "Britain's oldest original computer, the Harwell, is being sent to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley where it is to be restored to working order.
The computer, which was designed in 1949, was built and used by staff at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire. It first ran in 1951 and was designed to perform mathematical calculations. It lasted until 1973.
When first built the 2.4m x 5m computer was state-of-the-art, although it was superseded by transistor-based systems.
The restoration project is expected to take a year. Although not the first computer built in the UK, the Harwell had one of the longest service lives.
Built by a team of three people, the device was capable of doing the work of six to ten people and ran for seven years until the establishment obtained their first commercial computer. 'We didn't think we were doing anything pioneering at the time,' said Dick Barnes, who helped build the original Harwell computer."
"In the future, I predict computers will be twice as powerful, ten times larger and be so expensive only the five richest monarchs of Europe will be able to afford them." - Professor Frink
Beowulf.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
But does it run Linux?
Once the computer is in working order it will be shipped to San Fransisco where the new Systems Admin will finally be able to sniff out that backdoor appliance.
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This is why the article we had yesterday, which argued that technological growth is slowing down, was a total hogwash. Technological growth is speeding up! What is constant is our inability to recognize great technological advancement except in hindsight.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The article is extremely light on details. Where are they going to get vaccum tubes or other antiquated apparatuses from? How much will they cost?
I've found that for older hardware that is running fine 24x7, the worst thing is to shut it down. It invariably fails to start up again.
64 vacuum tubes ought to be enough for anyone.
Okay.. I know that the premise of this joke is totally wrpng and UK scientists were computing pioneers, but it reminds me my favorite joke my father ever told me:
Q: Why didn't the British never make a computer?
A: They couldn't figure out a way to make it leak oil.
(I think the joke is incorrect... probably on both counts).
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...
I thought that Colossus would take this title? Not only is it older and British, but it's also (I'm told) the World's oldest electronic computer.
For many of the younger generations of developers who don't know anything about these machines, it would be quite something to show them how the original developers used to work. It will also show how far we have advanced.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
We didn't think we were doing anything pioneering at the time
Yeah, that's what the ASCII art inventors and the creators of GIF at CompuServ said.
UK's Oldest Computer To Be "Rebooted"
Although not the first computer built in the UK
How could it be the UK's oldest computer if it wasn't the first computer built in the UK?
"[...] the device was capable of doing the work of six to ten people [...]"
Interesting to see how it changes over time. Today, considering the majority of jobs, you either cut off social networking access or you'll need six to ten people to do the work of two or three.
AT &F1DT0,T0800665544 - Real men, real help desk support.
The Colossus computer was operation by about 1944 5 years before the Harwell so um isn't that that oldest computer?
There's the problem of deciding what's a real computer-- do you include things that can crunch numbers, but have a hard-wired program, or have a program, but it's on a loop of paper tape, or have a program, but it's wired onto a plugboard. The Harwell machine is programmable, but the program is on a loop of paper tape, making anything other than one simple loop very problematical.
Also its data storage is in a few cold-cathode Dekatrons, which are basically overachieving neon lights. They limit the counting-up speed to about 20,000 increments per second, just barely in the electronic realm, and much slower than anything using real vacuum tubes. And it uses a lot of mechanical relays, further limiting its speed and making it a very marginal computer in any modern sense of the word.
Better watch out for trojans and backdoors in those tubes put there by the Russians, in case this computer were ever to be used against them in a war.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Pedant note: although "all the time" or "always on" have more letters than "24x7", they are quicker to say and more meaningful. Why do we have this horrible cypher?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Yeah, it's funny how that happens when you persecute your best people.
I guess this was '49. But still. These guys are getting media attention while Turing rots in his grave.
It's cheaper!
And besides, the red Chinese invented the computer 3,000 years ago.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
From the summary:
Is there any computer that was designed to do anything else?
I don't care. Cold-cathode Dekatrons are how everything should be stored!
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Early data processing machines (like Hollerith card analysers) were designed to perform select and sort operations which they did using logical functions, but they did not do calculations. You wanted to know who in a brigade had a particular skill, you fed in the punched cards for the brigade, and the output stack delivered the ones whose holes coincided with the setup. Colossus was intended to do code breaking by high speed (for the time) data processing, but it did not do general purpose calculation. So yes, this is a meaningful distinction.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
In Soviet Russia , Vaccum tubes manufacture you!
WEll, I agree, they're cool looking. But to have your computing speed be limited by the de-ionization time of a gas is less than thrilling. You think a VAX-750 with ten users was slow.... :)
Micro$oft recently released Harwell OS 7, which uses all of the available registers to create a waving M$ flag using the Harwell's front panel lights. Unfortunately, it has since been determined that the new OS really requires two Harwell computers wired in a parallel configuration to perform adequately. The M$ product manager for the Harwell OS stated: "The hardware requirements on the side of the box clearly state that one Harwell computer is the MINIMUM requirement, not the optimum configuration."
Atomic program my ass... this mother fucker was used for hardcore mother fucking porn....
Boot this bitch up and lets jack like its 1949.
Given enough tape and enough time it is a universal Turing machine, so it can emulate any computer ... slowly ....
Even ENIAC was a Turing machine and so could run anything ....it would be even slower and more cumbersome but could still run Linux!
If you read the details then you will see that they left it running unattended over Christmas and the New year once and it did a lot of calculations in that time ... not just a "simple" loop ...
Any machine that is Turing complete is a computer,
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Call me when they replace the Dekatrons with some clever blue LED/capacitor/resistor arrangement (Diode Resistor Logic?!) and then we'll talk cool blinkenlights.
How can anyone say that technological growth is slowing down... haven't they seen the Shamwow or the magic bullet II yet??? Those marvels of science could not be possible without such a giant leap into the future of technology! If more people would have recognized the value of that bionic ear piece sold on tv only, Billy Mayes wouldn't have had to yell so much and would still be introducing you to all the great marvels of today!
How about the Difference Engine?
Property is theft.
Oh, it's all well and good that Harwell has historic significance as the UK's oldest computer. What people want to know is: does it run Windows?
-Z
Its first use will be figuring out the secret ingredient in a Flaming Moe
Soon someone will port Linux to it, as well as Doom. :)
I heard that Vacuum tubes are rare to find and that Vacuum tube computers can be rewired to use Transistors instead when Vacuum tubes cannot be found.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
will the Harwell be able to play Crysis? Better benchmark it with 3DMark first.
They haven't turned it on in how long? Man, it's gonna take forever to download all the updates...
>Even ENIAC was a Turing machine and so could run anything ....
Anything that has a conditional skip and subtract and some memory is Turing-capable.
The original ENIAC was only slightly better than this. And yes it could do "anything", for very limited values of "anything", as it only had like twenty ten-digit accumulators for memory and plug-wired-only programs.
One of the two big drivers of human effort; The first is weapons and military applications.
Best regards.
Awesome news. I believe this computer used to belong to Wolverhampton University, however I have seen it in storage in Birmingham for years. Glad it is going back for restoration.
The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, aka the "Baby" Manchester Mark I, ran its first program in 1948. A replica was built in 1998 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
It had 32 words of 32 bits each and used a Williams Tube for memory.
Opcode list:
000 JMP S Jump to the instruction at the specified memory address (absolute unconditional jump)
100 JRP S Jump to the instruction at the specified memory address plus the number in the accumulator (relative unconditional jump)
010 LDN S Take the number from the specified memory address, negate it, and load it into the accumulator
110 STO S Store the number in the accumulator to the specified memory address
001 or
101[t 1] SUB S Subtract the number at the specified memory address from the value in accumulator, and store the result in the accumulator
011 CMP Skip next instruction if the accumulator contains a negative value
111 STP Stop
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I do not think that "reboot" means what you think it means.
Like, I get that the Harwell has a bit of history and that it was a one-of-a-kind, but is that really a reason to keep it hanging around?
Should Apple keep the first iPhone 3Gs developed and save it away for officianados of dust covered relics to revive it in 50 years time?
Should Linus keep a machine running the first ever stable release of Linux?
To me, I'm sorry to say, this is just daft. I certainly wouldn't presume that using tax payer dollars to fire up a relic is worthwhile. If I want to feel nostalgic, I'll look at some photos.
The thing with I.T is that it's a progression. It's not as if it's a steam train, nor a hydrogen filled blimp, or the library of alexandria. It was a tool and it got superceeded.
It's only when computers are no more that the Harwell will become interesting.
2c
But does it run...Fortran?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
No, you just look at which features were used first in the United States, and then declare that those are essential to the definition of the first "real" computer (or various other famous US inventions).
Start by working on your definition of true and false. And don't give the Poles a work visa. They probably don't bring anything novel to Bletchley Park anyway.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods
The Harwell machine is programmable, but the program is on a loop of paper tape, making anything other than one simple loop very problematical.
So that's where the GTK guys got the idea!
You cannot build a computer using nothing but addition.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Why were they still using it in 1973?