As Microsoft Exchange 2016 and 2019 Sunset, How Can Privacy-Conscious Organisations Future-Proof their Email?

NEWS
GOVERNMENT
SECURITY
AI
DIGITAL NATION
RESOURCES
PODCAST
EVENTS
ADVERTISE

BUSINESS CLOUD DATA CENTRE

EDUCATION FINANCIAL SERVICES HARDWARE

HEALTHCARE INDUSTRIAL NETWORKING

PROJECTS SOFTWARE STORAGE

STRATEGY TECHNOLOGY TELCO/ISP

HR MARKETING FINANCE LEADERSHIP GOVERNANCE EMERGING TECH

STATE OF SECURITY 2025 State of HR Tech State of AI 2024

Special Reports Focal Points MEDIA HUB

PARTNER CONTENT PARTNER HUBS RESEARCH

Data&AI Breakfast SECURITY AWARDS DIGITAL NATION AWARDS BENCHMARK AWARDS Digital As Usual

NEWS

BUSINESS CLOUD DATA CENTRE EDUCATION FINANCIAL SERVICES HARDWARE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRIAL NETWORKING PROJECTS SOFTWARE STORAGE STRATEGY TECHNOLOGY TELCO/ISP

GOVERNMENT SECURITY AI DIGITAL NATION

HR MARKETING FINANCE LEADERSHIP GOVERNANCE EMERGING TECH

RESOURCES

STATE OF SECURITY 2025 State of HR Tech State of AI 2024 Special Reports Focal Points MEDIA HUB PARTNER CONTENT PARTNER HUBS RESEARCH

PODCAST EVENTS

Data&AI Breakfast SECURITY AWARDS DIGITAL NATION AWARDS BENCHMARK AWARDS Digital As Usual

ADVERTISE

Log In

Email:

Password:

Remember me | Forgot password?

Don't have an account? Register now!

Home
Galleries

Photos: Inside the Computer History Museum

Mountain View California, the heart of Silicon Valley, is home to a fascinating collection of ancient tech. Many thanks to Zara Baxter, who went along to have a look with her camera.

on Sep 4 2009 11:51AM

This is Seymour Cray's Cray 1 supercomputer. It was the most powerful computer in the world till 1977. It cost between $5m and $10m and could do as many calculations per second as most modern mobile phones.

This is a replica of Charles Babbage's analytical engine, which was never actually built. Babbage, who was born in 1791, designed what is essentially a mechanical version of the modern day computer.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, was started life in 1979 as a small exhibit in the lobby of Digital Equipment Corporation's Massachusetts HQ because Gordon Bell and Gwen Bell wanted to display their personal collection of (relatively) ancient technology. In 1984, the collection had grown and was opened to the public as part of another exhibition in Boston. It wasn't till 1996, just as the dot com boom had started, that most of the collection was moved to its present location in Silicon Valley.

thing

The MADDIDA (Magnetic Drum Digital Differential Analyser), from 1950, marked a transition between analog and digital computing machines. Believe it or not, this mess of wires helped design airplanes by solving differential equations.

The birth of IBM! Herman Hollerith designed an automated way to conduct the 1890 US census using punch cards. This remained a common method for feeding information into electronic computers for many years to come. In 1911 Hollerith sold his patent to a company that 13 years later renamed itself International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

dfdf

fdgfg

This is IBM's 604 Calculator, which in 1954 because the company's first mass-produced electronic computer. The colourful mess of wires is a plug board used to 'program' the system to interpret punch cards. In 1959, more than 5,000 of these systems were in regular use.

This is a "memory tank" from 1951 for the for the UNIVAC I. The computer had ten of these, which allowed it to store a massive 20,000 bytes.

This is part of the Whirlwind I digital computer, which was operational in 1951. It was the first computer to ditch valves in favour of magnetic memory. At the time, it cost $17.5m and was used by the US Defense Department.

fddfg

dfgdfg

This is the Rand Corporation's Johnniac, which was a binary, bit-parallel computer. The system was apparently responsible for persuading IBM to investigate ditching punch cards in favour of programs stored electronically. With 4k of memory, this system cost around $470,000.

Another view of the Johnniac.

fdgdfg

SAGE was an air-defense system, consisting of over 20 locations across the US. Each housed an A/N FSQ-7 computer, which had around 60,000 vacuum tubes. IBM constructed the hardware, based on the Whirlwind, and each computer occupied a huge amount of space. From it's completion in 1954 it analysed radar data in real-time, to provide a complete picture of US Airspace during the cold war.

fdfgd

This is a collection of circuit boards from the 60's. This miracle of modern technology replaced the unreliable and power hungry vacuum tubes, or valves.

Looks like a punch card? That is because it is - but a punch card for controlling a loom. In 1801 Joseph Marie Jacquard created the first machine to ever be controlled by punch cards. The "Jacquard loom card" allowed complex patterns created by a loom to be changed by simply switching cards.

fgdfg

This is a gear and arm from the Babbage engine. It was built using Babbage's 1847 design.

fgfgh

gfgh

Meet just one panel from ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), which in 1946 was one of the largest and most power hungry electronic devices. It contained 18,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and consumed enough power for 50 homes -- all this to perform for 5,000 calculations per second. Modern mobile phones can perform millions of calculations per second while modern supercomputers can do many, many trillion.

This is Enigma, the encryption machine used by the Germans to hide their communications during WWII. The combination of dials and plugs meant there were more than a trillion combinations for any given number. British mathematicians in Bletchley Park eventually broke the codes using a valve-based machine called the Colossus, which was the first digital, programmable computer.

The modern day disk drive was invented by IBM and started shipping in 1956. These were an instant hit because they could store data even when the power was turned off! Most modern hard drives use exactly the same principals as this unit -- spinning platters and heads inside a sealed unit. The large disk in this picture is from the early 1970's.

gfhgf

The IBM 729 IV is a Magnetic Tape Unit that forms part of the 1958 IBM 7090 Data Processing System - an all-in-one Mainframe computer solution with card reader, printer, card punch, Central Processing unit, and more. Legend has it that the 729 prototype had two status lights, one marked 'Select' and the other 'Idle'. However, an IBM bigwig noticed this when visiting the lab and told the engineers, "That is unacceptable! IBM machines are never idle,". The production model's lights were labelled 'Select' and 'Ready'.

How about using this hard drive in your laptop? It weighs over 27kg and could store 5mb.

IBM System 360 mainframes hit the market in 1965. This console was the type used by NASA during the first manned moon missions.

dfgfdg

This is not a multicoloured spaghetti making machine in full swing. Actually it is Control Data Corporation's mainframe computer, the CDC 6600. It was the cutting edge of computing technology in the mid-late 1960s.

Meet the 'Omnibot 2000', a robot toy from the 80s made by Tomy. It could be controlled with instructions from a tape drive or via remote control. Danger, Will Robinson!

dffdgfgfd

fdgdfg

dfgdfg

fdgfdg

fdgfdfg

Linked Articles

Photos: Inside the Computer History Museum

Tags:

Partner Content

Promoted Content AI in cybersecurity: weapon or shield?

Microsoft Copilot Partner Hub

Partner Content Australian organisations must act on security – or risk AI ambitions falling flat

Partner Content ElasticON Sydney 2025: Deriving value from your data with Search AI

Partner Content AI Supercharged: How Search is Powering the Future

Partner Content Elastic's Open Source Strategy Drives Innovation and Expansion

Dave Stevens on Brennan's evolution and the need for Aussie tech unity

Sydney's ITKnocks on contact centre AI and the slow death of the IVR

"It's an exciting time to be part of the health and aged care sector"

Insicon founder Matt Miller on the coming 'tsunami' of compliance and educating boards about cyber security

Orro claims Australia first with managed digital asset discovery service

Latest Comments

Events

Tech in Gov 2025
Forrester's Technology & Innovation Summit APAC 2025
Security Exhibition & Conference 2025
Integrate Expo 2025
Digital As Usual Cybersecurity Roadshow: Brisbane edition

Most popular tech stories

Optus' first AI chief Samantha Lawson exits

Woolworths Group consolidates 30,000 marketing assets into Adobe platform

NAB brings Pete Steel into new digital, data and AI exec role

El Jannah backs Salesforce martech stack to support store expansion

Adelaide University stands up its digital stack
Dell’s new platform wants to end HCI vendor lock-in

Announcing the 2025 Impact Awards Partner Leadership finalists

Macquarie Cloud Services to move CareSuper from VMware on AWS to Azure

Qantas says 6 million customer accounts accessed in cyber hack

Evergreen hungry for more Australian MSPs
Blackberry celebrates "giant step forward"

Telstra to host IoT State of the Nation event on November 14

Laing O'Rourke brings IoT to hard hats

NSW Government building business case for state-wide digital twin

365mesh launches updated Aussie-made vibration sensor

OTHER TECH SITES: techpartner.news | Digital Nation | IoT Hub

All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form without prior authorisation.
Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of nextmedia's Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Log In

Don't have an account? Register now!

Email:

Password:

Remember me | Forgot your password?

As Microsoft Exchange 2016 and 2019 Sunset, How Can Privacy-Conscious Organisations Future-Proof their Email?

Microsoft to cut about four percent of jobs amid hefty AI bets

Google offers new proposal to stave off EU antitrust fine

Defence commits to five more years of Azure worth $495m

El Jannah backs Salesforce martech stack to support store expansion

Photos: Inside the Computer History Museum

Mountain View California, the heart of Silicon Valley, is home to a fascinating collection of ancient tech. Many thanks to Zara Baxter, who went along to have a look with her camera.

Linked Articles

Most popular tech stories

Optus' first AI chief Samantha Lawson exits

Woolworths Group consolidates 30,000 marketing assets into Adobe platform

NAB brings Pete Steel into new digital, data and AI exec role

El Jannah backs Salesforce martech stack to support store expansion

Adelaide University stands up its digital stack

Dell’s new platform wants to end HCI vendor lock-in

Announcing the 2025 Impact Awards Partner Leadership finalists

Macquarie Cloud Services to move CareSuper from VMware on AWS to Azure

Qantas says 6 million customer accounts accessed in cyber hack

Evergreen hungry for more Australian MSPs

Blackberry celebrates "giant step forward"

Telstra to host IoT State of the Nation event on November 14

Laing O'Rourke brings IoT to hard hats

NSW Government building business case for state-wide digital twin

365mesh launches updated Aussie-made vibration sensor