
The First Computers in East Africa and what became of them (2015) - cobralibre
http://owaahh.com/the-first-computers-in-east-africa-and-what-became-of-them/
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MrBuddyCasino
> But the machine in Dar es Salaam disappeared during the 1964 Zanzibar
> Revolution. At some point during the upheaval, somebody with knowledge of
> how to dismantle the heavy and complicated machine removed it from its known
> location. British intelligence later reported that the machine had somehow
> made its way to China where it had been carefully disassembled and analyzed
> and used as a learning tool for their computer industry.

Thats an interesting ending.

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jefftk
_> There was a piece of EAM equipment called a “multiplier” that used valves
(predecessor to transistors, designed for use in radios and TVs). This machine
could read two numbers out of a punched card, and multiply (or divide) them
and punch the result back into different columns in the same card. The problem
was that it was not very reliable (valves kept burning out – when you have
some hundreds of valves, the chances of one “going” while you are processing
some thousand of electricity billing cards is pretty likely)._

Note that they're using the British "valve" for what is typically called a
"vacuum tube".

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Animats
That was probably an IBM 604.[1] The 604 was the first piece of electronic
computing equipment manufactured and sold in quantity. It's an illustration of
the big problem of the era - no good memory devices. The 604 had electronic
add, subtract, multiply, divide, and control flow, but was programmed with a
plugboard and had punched-card I/O. No place to store data other than a few
registers.

Tube failure was more or less under control by then. IBM had a tube R&D center
on the Hudson River working on that. They came up with a more reliable tube
design and had RCA make the tubes in quantity. Experimental machines like the
ENIAC could have big staffs replacing tubes and maintaining the machine, but a
commercial product had to have reliable operation.

IBM had people working on electronic computing as early as 1936, but it took
over a decade to get to a shippable product. WWII got in the way, of course.

[1]
[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/604.html](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/604.html)

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contingencies
Saw an obscure early US computer in the museum of a tin mine in China (Gejiu,
Yunnan). I believe it was used to calculate trigonometric functions for mine
shaft planning. French presence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave
way in the 1940s to US presence, before communism and modernity.

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perl4ever
It's kind of weird to think about nuclear reactors being older than
computers...particularly in Africa.

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Baeocystin
To be fair, Africa has quite the lead on that one!

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oklo-
reactor](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oklo-reactor)

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badrabbit
> As part of the British Empire, East Africa used some of the...

Minor correction,only parts of east africa were British colonies.

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babayega2
Exactly. More precisely, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Other

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droithomme
What a fun article. Starts in the late 1800s and includes problems where
computers go down because of snake shooting.

