Siemens System 4004 on Willy Wonka

I was channel flipping and came across a movie on The Disney Channel where a guy was standing in front of the front panel of a computer with tape drives spinning in the background. He was doing some demonstration for three men, pushing buttons and flipping switches on the front panel and then the computer was spitting out results on punch card from the front (this part was fake). At first I thought it was a recent film. I thought the tape drives looked very authentic, because their movement was very real. Then I looked at the front panel and saw "Siemens System 4004", and was quite surprised. It turns out the movie is "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". The last time I saw this was probably 15 years ago. The Siemens System 4004 is very interesting in this context. According to Hans, it is the first fully transistorized digital computer, beating out even the MIT TX-0. The Austrian Mail?fterl also vies for the title, but Hans Franke claims it wasn't fully completed or something: http://www.museumonline.at/2000/wien-feuerbach/mailueft/mailueft_de.htm http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/5163/1.html A quick Google search turned up a computer that I was not previously aware of: http://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/events/sscomputer.html This is the TRADIC (TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer) built by Bell Labs. If the year is correct, I believe this is a contender for the title. This site says 1955: http://www.cedmagic.com/history/tradic-transistorized.html Here's a couple pages on the Siemens 4004: http://www.wolfgangtroeger.de/museum.htm http://www.computermuseum-muenchen.de/computer/siemens/ Pretty cool stuff. Is anyone still keeping track of these vintage computer movie appearances? This one is pretty significant ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *