The 2.5 tonne, 1951 computer from Harwell with its 828 flashing Dekatron valv...

Terrence Miao - 2012-11-21 06:55:39+1100 - Updated: 2012-11-21 06:55:39+1100

The 2.5 tonne, 1951 computer from Harwell with its 828 flashing Dekatron valves, 480 relays and bank of paper tape readers, was re-booted in the presence of two of its original designers and one of its first users.

Designed for reliability rather than speed, it could carry on relentlessly for days at a time delivering its error-free results. It wasn’t even binary, but worked in decimal – a feature that is displayed by its flashing Dekatron valves.

Oldest digital computer re-booted at Museum of Computing - Local - Milton Keynes Citizen

Michael Poloni - 2012-11-21 08:35:34+1100

Sad that it was "left to rot" in storage all those years. Our own CSIRAC almost faced a similar fate a few years ago when the Melbourne Museum wanted to take it off display for other exhibits - thankfully it's still there.

It would have been a monumental effort to get the 'WITCH' into an operational state! I doubt today's computers could be rebooted 60 years from now :)

I've had the pleasure of joining the company on Tuesdays of a couple of people who worked on CSIRAC at Melbourne University. They're still active at the University as part of the history team, having spent significant time many years ago documenting CSIRAC and preparing it for exhibition.