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How the World's First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap

Posted by Soulskill on from the one-man's-trash dept.

anavictoriasaavedra sends this quote from Wired: "Eccentric billionaires are tough to impress, so their minions must always think big when handed vague assignments. Ross Perot's staffers did just that in 2006, when their boss declared that he wanted to decorate his Plano, Texas, headquarters with relics from computing history. Aware that a few measly Apple I's and Altair 880's wouldn't be enough to satisfy a former presidential candidate, Perot's people decided to acquire a more singular prize: a big chunk of ENIAC, the "Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer." The ENIAC was a 27-ton, 1,800-square-foot bundle of vacuum tubes and diodes that was arguably the world's first true computer. The hardware that Perot's team diligently unearthed and lovingly refurbished is now accessible to the general public for the first time, back at the same Army base where it almost rotted into oblivion.

6 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Ross Perot is awesome! by Obscene_CNN · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ross Perot is awesome! Damn shame that Clinton got elected.

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    I don't want to do a sig now
  2. Except... by SkunkPussy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...it wasn't the first computer.

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    SURELY NOT!!!!!
    1. Re:Except... by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Colossus absolutely was general purpose - it just wasn't stored program. You had to set it up fresh for each program.

    2. Re:Except... by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Colossus absolutely was general purpose - it just wasn't stored program. You had to set it up fresh for each program.

      No, it wasn't general purpose. It was designed from the ground up to solve a very specific class of problems. It would have been possible (as the linked article states) to put a bunch of them together to form a Universal Turing computer, but it itself was not general purpose nor Turing complete.

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      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  3. Essentially lost: only 8 out of 40 panels by unimacs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So essentially ENIAC is lost.

    What's left is only a quarter of the original machine that's been turned into some light show. The other 3/4 of the panels are owned by other people or are gone entirely. While I'm not saying it wasn't worth doing or that it wasn't hard work, it's not what I would call "refurbished".

    It's like digging up a skeleton and having someone rig up a motion detector to play recorded phrases and move the jaw as people walk by it.

    Unfortunately there seems to be a period of time where things are just old and past their usefulness, - their historical significance takes more time for people to appreciate. I understand that a true restoration would be hugely impractical, but it would be cool.

  4. Re:the first built in the US by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, Colossus was General Purpose

    True, but only as long as all your purposes are restricted to cracking the codes from a particular model of Nazi mechanical encryption device.