Good news for Bletchley Park
Pioneering Edsac computer to be built at Bletchley Park
The first recognisably modern computer is to be rebuilt at the UK's former code-cracking centre Bletchley Park.
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) was a room-sized behemoth built at Cambridge university that first ran in 1949. Creation of the replica has been commissioned by the UK's Computer Conservation Society (CCS). The three-year re-build will be carried out before visitors to The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley.
Edsac was one of several early British computers that pioneered the practical use of such machines.
It was conceived and created by Sir Maurice Wilkes as a machine that could carry out many different kinds of calculation for Cambridge researchers and scientists.
During its nine-year lifespan, Edsac helped two Cambridge researchers win a Nobel and aided many more try out approaches and get results impossible to even conceive without the machine.
The £250,000 cost of the re-build will be paid for from funds raised by a consortium led by entrepreneur Hermann Hauser.
However, one part of the original Edsac that is unlikely to be re-created is the 1.5m (5 feet) long tubes of mercury used as a memory store. Modern health and safety regulations preclude the use of mercury.
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) was a room-sized behemoth built at Cambridge university that first ran in 1949. Creation of the replica has been commissioned by the UK's Computer Conservation Society (CCS). The three-year re-build will be carried out before visitors to The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley.
Edsac was one of several early British computers that pioneered the practical use of such machines.
It was conceived and created by Sir Maurice Wilkes as a machine that could carry out many different kinds of calculation for Cambridge researchers and scientists.
During its nine-year lifespan, Edsac helped two Cambridge researchers win a Nobel and aided many more try out approaches and get results impossible to even conceive without the machine.
The £250,000 cost of the re-build will be paid for from funds raised by a consortium led by entrepreneur Hermann Hauser.
However, one part of the original Edsac that is unlikely to be re-created is the 1.5m (5 feet) long tubes of mercury used as a memory store. Modern health and safety regulations preclude the use of mercury.
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