I was channel flipping and came across a movie on The Disney Channel where
a guy was standing in front of the front panel of a computer with tape
drives spinning in the background. He was doing some demonstration for
three men, pushing buttons and flipping switches on the front panel and
then the computer was spitting out results on punch card from the front
(this part was fake). At first I thought it was a recent film. I thought
the tape drives looked very authentic, because their movement was very
real. Then I looked at the front panel and saw "Siemens System 4004", and
was quite surprised.
It turns out the movie is "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". The
last time I saw this was probably 15 years ago.
The Siemens System 4004 is very interesting in this context. According to
Hans, it is the first fully transistorized digital computer, beating out
even the MIT TX-0. The Austrian Mail?fterl also vies for the title, but
Hans Franke claims it wasn't fully completed or something:
http://www.museumonline.at/2000/wien-feuerbach/mailueft/mailueft_de.htm
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/5163/1.html
A quick Google search turned up a computer that I was not previously aware
of:
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/events/sscomputer.html
This is the TRADIC (TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer) built by Bell Labs.
If the year is correct, I believe this is a contender for the title.
This site says 1955:
http://www.cedmagic.com/history/tradic-transistorized.html
Here's a couple pages on the Siemens 4004:
http://www.wolfgangtroeger.de/museum.htm
http://www.computermuseum-muenchen.de/computer/siemens/
Pretty cool stuff.
Is anyone still keeping track of these vintage computer movie appearances?
This one is pretty significant ;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Sun Jun 22 2003 - 22:44:00 BST