World's Oldest Working Computer On Display 82
riflemann writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has
an article today about the world's oldest working computer finally
having a permanent place in a Melbourne Museum. It's good to see such
a historical computer, over 50 years old, being put on display permanently." Seeing this makes me remember reading Cryptonomicon - of course, the definition of what's the oldest and working is up for grabs, but as a BA in History, it's cool to see stuff like this put on display for all to see.
Re:Fascinating. (Score:3)
I don't think this pheonominum is peuliar to computers. The computer (that is the stored program eclectronic computer) have been around for about forty years.
In 1940 aircraft had been around for about forty years and in 1940 an aircraft from 1935 would have looked postitively antique. I mean two wings! canvas covering! wooden framed! no supercharger! compared with an aluminium monoquoce monoplane with a four valves per cylender supercharged pressurised plane of the 40s.
I really think computer development is in for a big slowdown in the next ten years. The main reason being that in two years time we will have more computing power than we know what to do with. We would have reached this stage already if "modern" computers didn't spend most of thier time running a bloated operating system rather than doing useful work.
Re:What was a 'bit' back then? (Score:1)
How long were "words" then?
I don't know anything about this machine (I'm a Brit) but machinery of that era often used long words, that would still be a respectable length today. Computers then were mathematical number crunchers, not text processors, so the data word was usually long enough to hold a floating point number in a single word. In the '70s, mini computers started to be dedicated to handling real-time data from A/D converters (often 10 bit) and so they in turn used words of 10 or 12 bits; tailored closely to the size of their most significant external data, not their internal chippery.
Secondly, another poster mentioned mercury being used for memory. This would have been an acoustic delay line, and some of the architectures with those were wholly serial machines - effectively single bit parallel. Only one bit at a time was represented electronically, the rest were being stored as acoustic signals travelling down a pipe full of mercury.
As a complete guess, I'd expect the CSIRAC to be a serial machine with one bit words.
Bytes only become significant when eight bit memory ICs are available as commodity products. The natural word size of the valve and soldered joint is a single bit, so '50s generation kit simply didn't have the same fondness for standardised word lengths that we know today.
Re:Why the computers and not the people? (Score:1)
if you want to see something disgusting, just wait a little longer - the goatse.cx guy will be along shortly.
Re:Other old computers (Score:1)
Interesting story (Score:4)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:2)
Even more fascinating would be if Babbage had played with Faraday's solenoids - it would have been a more interesting bridge between the mechanical to electro-mechanical to electronic world. I suspect that he would have had greater success storing values in solenoid state RAM.
Punch cards could still be used, but there would be a drive to make the solenoids smaller, and perhaps explore magnetic storage a per core memory at an accelerated pace.
I keep pictures of Charles Babbage and Lady Ada on my wall in my cube, and it's amazing how many people don't realize who they are.
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Re:BLATANTLY OFFTOPIC (Score:1)
The Oldest Computers (Score:1)
Re:Natalie!! (Score:1)
Re:Other old computers (Score:2)
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
Re:Fascinating. (Score:2)
Dunno - I think there's plenty of room for wanting more powerful processors. Simulations & virtual environments will pretty much eat any amount of power you can throw at them (the more you throw, the better they get). I can also think of some uses for personal-level data mining will which require heavy hp.
Re:had to be said... (Score:1)
Re:Because Turing was gay (Score:1)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
Is this older then ENIAC? (Score:2)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:2)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
The Difference Engine by, uh, Stirling and Gibson was it? Good book, it explores this idea.
Re:World's oldest... (Score:1)
Rob
Re:Because Turing was gay (Score:1)
I suppose we could dig up his corpse, they did it with Lenin and he's still there...
Konrad Zuse's Z1 (1936) in Berlin (Score:3)
The first fully functional program-controlled electromechanical digital computer in the world (the Z3) was completed by Zuse in 1941, but was destroyed in 1944 during the war. Because of its historical importance, a copy was made in 1960 and put on display in the German Museum ("Deutsches Museum") in Munich.
Next came the more sophisticated Z4, which was the only Zuse Z-machine to survive the war. The Z4 was almost complete when, due to continued air raids, it was moved from Berlin to Gottingen where it was installed in the laboratory of the Aerodynamische Versuchanstalt (DVL/Experimental Aerodynamics Institute). It was only there for a few weeks before Gottingen was in danger of being captured and the machine was once again moved to a small village "Hinterstein" in the Allgau/Bavaria. Finally it was taken to Switzerland where it was installed in the ETH (Federal Polytechnical Institute/"Eidgenossisch Technische Hochschule") in Zurich in 1950. It was used in the Institute of Applied Mathematics at the ETH until 1955.
Cryptonomicon... (Score:1)
Re:had to be said... (Score:1)
Uh.. a Beowulf cluster of these (or any similar antiques!) would probably bring down the power grid in the entire state!
Imagine the scene at the power company -
"Oh *shit* the computer museum's doing a demo again - quick! bring Three Mile Island back online - NOW!"
Re:Why the computers and not the people? (Score:1)
Alan Turing naked and petrified?
No, thanks.
__
Intercepted traffic (Score:1)
CSIRAC's in position.
Soon we begin the endgame.
Your pal, Hal 9000
And he went on til Z80? (Score:2)
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Zuse (Score:1)
__
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
You'd have a hard time finding anyone today who could surpass the intricacy of some clockwork and steam powered mechanisms they made.
Not at all true. There is no human who can possibly match the precision of a seven-axis laser-guided computer-controlled milling machine. With these amazing (and huge!) devices you basically create a 3D mathematical model (using curves, not polygons), provide a set of hints as to the sequence in which it should shape the metal and press GO. It will machine any shape you'd like to tolerances of billionths of an inch and do it in minutes.
Sure there were clever engineers and highly-skilled craftsmen, but computers can manipulate far more complex shapes than any human and no matter how light your touch is on the micrometer you'll never match laser interferometry for precise measurements.
SciAm published a report a few years ago on the scientists and engineers who constructed a working replica of Babbage's difference engine. They had a difficult time doing it and by the time they were done they'd had to machine many parts to tolerances that were probably unachievable without modern machining technology. It's *possible* that with enough money and enough determination Babbage could have got the thing to go, but the conclusion of the SciAm article was that it's not very likely.
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Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
Doesn't Moore's law partly depend on stuff getting smaller and smaller? Aside from nano wouldn't you have trouble making gear wheels small enough to pack enough of them into a reasonable space?
Because you'd destroy it in the process (Score:1)
Sure, it could be done, but getting it going again would be like taking the Wright Brothers Flyer out for a test run. It'd be great while it worked, but what happens when you break something - and with a tube computer you *would* get many failures.
If you really wanted a working tube computer, building a replica would be a far more responsible thing to do. At least that way the original would be left intact.
Anyway, what would be the point? We know exactly how the machine worked, we've got an emulator for it, it's preserved so if anyone wants to the the physical layout and engineering techniques available, it's all there, and most importantly real efforts to record the history of the machine have been made while many of the people that were involved in its use are still alive.
Predictions (Score:1)
640 K should be enough for anyone.
The market for computers is probably 5 or 6 in the whole world.
__
Video, video, video (Score:2)
And no, dedicated hardware isn't the be-all and end-all. Compression and decompression might be handled by special-purpose hardware, but special effects (fades, wipes, and the myriad effects that are used routinely on still images with programs like the GIMP) are going to be performed on general-purpose CPUs.
Re:Because Turing was gay (Score:1)
Re:What was a 'bit' back then? (Score:1)
My guess is that the adoption of transistor technology (rather than ICs) was the turning point.
Re:The Oldest Computers (Score:1)
There were a number of analog computers (both electronic and mechanical) in use prior to digital computers. But they weren't general-purpose programmable machines. They were built to embody one or a small set of algorithms, and that's what they did. Examples include astrolabes, artillery calculators, bomb sights, etc. Most seemed to be connected with surveying, navigation and blowing things up...
Re:Other old computers (Score:1)
heck (Score:1)
Cool! (Score:4)
CSIRAC doesn't work (Score:5)
It doesn't work, it's just intact. There's actually an archival issue here. Do we keep CSIRAC "as it was", or do we restore it to working (and keep replacing valves as they burn out at the rate of at least one per day)?
When I was at the University of Melbourne, we were lucky enough to get a guided tour by one of the original members of the computational machinery laboratory. It's quite easy to see how the meme of the computer as ominous "electronic brain" took hold when you can literally walk through it.
CSIRAC not only had a hard disk (one platter, with a motor which delivered such low torque that you needed to put some pressure on the drive belt with a screwdriver to get it to spin up; I believe one of the engineers still has the screwdriver), but it also had a high level language, the interpreter for which fit in its (off the top of my head) 768 words of memory.
Oh, and another anecdote: When CSIRAC lived in The University of Melbourne, it was first housed next to the particle physics laboratory, which caused some scheduling problems, because CSIRAC wouldn't work when the cyclotron was firing. They also had difficulty with the mercury memory in hot weather, but I suspect all the early computers had that problem.
Re:Fascinating. (Score:2)
Fascinating. (Score:4)
One thing I have always wondered about historical computing is the "what if" question. In this case, what if Babbage had got commercial success with his difference engine? I have wondered just how advanced a purely mechanical computer could be. What if the Victorians had thrown boundless cash at mechanical computers. Just how advanced could we reasonably hope these computers to be? I am most interested ;)
Re:World's oldest... (Score:2)
Why the computers and not the people? (Score:3)
If you ask me... People don't seem to ask me much anymore. Please?
World's oldest... (Score:4)
Don't forget the work of Charles Babbage, such as his Difference Engine [reading.ac.uk]. I'm sure there were other computers before this one that still work (I think one of Babbage's still does).
Put it to the test... (Score:2)
Re:Whoa (Score:1)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:2)
Bye :o)
If you can't get down to Melbourne.. (Score:2)
BTW, where was CSIRAC when I was in Melbourne for CALU [linux.org.au]? :-(
had to be said... (Score:3)
um.. I done, you can stop reading...
Re:World's oldest... (Score:1)
A working component was completed though. This was in a sense programmable (It could add numbers togoether and be instructed to add a different number on the 100th iteration for example).
Re:Why the computers and not the people? (Score:1)
I'm all for honouring the people who made the computer age possible, but there's got to be a better way... wax replicas, maybe.
Besides, let's face it, outside of Golden Age science fiction, most scientists are not broad-shouldered, square-jawed, manly explorers of the unknown. Who the Hell(tm) wants to look at a bunch of lab-coated geeks? (If you find any, especially if they're cute women, let me know, so I can dig up a lab coat.)
And you're going to get wierd looks if you're older then 30 and are good with computers. In this day of script kiddies and 733t h4x0rs, they can't comprehend adults being able to do anything other then answer e-mail.
Just my 2 shekels.
Kierthos
Re:World's oldest... (Score:2)
The original engine that was built by Babbage's engineer, Joseph Clement, consisted of about 2000 parts but was only a small portion of the envisionaged differential engine. The engine was never completed and most of the parts produced were later melted for scrap. The engine later built by the London Science Museum was completed in 1991. Information on this system can be found at the following sites ;
http://www.museums.reading.ac.uk/vmoc/babbage/ [reading.ac.uk]6 2-89.html [nmsi.ac.uk]
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/18
Because Turing was gay (Score:2)
Because Turing was gay, and The Establishment won't allow gay people to be perceived as heroes.
Any homophobe who uses a computer is a hypocrite.
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Keep it Busy. (Score:1)
For anyone interested (Score:2)
Off-topic aviation geekery... (Score:1)
Hmmm, I wonder if anyone ever told Geoff DeHavilland he was behind the times with the Mosquito (aka The Flying Sofa, because it was made of wood & canvas by furniture crafters) during WWII. And I wonder if anyone from 418 Squadron (or any of the other Mosquito squadrons) ever realized it, either. Anything I've ever read about it praises the plane for its adaptability (everything from "night intruder" to "light bomber"), handling, and general airworthiness, although one author does relate that the Mosquito did have an occasional tendency to come unglued. (Ooops... Well, on the other hand, so do we all...)
Interrobang, callously disregarding Karma as usual
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
Re:Video, video, video (Score:1)
No in my opinion Joe User will never be able to handle even any video editing more complicated than cropping parts of clips out, and maybe putting different clips together. If Joe User can't do it then there is no reason for him to buy that 4 GHZ Athlon Thunderbird 7.
Now the other big thing that drives the PC industry is Video games.
There are several problems slowing advancement there.
One of the biggest is that PC makers still don't put 3D cards in computers, and use shared memory when they do. (A few exceptions exist).
Joe User has a Winmodem and AOL. Try playing a real multiplayer online game with either one of those, (much less both).
Video Game graphics have matured and will slow down in their advancement. 2D graphics basically maxed out in the early 90's. (New 2D games really don't look a whole lot better than Super Nintendo games did back then). The same is beginning to happen to 3D graphics also. Compare the quality jump from Doom to Quake, to the difference between Quake and Quake 2. The difference is even more minor in quality between Quake 2 and Quake 3.
The Pentium 166 that I am posting from now, (work computer), serves perfectly for the Internet and document editing purposes that it is used for.
So where is the continued market in making computers faster and faster.
I would love to see clock speeds frozen in place for the next ten years while everything else catches up.
Re:Fascinating. (Score:2)
Not very. Major efforts were made in mechanical computing up until about 1950. Here's a list of the fastest computers in the world in 1956 [gapcon.com], from an era when some mechanical machines were still in use. You'll see "IBM Tabulator" in that list, rated at about 0.4, while the UNIVAC I comes in at 8755 and Whirlwind at 500000. The unit of measure appears to be IPS, or 10e-6 MIPS.
There were some neat electromechanical machines. The IBM 602A, an electromechanical punch-card using, plugboard-programmed machine that could add, subtract, multiply and divide, probably was the most powerful ever to be produced in quantity. Those machines did much of the scientific number-crunching of the early post-WWII era. Some of them were still grinding away into the 1970s. The 602A took several seconds for a multiply. That's about as good as it ever got. Inertia and wear set rather low limits on what could be done mechanically.
feasibility (Score:1)
The Science Museum has successfully built part of Difference Engine No. 2 and is now working on its printer.
Re:Other old computers (Score:2)
what? (Score:1)
Also.....i still have an old Tandy 1000 that I still use every now and then...no reason to kill old computers..there is always some use for them. (even if it is for a coffee table to to sit on)
Re:CSIRAC doesn't work (Score:2)
In any case, if you're interested in the history of computers, Australia isn't such a bad place to visit these days. As well as CSIRAC in Melbourne, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has a piece of a Difference Engine. There's more to see than kangaroos, the Opera House, and the Barrier Reef :)
Oldest "working" computer... (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
.
FPS performance (Score:1)
"In its day CSIRAC was a marvel, but today any decent desktop computer can do more work in 30 seconds than CSIRAC did in its entire 15-year service."
If we take decent to mean any computer that can get about 20 FPS (that is to say, consistantly playable performance) in Half-Life, and this sentence to NOT mean a LOT more work...then this machine would get about 40 frames per year, or about .00000127 frames per second. Enough maybe to play against someone traveling near the speed of light, I guess.
Re:CSIRAC doesn't work (Score:1)
> It doesn't work, it's just intact.
Good point. What would be (IMHO) much more interesting are oldies which still does their stupid jobs.
If someone had a webcam pointing to a computer printing bills since 1980 - THAT would make a great story! Or if a boy called B1FF still hab his C64 online - well, that could be a myth.
What about another uptime contest, minimum uptime ten years (no, I can't contribute)?
[x] ulf
Re:CSIRAC doesn't work (Score:2)
It has, and I believe it ran something like three orders of magnitude faster than the original machine on 1995 hardware.
Re:If you can't get down to Melbourne.. (Score:1)
The new butt ugly [abnormal.com] Melbourne Museum [vic.gov.au] isn't fully open yet. Their sci/tech section is still closed but admission is 1/2 price for the 1/3 that is open.
If you have a need to be close to the oldest surving computer, I've got a room for rent across the street from the butt ugly [abnormal.com] building.
2.4.0? (Score:1)
Other old computers (Score:2)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
There are adapters that converts vga to TV. And video cards with tv-out. But the 19" Tv-color monitor isn't so cool with its lousy resolution. Only 625 lines (PAL) or 5xx (NTSC)...
What was a 'bit' back then? (Score:1)
How did he manage with a computer whose memory could hold only 2,000 bits of information - about as much as a couple of e-mails?
Does "bit" here mean "binary digit" as we know it today, or does it mean a discrete piece of information, such as a character or opcode? How long were "words" then? 2000 bits won't even contain the headers of a "couple of e-mails". Did they mean "bytes", or did they mean this kind of e-mail:
Subject: [no subject]
Date: Sat, Dec 23 2000 22:30:01 -0600 (CST)
From: 1337h4xx0r15840924@aol.com
To: subscriptions@hotsluts4u.com
Mee to!
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
They had a long way to go. First, they werent that good at mechanical technology. That is one of the reasons Babbage didn't get his computer to work - it needed lots of parts made with very high precision.
Take the trouble of advancing the mechanical tech, and what do you get? You could perhaps get a few hundred Hz with todays mechanics. If you want more power you'll need to go parallel instead. We still aren't good at that for general-purpose machines, but of course you can do that for special purpose machines. Oh, and a 100 Hz mechanical computer would wear down fast. Working parts would have to be replaced at regular intervals.
Re:What was a 'bit' back then? (Score:2)
A "bit" ment the same then as it does now -- a binary digit. Bytes were not invented then and computers were dealt purely in numbers.
I am not sure what the word length was or if it did floating point, but I think it must have done as fixed point calculations are not much good for scientific problems!
So even with very short floats say 10 bits for the number and 6 bits for the power of you could only store a max 125 numbers, but, you would have to fit the program in there somewhere as well.
As far as programming goes it was probably about the same as one of those very early Texas Instraments programable calculators, which, could store a whole 16 numbers!
Hmm what about the Abacus (Score:1)
Go on admit if you were living a few thousand years ago you'd look pretty geeky with an abacus
Even better the Abacus was patent free
There's a sci-fi book on exactly that. (Score:1)
Re:Because Turing was gay (Score:2)
There's a lot of truth in what you say, but don't neglect the theatre. Derek Jacobi's role in "The Enigma of Intelligence" was a superb homage to Turing, and at the time (late '80s) Turing was almost unknown.
I don't know if there's any film or video version of this play, but catch it if you can.
Besides, I don't believe it's just homophobia. Alan Blumlein (One of several people with a good claim to be "The Inventor of Television") was a straight contemporary of Turing, yet is even less well known today. There's a recent Blumlein biography (Amazon [amazon.co.uk]), but I was less than impressed with it.
Re:World's oldest... (Score:1)
Re:Fascinating. (Score:1)
Check out "Of Tangible Ghosts" by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. It's set in an alternate past where Babbage's Engine sparked a "technology explosion" - but with mechanical computers. I believe he's got some other novels set in the same universe, but I haven't had time to read them (so many books, so little time).