World's Oldest Digital Computer 'WITCH' Resurrected
Bangalore: An ancient original digital computer “WITCH” has been restored by a team of volunteers at the UK’s National Museum of Computing based at Bletchley.
Harwell Dekatron, also known as WITCH computer begun its life on 1951 and was redundant by 1957. After three years of its restoration work, the WITCH has sprung back to life and this 2.5 tonne mammoth commuting machine with its flashing lights, clattering printers and readers, went on awe-inspiring display at the UK's National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) at Bletchley Park on Tuesday.
WITCH has 828 flashing Dekatron valves, 480 relays, 18 switches, bank of paper tape readers, and gulps in 1.5 kW of power was re-booted in the presence of two of its original designers and one of its first users. Remarkably, the restoration team said that the majority of parts in the machine are original.
"In 1951 the Harwell Dekatron was one of perhaps a dozen computers in the world, and since then it has led a charmed life surviving intact while its contemporaries were recycled or destroyed," said Kevin Murrell, a trustee of TNMOC who initiated the restoration project, reports ZD Net. “As the world’s oldest original working digital computer, it provides a wonderful contrast to our Rebuild of the wartime Colossus, the world’s first semi-programmable electronic computer,” he added.
The computer rather had chequered existence. It first began working at the Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment, where it was put to work performing routine calculations. It was already redundant by 1957. The machine then transferred to the Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Technical College, where it was renamed WITCH, used to teach Computation and was used until 1973.
The machine was then gone on display at the Birmingham Museum of Science and Technology, before being transferred to storage. It was discovered later in 2008 when Murrell stumbled up on the machines control panel in a photograph of stored equipment, "That sparked our ideas to rescue it and we hunted it down," he said.
"The restoration was quite a challenge requiring work with components like valves, relays and paper tape readers that are rarely seen these days and are certainly not found in modern computers," said Delwyn Holroyd, a TNMOC volunteer.
