[HN Gopher] Colossus, the first large-scale electronic computer
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Colossus, the first large-scale electronic computer
Author : marcodiego
Score : 17 points
Date : 2025-02-04 16:22 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.colossus-computer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.colossus-computer.com)
| renw0rp wrote:
| National museum of computing [0] in Bletchley houses a rebuild of
| the Colossus computer. The people who volunteer there are great
| and always happy to explain the history.
|
| PS. Bletchley is around an hour on the train from London Euston.
| Bear in mind that even though the museum of computing is located
| in the old Bletchley park complex, it requires a separate ticket
| from the main Bletchley Park museum.
|
| [0] https://www.tnmoc.org/colossus
| hedora wrote:
| The article isn't very clear on technical details, or in what way
| Colossus was "first". The wikipedia article is though:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
|
| I think the main innovation was the use of valves (similar to
| tube logic), while other machines of the day used relay logic.
|
| This thing wasn't really a computer though, in that it was not
| turing complete, since there wasn't any support for branching or
| programmatic examination of its output.
|
| Instead, the operators would tell it what to run, look at the
| result, then manually apply a flowchart to decide what operation
| to take next.
|
| These first turing complete machine that "worked" was probably
| the Z3 from 1941. It was electromechanical and ran at one hz (vs
| the colossus which ran at 5000hz starting in 1942).
|
| It's unclear to me if the z1 or z2 were turing complete or not.
| The z1 supported floating point(!)
|
| This article gives an overview of more machines, and links to
| articles about most of them:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardwar...
| weebull wrote:
| > I think the main innovation was the use of valves (similar to
| tube logic), while other machines of the day used relay logic.
|
| Vacuum tubes and Thermionic Valves are the same thing. "Tubes"
| is the name that stuck in the states. "Valves" in the UK.
|
| > This thing wasn't really a computer though, in that it was
| not turing complete,
|
| Turing completeness isn't a requisit to compute. Tommy Flower's
| big step was taking the electronic switching technology used in
| telephone exchanges and applying it the computation. Others
| said that they would be unreliable with the switching speeds
| involved and mechanical switches were the only way to do it.
| Flower's knew the key to reliability was thermal stability and
| designed his machine.
|
| > > These first turing complete machine that "worked" was
| probably the Z3 from 1941.
|
| No, it didn't have a condition branch. Z4 had that, but after
| ENIAC did.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness
| adrian_b wrote:
| The Atanasoff-Berry computer was even earlier (working
| prototype in 1942, but much of the design had already been
| done by 1940).
|
| This was not a general-purpose computer, but a computer made
| with vacuum tubes that was dedicated to solving a single kind
| of problem, the solution of systems of linear equations.
|
| The Atanasoff-Berry computer not only used vacuum tubes for
| computation, but it also included the first DRAM memory,
| which was made with discrete capacitors.
|
| The report "Computing Machine for the Solution of Large
| Systems of Linear Algebraic Equations", written by John V.
| Atanasoff in 1940, demonstrates a very good understanding for
| that time of the principles on which electronic computing
| circuits and memories should be based.
|
| Moreover, the electronic circuits used in the Atanasoff-Berry
| computer have been a source of inspiration for the later
| ENIAC, because one of the members of the ENIAC team has made
| a visit there, inquiring about details of the computer.
|
| While the Atanasoff-Berry computer is likely to have been the
| first which has used vacuum tubes for computation, it has
| been derived from a series of British inventions made during
| the previous decade, which were used for making electronic
| counters used in nuclear and particle physics research, for
| measuring ionizing radiation.
|
| The electronic counters had been the first application of
| digital circuits made with vacuum or gas tubes, before
| automatic computers. The well-known high speed of the
| electronic counters is what has suggested the application of
| vacuum tubes for computing, both in USA with ABC, then ENIAC,
| and in UK, with Colossus.
| throw0101d wrote:
| Somewhat related, I enjoyed reading the (1999) book _ENIAC, the
| triumphs and tragedies of the world 's first computer_ by Scott
| McCartney on that system.
| gamedever wrote:
| Tangentially
|
| One of my favorites movies: Colosssus: The Forbin Project
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/
| jkonline wrote:
| Interesting; I have always thought ENIAC was "first."
| weebull wrote:
| Not uncommon. Collosus was classified for 50 years. All
| examples were broken up and destroyed along with all the plans
| by order of Winston Churchill. After it was declassified years
| later, the few people that knew about it set about rebuilding
| it from whatever fragments of information they could scrape
| together through old notes that had survived and interviews
| with the original team. Flowers (the designer) was still alive
| at the start of the project, but I don't think he lived to see
| it working.
|
| Apparently, when Collosus became public there were talks given
| where the Americans who worked on ENIAC (I think) were stunned
| to find that the British had solved a lot of the same problems
| they faced just before them. It was an extremely closely
| guarded secret.
| tengwar2 wrote:
| Also ENIAC was a single computer, while Colossus was in
| series production - there were ten of them, plus one being
| built at the end of the war.
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