3 Sep
2009
3 Sep
'09
11:09 a.m.
[I've not been reading the list for a little while, so apologies if this has
been mentioned already]
The Harwell Dekatron Computer - aka. WITCH - has just arrived at TNMoC for
restoration. Once completed, it'll be (as far as we know) the oldest
functional, complete, stored-program electronic machine in the world (some
careful qualifying there, because of course it's one of a handful of
'pioneering' machines, all of which have their place in history).
Lots of links to news items on the machine at:
http://www.tnmoc.org/inthenews.aspx
Plans for the machine date from 1949, with it first running in 1951. Wikipedia
background info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WITCH_(computer)
cheers
Jules
3 Sep
3 Sep
3:37 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
The Harwell Dekatron Computer - aka. WITCH - has just arrived at TNMoC for
restoration. Once completed, it'll be (as far as we know) the oldest
functional, complete, stored-program electronic machine in the world (some
careful qualifying there, because of course it's one of a handful of
'pioneering' machines, all of which have their place in history).
Lots of links to news items on the machine at:
http://www.tnmoc.org/inthenews.aspx
Plans for the machine date from 1949, with it first running in 1951. Wikipedia
background info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WITCH_(computer)
This sounds interesting, but is there anything easily accessible that gives a
technical or architectural overview? Needless to say, the news releases don't.
So far, about all I get is it was largely relay-based, decimal, had a large
bank of dekatrons for register or RAM storage, was quite slow but quite
reliable (surprising for something with a bunch of dekatrons), and was sort-of
stored-program.
It sounds like one of those oddball-in-hindsight designs, so it could be
interesting to see how it all hung together.
4 Sep
4 Sep
6:53 a.m.
Brent Hilpert wrote:
This sounds interesting, but is there anything easily
accessible that gives a
technical or architectural overview?
I've asked - I'm sure there's piles of physical docs for the machine, but
maybe there's some sort of quick "technical overview" which can be scanned
and
put online. (I agree; I'm certainly as interested - if not more - in the
system operation than the history of how it was used or came into being)
Will post here if anything turns up (as I'm physically 3500 miles away from
the system my hands are somewhat tied :-)
cheers
Jules
7:54 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Will post here if anything turns up (as I'm
physically 3500 miles away
from the system my hands are somewhat tied :-)
Aha - all the geeky technical stuff's on the CCS pages covering the machine:
http://www.computerconservationsociety.org/witch.htm
... knock yourself out :-)
cheers
J.
10:33 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Aha - all the geeky technical stuff's on the CCS pages covering the machine:
http://www.computerconservationsociety.org/witch.htm
That's a little more interesting; looks more like a hybrid machine, similar to,
or more along the lines of, the SSEC.
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hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com