Last operating ICT 1301 mainframe computer set to run again

[ScienceRocks]

Last operating ICT 1301 mainframe computer set to run again

What weighs 5 tons and has less computing power than your watch? A pioneering piece of computing history call "Flossie," the last operating ICT 1301 mainframe. The National Museum of Computing recently took delivery of the dismantled computer, which needed three moving vans to bring it to the museum’s storage facility in Milton Keynes, UK.

We’re so used to thinking of computers as being so small that a perfectly practical one can fit in your trouser pocket that its easy to believe that preserving historic computers is largely a matter of finding enough shoe boxes and cupboards to put them in. However, many of the early pioneer machines weigh tons and some are so large that they’re less devices than works of architecture.

This is the problem with the ICT 1301. It has a footprint of 700 sq ft (65 sq m), weighs 5.5 tons (5 tonnes), and has a solid steel chassis strong enough to stand on without hurting it – and, believe it or not, one of its big selling points when first made was that it was small.

Last operating ICT 1301 mainframe computer set to run again