The Harwell Dekatron WITCH has been rebuilt and rebooted at The National Museum of Computing in England, making it the world’s oldest working digital computer.
The 2.5 tonne, 1951 computer from Harwell with its 828 flashing Dekatron valves, 480 relays and a bank of paper tape readers will clatter back into action in the presence of two of the original designers, one of its first users and many others who have admired it at different times during its remarkable history.
If you’re a computer geek and get the chance to visit Bletchley Park, make sure you don’t overlook the museum. I had the opportunity to visit a couple years ago — I had no idea it was there, and probably could’ve devoted another day to it.
The Submarine Cable Map, just in case you wanted to know where your bits are going. Here’s an excerpt from the description of the site:
TeleGeography’s free interactive submarine cable map is based on our authoritative Global Bandwidth research, and depicts active and planned submarine cable systems and their landing stations. Selecting a cable route on the map provides access to data about the cable, including the cable’s name, ready-for-service (RFS) date, length, owners, website, and landing points. Selecting a landing point provides a list of all submarine cables landing at that station.
The source is available too.
An excerpt from Tim Berners-Lee’s post to comp.sys.next.announce concerning the release of the WorldWideWeb app:
This project is experimental and of course comes without any warranty whatsoever. However, it could start a revolution in information access. We are currently using WWW for user support at CERN. We would be very interested in comments from anyone trying WWW, and especially those making other data available, as part of a truly world-wide web.
A revolution in information access indeed.
You also might be interested in this post from the eightface archive: The oldest page on the internet.
The Library of Congress has Alexander Graham Bell’s family papers in their collections. Among the thousands of pieces in the archive are Bell’s journals, containing sketches and details from the earliest telephone prototypes. The diagram above indicates that using the telephone should be a far more epic experience. The Atlantic has a selection of some of the weirder sketches in the notebooks.
GrinOn has developed a method for dispensing beer from the bottom, allowing the cup to be filled nine times faster. The post includes a video of them pouring fifty-six beers in sixty seconds.
The key is the use of a cup that features a hole at the bottom and small, circular magnet that rests over it. When placed on the system, the magnet is lifted up by the pressure-driven beer. The cup fills up until the weight of the liquid pushes the magnet back down over the hole. The cup can then be lifted off and the beer consumed as normal.
How to construct a 4-bit computer, see how computing works at a base level.
Steve Sasson created the world’s first digital camera in 1976, while working at Kodak. He discusses the development of the camera in this video.
It was a camera that didn’t use any film to capture still images – a camera that would capture images using a CCD imager and digitize the captured scene and store the digital info on a standard cassette. It took 23 seconds to record the digitized image to the cassette. The image was viewed by removing the cassette from the camera and placing it in a custom playback device.
Given Moore’s Law, they estimated that it would take 15 to 20 years before such a camera reached the general consumer. The patent file contains a description and drawings of the apparatus.
A Hype Cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The cycle consists of five phases, including the trigger, inflated expectations, disillusionment, enlightenment and the plateau.
Dual Perspectives is an ongoing series of articles examining the future of technology and the web.
Steve Chamberlin created his own custom 8-bit CPU, which he dubbed Big Mess of Wires. It brings me back to my assembly language class and the late night bug hunts, there’s something very visceral about talking directly to the machine.
