Oldest ''Working'' Computer Gets New Life

[Mach5Motorsport]

Just put a glowing soft light bulb behind the panel. for the oooh ahhh effect.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I wonder where the ENIAC (first fully Turing-complete) vacuum-tube computer is nowadays... It took up the space of a small gym and used 150KW of power, and a speed of something like 5000 instructions per second. In contrast, the Intel 8088 used just a few watts and could execute over 330K IPS.

But IIRC the ENIAC was by far the biggest leap forward of all time - something like a thousand times the performance of its immediate predecessor which used electro-mechanical relays instead of vacuum tubes.

 

[christop]

Sweet keep it going....

 

[Guest]

I get putting it in a museum. But why restore it to working function. It has no function anymore, even if lights flash and wheels twirl, it still has no function if its 'working' or not.

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]lkdfklj28j82jksj[/nom]I get putting it in a museum. But why restore it to working function. It has no function anymore, even if lights flash and wheels twirl, it still has no function if its 'working' or not.[/citation]

It has plenty of function, granted it's not usable in scociety today as mroe than a nostalgia , epice , but it can alwasy go fort eh world's largest calculator , but seriously i don't see why so many folks take beef over a museam spendign so doh to refurbish old things , . It's liek tehy bassically think history is "not worth it" i guess we jsut need to throw history out of school all together and perhaps we can have a few more world wars while we are at it

 

[chrisgoerg]

i ran crysis on it. at the highest res too.

 

[kingnoobe]

Well demon.. They think of history as you so obviously think of english.

 

[g00ey]

[citation][nom]Blessedman[/nom]Super computers from 10 years ago are a joke compared to what sit on our desktop, for that matter even the iphone.[/citation]

Not really. I remember about 15 years ago when I was visiting an Amiga computer club where they got heaps of old supercomputers and workstations. One thing that impressed me was that a computer from the beginning of the '80s was as fast as a modern Pentium MMX 200MHz. During the early '90s MIPS released 64-bit superscalar CPUs known as R10000 featuring up to 4MB cache per core, which were found in $500000 Silicon Graphics workstations. And I'm quite sure DEC and SUN released some quite impressive CPUs by that time (such as SPARC and Alpha). And we all know how long it has taken before the 64-bit architecture reached the consumer market.

Maybe the 10-years-old hardware doesn't compete with the top-of-the line gadgets we have today but they sure ain't a joke. As a matter of fact you can buy those million dollar servers second-hand for a price that matches the price of new hardware with similar performance minus tear and wear, and they sure ain't cheap although they don't cost millions as they used to.

 

[caskachan]

LETS TROW AWAY MONEY INTO OLD TECHNOLOGY FOR USELESSNESS FUCKS

FUCK YEAH AMERIKKKA

 

[Devastator_uk]

I think an Atom CPU is more energy efficient

 

[jsc]

There is always a debate about how many resources we put into keeping our history alive.

 

[rambo117]

[citation][nom]Devastator_uk[/nom]I think an Atom CPU is more energy efficient[/citation]
maybe a little

 

[razor512]

find a way to get mac osx installed on it thin within the mac os install vm ware then have that run windows 7, then using the virtual windows xp that comes with windows 7, have it run photoshop

and if it fails, then strap it and consider all that money used to fix it is a waste of money and can be better spent on other things

 

[Burodsx]

Seriously what a waste of money.

 

[wongster]

waste of money/resources

 

[pocketdrummer]

Whenever I see something like this, I really wish I could take my computer back in time just to blow someone's mind. It'd be like taking a Bugatti Veyron back in time to Henry Ford.... not that the roads would let it get up to speed, but still.

 

[Rancifer7]

[citation][nom]pocketdrummer[/nom]Whenever I see something like this, I really wish I could take my computer back in time just to blow someone's mind. It'd be like taking a Bugatti Veyron back in time to Henry Ford.... not that the roads would let it get up to speed, but still.[/citation]

You could take the TIRES of that car back to Henry Ford and blow his mind.

 

[james_lankford]

This is the voice of world control.

I bring you peace.
It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death.

The choice is yours: Obey me and live,
or disobey and die.

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Rq-PEW5qM

one of the greatest movies ever

 

[kelewan]

[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]It has plenty of function, granted it's not usable in scociety today as mroe than a nostalgia , epice , but it can alwasy go fort eh world's largest calculator , but seriously i don't see why so many folks take beef over a museam spendign so doh to refurbish old things , . It's liek tehy bassically think history is "not worth it" i guess we jsut need to throw history out of school all together and perhaps we can have a few more world wars while we are at it[/citation]

It would appear that English is already on it's way out.

 

[kentlowt]

[citation][nom]g00ey[/nom]Not really. I remember about 15 years ago when I was visiting an Amiga computer club where they got heaps of old supercomputers and workstations. One thing that impressed me was that a computer from the beginning of the '80s was as fast as a modern Pentium MMX 200MHz. During the early '90s MIPS released 64-bit superscalar CPUs known as R10000 featuring up to 4MB cache per core, which were found in $500000 Silicon Graphics workstations. And I'm quite sure DEC and SUN released some quite impressive CPUs by that time (such as SPARC and Alpha). And we all know how long it has taken before the 64-bit architecture reached the consumer market.Maybe the 10-years-old hardware doesn't compete with the top-of-the line gadgets we have today but they sure ain't a joke. As a matter of fact you can buy those million dollar servers second-hand for a price that matches the price of new hardware with similar performance minus tear and wear, and they sure ain't cheap although they don't cost millions as they used to.[/citation]
We still use one of those DEC machines. I also run a personal web site off of one that is even pre Alpha. I have more issues with internet speed than the computer speed. They are rock solid and very secure and still running after many years...can't say as much for all the x86 machines I have owned.