
How the World’s First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap - ghosh
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/eniac-unearthed/
======
bachback
Time to correct the record: the World's first electronic, programmable
computer was build by a German by the name of Konrad Zuse in May 1941 [1]
called Z3 [2]. He designed a language for it called Plankalkül [3].

Eniac was announced in 1946. Incidentally Turing wanted to be build one in
1945, called Electronic Brain. His paper "on computable numbers" was published
in 1936.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29)
[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl)

~~~
vanderZwan
The Germans also came up with the mouse around the same time as Doug
Engelbart's team did, technically beating him to the punch:

[http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/misc/telefunken.shtml](http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/misc/telefunken.shtml)

I'm kind of curious what other parts of computer history are overlooked
because they happened outside of the anglosphere.

~~~
DougMerritt
Not even close. That same site says that Englebart first _constructed_ a mouse
in 1963, 5 years earlier than that demo.

[http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/firstmouse.shtml](http://www.oldmouse.com/mouse/firstmouse.shtml)

Englebart's work wasn't secret; various other people may have constructed
their own mice after 1963, and yes, that sort of thing is interesting.

~~~
vanderZwan
Ah, good catch. I didn't click beyond the site I linked - bit misleading in
its wording then.

------
BuildTheRobots
Sorry for not joining the positivity parade, but taking the control panels,
repainting them and then wiring up the lights to blink in pretty ways seems
substantially wrong in a number of ways...

I guess "resurrected" is being used in the "brain dead and slightly rotten
body" zombie sense of the word :(

------
joe_fishfish
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer)

~~~
tankenmate
An although it is only a replica the Colossus at Bletchley Park actually
functions, unlike the ENIAC restoration.

Also of note is that by the end of the war the GC&CS had 10 working Colossi.

~~~
rst
And the same museum at Bletchley Park (there are two) is building a
functioning replica of the EDSAC, one of the first programmable, fully
electronic computers:

[http://www.tnmoc.org/special-projects/edsac](http://www.tnmoc.org/special-
projects/edsac)

(Whether EDSAC was "the first" depends on how you define "computer", and what
you think it means for a machine to be in operation, among other things, but
it's one of several plausible claimants. The Z3, cited elsewhere here, was a
programmable computer, but not fully electronic -- there was a lot of relay
circuitry, which kept the clock rate down to about 10 Hz.)

From the title, I was honestly expecting the article to be about this project
instead.

------
ChuckMcM
A front panel from a computer with artificially animated lights is the
'taxidermy deer head on a plaque' of the old computer world.

------
onestone
Atanasoff-Berry computer (1939)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_comput...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_computer)

------
davidw
> Gleason realized early on that he couldn’t make his portion of ENIAC run
> actual calculations—such an endeavor would require all 40 panels, not to
> mention thousands of new components and technical know-how that had long
> been forgotten. But he resolved to make the computer at least appear like it
> was hard at work figuring out the best flight paths for howitzer shells.

That's a bit disappointing. I guess it's nice you can at least see it though.

------
rootbear
I just saw some ENIAC panels at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View,
CA and I'm hoping to visit the Moore School of Engineering in Philadelphia
soon to see the parts they have. Now I'll have to visit Oklahoma and see the
restored portion they have. (I've also got cousins there, so that's another
reason to go.) I'm a big fan of ENIAC and the other early computers. As for
"first", I don't think any computer should be called out as the first, each of
them contributed something to the machines we have today.

------
userbinator
If anyone is interested in the workings of ENIAC at the circuit level this is
an interesting read:
[http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/k-8-pdf/k-8-r5367-1-ENIAC-
circuits.pdf)

------
arethuza
I always thought that the first machine that was really a "computer" in the
modern sense (i.e. stored program) was the Manchester "Baby":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Small-
Scale_Experime...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Small-
Scale_Experimental_Machine)

------
aidos
Nice!

Slightly OT but reminded me of an article from HN from a couple of years ago
about old(er) computers that are still in operation so I've reposted it [0]
for those who missed it last time around.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8657823](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8657823)

------
flurdy
Eniac? Z3? It was Baby!

[http://www.computer50.org/mark1/new.baby.html](http://www.computer50.org/mark1/new.baby.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Mark_1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Mark_1)

Disclaimer: University of Manchester Alumni

~~~
mnw21cam
It is no small source of acrimony in the University of Cambridge that
Manchester beat them to the first stored-program computer by one month with
the Baby. However, once the Baby had been demonstrated, it was promptly
dismantled, leaving Cambridge's EDSAC with the title of the world's first
_practical_ stored-program computer. The EDSAC was then used for nine years at
the Mathematical Laboratory before being shut down in favour of the EDSAC 2.

Back when I was doing my degree, the 50th anniversary of the EDSAC came
around, and we were given a project of creating a simulator for the machine.
This we did, even including the rather interesting sound that the original
machine made from a loudspeaker connected across the main mercury delay line.
Yes, RAM was implemented as a long tube of mercury with sound pulses
travelling down it and fed back into the beginning again.

~~~
hga
The Whirlwind Project seriously considered using a microwave "delay line", a
round trip microwave connection a long distance across the state of
Massachusetts. Ended up using Williams tubes
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube))
as did the Mark 1 and a number of other early computers (their random access
had an advantage over delay lines), and eventually invented 3D magnetic core
memory.

~~~
Someone
It has also been proposed to use a laser and one of the reflectors on the
moon. That would give you a 300,000 km storage line. That proposal wasn't
serious, though, if only because it is a challenge to keep that reflector in
your field of view.

Another impractical delay line, but with variable delay, is the internet. You
can hide some bits in a DNS request or in a Google search.

------
troymc
It seems we've unearthed a good nerd-sniping [1] question for readers of HN:
"What _was_ the first computer?"

[1] [http://xkcd.com/356/](http://xkcd.com/356/)

------
snooze82
ENIAC? Zuse Z3!

~~~
frtab
Zuse Z3? Babbage's Analytical Engine!

~~~
Hermel
The Z3 was the first operational turing-complete computer (May 1941, a few
years before ENIAC). Babbage's analytical engine was never actually built.

~~~
CmonDev
For me, as a software developer, it's about detailed design rather than
implementation. 1837-s design is much more impressive than 1941-s
implementation (100+ years later - you'd better build something with all that
time).

------
Animats
The ENIAC panels at the Smithsonian were at one time powered up, with a
functional counter. There was a little control box on a stand where you could
push some buttons and watch it count. But they had to power it down decades
ago. For the fiftieth anniversary, they powered it up briefly.

