Computer History Museum
Friday afternoon I visited the newly-opened Computer History Museum. Although not yet finished, major pieces from the permanent collection were on display.
One of the machines displayed was an Enigma machine, the most famous cryptographic tool from World War II.
Colossus Also on display was the only remaining part (a cylinder, visible in the picture at right) from one of the Colossus machines designed to help break the Lorenz code (University of Waterloo professor emeritus Bill Tutte cracked the Lorenz code). The world’s first programmable electronic computer, it was destroyed after the war, and its existence classified until just recently.
Cray 2 Among the more modern machines were the Cray-1 and Cray-2 (the Cray-2 is shown at left). As you can see, the earlier designs were circular. This allowed the wires connecting the various modules to go around the centre, thus shortening the length of the wires and allowing faster operation.
The neatest machine may have been the Hollerith Census Machine, which was used to tabulate the 1890 US Census. Hollerith merged with C-T-R (Computing-Tabulating-Recording) Company and in 1924 changed its name to International Business Machines.
There was also a SUN-1 workstation, the first virtual reality goggles (designed by a graphics researcher named Ivan Sutherland), a Pixar Image Computer, and a both an Apple I and an Apple Cube. A great trip through history. See also Meredith’s blog entry about our trip.
Comment by Patrick
Hey Doug,
Schelgel and I visited the Diefenbunker last year. Ok stand alone it was pretty cool, but their ‘museum’ also had an origial enigma. Apparently the guy who owns the bunker also bought one of the enigma’s at auction. So Sweet.
The two rectangular comps standing on either side the circular thing (looks generator like) look almost identical to the UNICRON. COOL!
Cheers,
P
