A simple computer the size of a room may be hard to imagine at this time when computers vying to become thinner, smaller, and lighter. But as that used computer the British government 61 years ago.
The device claimed digital computer in the world's oldest still functioning it - the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell, or WITCH, can now be witnessed visitors. The device was more than half a century it has been enabled in the National Computer Museum in Buckinghamshire, England.
"In 1951, Harwell Dekatron is one of maybe a dozen computers in the world., And since then her charm remain intact while contemporary computer recycled or destroyed," said Kevin Murrell museum leaders said in a statement.
Work to restore WITCH began three years ago. WITCH was first used in 1951 for atomic research. This computer runs on the telephone and relay Dekatron hundreds of tubes, each of which can accommodate a memory one digit. Paper tape is used to enter the data and save the output of the engine computer.
With the display at the museum, one can see the light machine weighing almost 3 tons of it on and the printer runs. WITCH design gives priority to reliability rather than speed. This tool is an algorithm to solve the speed as someone using a mechanical calculator and can work for days without error, according to the museum.
"Seeing as active as watching the inside of a computer - something not possible on a machine that exists today," said Murrell.
This machine is not the oldest electronic calculating device but is considered the first modern computer is still able to work.