World's earliest computers restored to their prime

[rprosperi]

As lots of members here are interested in vintage computers too, you may be interested in the article and photos here.

[Dave Shaffer]

I thought I was going to see the Antikithera mechanism !

Maybe that should be the next Swiss Micros project.

[Dieter]

(06-17-2016 06:51 PM)Dave Shaffer Wrote:  I thought I was going to see the Antikithera mechanism !

Hey, it's a digital world today so we should talk about digital computers. So when I read about "world's earliest computers" I admit I had something like this Z3 in mind. Made by Konrad Zuse himself.

Dieter

[TASP]

LOL, these days, instead of a restoration, someone just makes an app.

Wonder what it would be like to have the Atanasoff-Berry* machine running on my Droid cell phone ?



*I recall about 40 years ago seeing a small piece of it in a display case in the entry way of an ISU building on the Ames campus somewhere.

[rprosperi]

(06-17-2016 07:24 PM)Dieter Wrote:  

(06-17-2016 06:51 PM)Dave Shaffer Wrote:  I thought I was going to see the Antikithera mechanism !

Hey, it's a digital world today so we should talk about digital computers. So when I read about "world's earliest computers" I admit I had something like this Z3 in mind. Made by Konrad Zuse himself.

Dieter

Thanks for posting this Dieter, I have been looking for info about this after seeing some references to it in other reading (I am fascinated with German WWII technology, mostly Luftwaffe and Armor). I believe I saw it when I visited the Deutsches Museum in the 80's, but there was very little English information posted at the time.

Curious to read what happened post-war, and how it compares with the "first" digital computers in the 50's.

[Don Shepherd]

(06-17-2016 05:12 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  As lots of members here are interested in vintage computers too, you may be interested in the article and photos here.

Thanks Bob, very interesting, especially those European machines.

I had no idea that the IBM 1401 wasn't a binary machine, like virtually all of its successors. You learn something new every day.

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

(06-17-2016 11:10 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(06-17-2016 07:24 PM)Dieter Wrote:  Hey, it's a digital world today so we should talk about digital computers. So when I read about "world's earliest computers" I admit I had something like this Z3 in mind. Made by Konrad Zuse himself.

Dieter

Thanks for posting this Dieter, I have been looking for info about this after seeing some references to it in other reading (I am fascinated with German WWII technology, mostly Luftwaffe and Armor). I believe I saw it when I visited the Deutsches Museum in the 80's, but there was very little English information posted at the time.

Curious to read what happened post-war, and how it compares with the "first" digital computers in the 50's.

If you are interested in Zuse's work, his book "The Computer My Life" is an interesting read especially the part from the time he started to construct Z1 in his parent's living room to them hualing Z4 from Berlin to Gottingen and then with some of Wernher von Braun's team, who where fleeing Peenemunde, to southern Germany.

Another interesting book is "Early British Computers" from the Digital Press (as in Digital Equipment) History of computing series which touches on Colossus designed to help decipher messages from the more complicated Geheimschrieber used by the German high command. The Manchester Mark 1 arguably the first stored program computer, LEO the machine constructed for the Lyons Tea Shop company, the first commercial computer installation, and many more.

Two great books about IBM computers are "IBM's Early Computers" and "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems" both from MIT press.