23 Feb
2004
23 Feb
'04
4:40 p.m.
On Mon, 2004-02-23 at 22:50, Tom Jennings wrote:
On Mon, 2004-02-23 at 13:47, Curt Vendel wrote:
Well Bletchley ran 10 MKII Colossus machines breaking Lorenz ciphers by
the end of WWII; I'm not sure if those exactly qualify as supercomputers
but it's a far cry from humans using mere machanical calculators.
I'm not sure of valve count on the later machines but the MKI was around
1500 valves. Output was by hardcopy; input was via a paper tape reader
running at 5000cps - not bad for 1940's technology. Programming was via
plugboard; there was no concept of machine memory back then.
It gets nice and cosy in the room housing the rebuilt Colossus example
I agree.... the fabled days of Supercomputers
kinda died when the Cray's
became obsolete and lost their awe and allure...
>>http://www.flashmobcomputing.org/
'supercomputing dates from WWII'? Did I miss a world war somewhere?
There were massed arrays of computers then, but they ate lunch and slept
at night, operated mechanical calculators and later got fired when
computers of the automatic, digital, electronic type actually came into
existence. from all those valves :)
cheers
Jules