Submission + - UK's oldest computer to be 're-booted'.
Smivs writes: "Britain's oldest original computer, the Harwell, is being sent to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley where it is to be restored to working order.
The computer, which was designed in 1949 was built and used by staff at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire. It first ran in 1951 and was designed to perform mathematical calculations. It lasted until 1973.
When first built the 2.4m x 5m computer was state-of-the-art, although it was superseded by transistor-based systems.
The restoration project is expected to take a year. Although not the first computer built in the UK, the Harwell had one of the longest service lives.
Built by a team of three people, the device was capable of doing the work of six to ten people and ran for seven years until the establishment obtained their first commercial computer.
"We didn't think we were doing anything pioneering at the time," said Dick Barnes, who helped build the original Harwell computer."
