Old Computers Resurrected As Instruments At Bletchley Park 109
arcticstoat writes with a snippet from bit-tech.com; musician Matthew Applegate "plans on assembling a virtual orchestra of 20 retired relics of computing at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The choice of venue will even allow Applegate to feature the infamous Colossus Mark 2 computer in the event, which was used for code-breaking in World War II and was recently reconstructed at Bletchley Park in 2007. ... A wide selection of computing fossils be used in Applegate's final musical presentation, which is called 'Obsolete?' This includes the Elliot 803 (a 1960s machine with 4KB of memory), the aforementioned Colossus Mark 2, a Bunsviga adding machine (pictured) and a punch card machine. As well as this, there are also some machines that will look nostalgically familiar to kids who grew up with the home computer generation, including a BBC Micro, an Atari 800XL, a Dragon 32 and an Amstrad CPC464." The article's list of the members of this "orchestra" makes an interesting checklist of computer hardware history.
Infamous? (Score:5, Informative)
Why is the Colossus "infamous"? It's famous, and it's use saved thousands of lives and shortened the war.
Brett
a bit more useful (Score:5, Informative)
bbc report with sound and video
open in a tab then buy tickets !!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7895853.stm [bbc.co.uk]
tickets links -
March 20th, 2009 http://www.etickets.to/buy/?e=2285 [etickets.to]
March 21th, 2009 http://www.etickets.to/buy/?e=2373 [etickets.to]
regards
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk [johnjones.me.uk]
Re:NO! Not Colossus! (Score:5, Informative)
Poor Forbin! He will be locked up alnight with that sex female computer scientist.
Parent is a reference to Colossus: The Forbin Project [wikipedia.org].
You young whippersnappers that modded the parent off-topic can get off of my lawn now.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
Aside from the Atari 800XL, the other computers were practically unknown in the U.S. Well, the Amstrad wasn't unknown, but the Amstrad never gained a significant following.
The Apple II was one of the best selling "home computers," along with the Commodore 64 and 128 and (later) the Commodore Amiga line.
FWIW, I've never seen an Atari 800XL IRL, either. ;) (But I have seen the Amstrad).
I think the reason the Amstrad never caught on in the U.S. is because it was released in 1984, well after the CP/M and the Z80 were considered 'dead'. By that time, the IBM PC and PC/XT and its clones had pretty much taken over the business market and was making significant inroads at home, the Apple II owned the home and education markets, and the Mac had just debuted and was considered one of the coolest new machines ever. Then a year later, you had the 16-bit Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga, along with the the 16-bit IBM PC/AT and EGA graphics, the Amstrad CPC and it's puny 8-bit processor and limited memory just didn't stack up.
Re:Symphony for Dot Matrix Printers (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.theuser.org/dotmatrix/en/intro.html [theuser.org]
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
The bbc micro sat in a yellow injection moulded plastic case.
It had no 'expansion slots', but it did have several connectors at the edge of the pcb that you could use for expansion (berg connectors).
These included:
- printer port
- the 'tube', a bi-directional link for a second processor
- the user port
- the 1Mhz bus.
Internally there were a number of option rom sockets, which with some trickery could be used for a ram expansion (bank switched 16 k windows).
There were no 'slots' of any kind.
I'm not sure which computer you are referring to here but I have never seen a bbc model b encased in anything other than plastic unless it was done as a custom job.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Only businesses with a PDP11 or DG Nova did not need an Apple ][, The Apple ][ cost about GBP100 and used about 30W, while a PDP11 or DG Nova cost at least GBP10,000, and used about 30kW.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong!! The BBC Micro had a 6502, just like the Apple ][ or the Commodore 64.
The successor of the BBC Micro was the Acorn Archimedes, based on a RISC CPU developed by Acorn. This chip is the one that later became the ARM chip, now found in many phones and PDAs.
There are 3 valid spellings for "Elliott" (Score:3, Informative)
I think you mean the Elliott 803 [wikipedia.org] You're welcome.
Apple II was sold in UK, but not in great numbers (Score:3, Informative)
Apple II's were sold over here, they were just not that prevalent.
Yes; the UK hospital my Dad worked at had Apple IIs, but this was one of the few (if only) places I saw them in the UK. Had I not seen them there, it's quite possible that I'd never have seen one at all.
They actually sold Euro-specific versions [wikipedia.org]; reading this I find out that (supposedly) these were mono-only (yuk!) because the smart but NTSC-specific hack Woz used to get crude colour on the original didn't work with PAL.
This explains why my Dad (who used the things quite extensively) was never aware that the Apple II was supposedly capable of colour. I found this surprising, even allowing for the fact that all the ones at the hospital only had green-screen monitors.
I suspect that since the Euro Apples were mono only (regardless of what they were plugged into), references to any colour facilities would have been removed from the manuals. (Assuming they left the firmware relating to the U.S. colour facilities in the ROM for compatibility).
Anyway, I'd guess that the combination of high imported prices and reduced spec hurt its European popularity initially- and that as a result it wouldn't have achieved the critical mass and network effects required to ensure continued popularity in the face of newer and better-specified computers (unlike in the U.S.).
I mean, I don't know how much the Apple II was circa 1981/82, but I doubt that it would have been cheaper than the somewhat high-end and better-specified BBC Micro. And in the absence of any significant pre-existing support for the Apple, I know which one I'd have gone for.
I've got an Apple III as well and they are even rarer - didn't know they existed until I was given one instead of the owner dumping it.
I don't know when he dumped it, but I'd assume that any Apple IIIs are rare enough to be worth a bit now...?