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Edsac Goes Live, At UK's National Museum of Computing

Posted by timothy on from the sometimes-things-get-lost-in-the-mail dept.

Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Britain's National Museum of Computing has flipped the switch on the venerable Edsac computer. The arduous task of reconstructing the 1949 behemoth, fraught with little in terms of the original hardware or documentation, was brought to fruition on Wednesday. As project lead Andrew Herbert is quoted as saying, "We face the same challenges as those remarkable pioneers who succeeded in building a machine that transformed computing." A remarkably shaky video of the event, replete with excellent views of the floor at the videographer's feet, can be found here."

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Fraught? by gstoddart · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The arduous task of reconstructing the 1949 behemoth, fraught with little in terms of the original hardware or documentation

    So, the word 'fraught' doesn't appear in TFA. And there's probably a reason for that.

    Fraught doesn't mean "without the benefit of".

    fraught
    frÃt/
    adjective
    adjective: fraught

            1.
            (of a situation or course of action) filled with or destined to result in (something undesirable).
            "marketing any new product is fraught with danger"
            synonyms: full of, filled with, rife with; More
            attended by, accompanied by
            "their world is fraught with danger"
            2.
            causing or affected by great anxiety or stress.
            "there was a fraught silence"

    So, to continue this egregiously bad bit of writing ....

    Wiff his trusty condoms, Ralph fraught he'd be safe, but, alas, he fraught wrong and got the clap anyway.

    Bereft, perhaps. But, fraught??? Really???

    Come on guys. Don't just use words you don't know what they mean because they sounded cool in another context.

    Oh, wait, I'm assuming editors have a grasp of the language and actually read the submissions. My bad.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. These guys rule by hackertourist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Colossus and Bombe replicas were amazing achievements, and they just keep going. Building complex machines with nothing but some photographs to go on.
    Where's my 'we're not worthy' emoticon? _o_