Ah, the wonderful Atlas! (1960s British supercomputer)

[Garth Wilson]

30+ years ago, I saw a great book on vintage computers in a used-book store.  I wanted to buy it, but thought they were asking way too much, considering it was a used book.  Later I decided to go ahead and spend the money, and went back to get it—but it was gone.  The new store owner thought books on outdated computers were worthless, and got rid of them!  Now of course we can enjoy all of that online, free, with no limit.  And we definitely do, and are impressed by the dedication shown by the pioneers to accomplish what they did with what they had to work with.

I sometimes think about how much money and effort was spent on computers that were, within even a couple of years, surpassed in power, affordability, and other desirable traits.  It seems a shame, as it seems like the computer had no chance of paying for itself.  It was a necessary part of the development of the computer field though, and probably all of us took part in that to some extent.  I used to frequent a surplus electronics store that had a storage yard outdoors for the big stuff, including mainframe computer components that went for probably millions of dollars (at least in today's money) 25 years earlier, and here they sat, out in the weather.

Seeing the circuit boards in the video, we could think, "Why didn't they make them denser?  Why are parts so spread out?"  But I suppose most of us who started in electronics in the 1960's or 70's started the same way, having almost no reference yet, nor anything to even make us even think about it. Coming out of the age of vacuum tubes, miniaturization was a new thing.  So were so many other parts of computing, like programming languages, and even what a computer could be used for.  So much was not even imagined yet, as the field was new and exciting (but also not without insecurities in what companies and systems would survive the coming shakedowns and which ones would fail).

There's definitely a romance to computer history, like one might have for steam locomotives, sailing ships, lighthouses, and more.  Thanks for the link.