Computers need to have blinking arrays of lights, so this computer is a true computer. However, computers are also supposed to make beepilly-beep sounds when the lights are blinking. This computer just makes a constant electric hum sound, so that is not appropriate.
Only in the movies, did computers EVER make beepity-beep noises. Computers care little about the noises they make, largely because they are deaf. But filmmakers? Filmmakers are not deaf, and the actual sounds that computers made - especially highly electro-mechanical ones like this - are offensive to filmmakers. Why? Because unlike other big machines, computers don't usually indicate what they're doing with sound. In punched-card and line printer systems, the card reader makes a fairly unobtrusive sound while it's reading in the program and data, and a LOT of noise when it's sending output to the card punch or line printer. But if it's a magnetic tape- or disc-based computer, it makes very little noise when the program and data are being read or written, and again, lots of noise when the job is actually done, as the results are being printed out. And for more sophisticated machines, the printing may be going on after the job is done, as it is starting up the next program. When you get into slightly later computers, in the late 1960s and 1970s, these still have card punches and line printers, but they are always running with a queue, so the line printer noise is way behind the actual work being done, and even with the line printer running, the cooling fans on all of this collected space heating equipment swamps out even the line printer, and certainly any mag tape or disk units, and the card punch mostly takes up space and contributes its own fan noise. Even when home computers came out, these rarely used beeps, except to indicate situations needing attention, so even in the 1980s, you see movie computers making all kinds of beeps and blaats, even though most of the audience knows that this just doesn't happen. On one Burroughs batch computer I used for a day in a decade long ago, programs were punched my noisy typewriter-operated equipment called an "029", which just sounded like a louder-than-necessary electric typewriter. These programs, or "jobs" were then stacked in the card reader, where they made a kind of loud whisper as they were read in, and the CPU lights went mad with activity for a bit, followed by one of two outcomes: 1) if the program was at least partially successful, in short order the line printer would start making noise as it printed the results, or 2) the machine would just go silent and the lights go into what looked like a fixed state, signaling to the operator that the program was in an infinite loop requiring intervention, and your only feedback would be the word of the operator that the job "hung". No beeps, no squawks, no mechanical farting noises, just the ongoing drone of a hundred cooling fans. Because computers are deaf.
I'm glad to see these 'classic' computers in operation (albeit in a museum). Most people don't know - or even care - how computers got where they are today.
This punch machine would look great with my old Heath Kit tube shortwave radio. Would be nice to have punch cards for logging contacts and reception. Punch out the callsigns and RSTs and slip it into the card reader for data aggregation.
@@RayEttler banks and big companies still use as400 or ms-dos computers in critical situations...reliability and crash free operation is more important than fancy icons i run a small business and i recently "upgraded" my msacess database on a dual core pc to a cardfile style database on a 286 in ms-dos...faster boot time, faster search time, the customer waits less, fits my needs...no need to use the mouse, i prefer keyboard only..... i just need a stock database where i can search for parts and it tells me in wich warehouse and shelf the part is located..then after selling i remove the part from the database or when i buy i introduce the new parts on the respective shelves..nothing fancy.....you can believe it or not but it works 100% better than in windows 10..I will upload a video soon on the build of that machine. it stays on 24/7
Wow, fascinating! Look at all that wire looming on the back of the unit, I specialise in relay logic systems with the kit that I'm interested with, lifts aka elevators. I appreciate the work and complexities involved with creating these machines. Great vid.
@HAL Babbage's analytical engine was on paper only. So we can't be sure that it would have worked. The science museum in London built the difference engine and it works. But that isn't a computer. During Babbage's lifetime only a small prototype of the difference engine was built. And parts of the "CPU" called mill of the analytical engine. I vote for Konrad Zuse.
@Herr Friberger Probably in the sense, that depending on who you ask, you will get different answers. There were many people involved. Also, when people talk about computers they mean different things. For most people today a computer is an electronic device using microchips/transistors. But the first computers were electro-mechanical. I'd say in any case it has to be digital (not necessarily binary) and it has to be Turing complete programmable. If you ask somebody from the US he/she will probably say: "Eckert & Mauchly with the ENIAC", somebody from the UK: "Tommy Flowers with the Colossus (for the cryptoanalysis of the Lorenz cipher at Blechtley park)", somebody from Germany (like me) says: "Konrad Zuse with Z3", as that is the first I know of which is Turing complete. Explaining all this to a child, well, is going to be difficult.... ;)
There is also Percy Ludgate (an Irishman) in 1909 (published a paper on it in the journal Nature 1914) it would have been a general purpose, Turing complete computer which (would have) measured about 2 feet at it's widest (i can't recall the exact measurements) however he died of pneumonia in 1922 and somebody threw the drawings in the trash. (I'd say Zuse too even though I'm not German, It's a shame Z1 got bombed by the British, although I think it's a shame when anything is bombed by anyone)
crazy. this makes MS-DOS look amazingly advanced. it makes me wonder what we will think when we look back on the computers of the 2010s and 20s in 2089
Back when your home computer didn't get annoyed and pissed off from our stupidity and didn't care what software and hardware you bought for him. When your home computer ate less donuts and big macs than you.
Probably how primitive our machine interfaces were with mice and keyboards. And how we had to write our own programs instead of thinking of the problem we wanted solved and having the machine construct a program itself to solve it.
scarcity could force us back to slide rules and abacus. maybe magnetic relay computers. by then america could be a desert and people may have different opinions about what is the highest thought, it may no longer be rocket science. death is a normal part of life.
Unfortunately, an IBM 604 is not really a computer. It is a device for performing calculations - including multiplications - on numbers read in from some punched cards and punching the results into other punched cards (with the reading and punching done by other connected boxes).
+John Savard It's a proper computer all right, it has got the stored (and modifiable) program in the way of the plug board(s) seen at 0:58 and of course the cards that represent the instruction steps, and there are the registers to hold the intermediate results. See: bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/604/22-5279-10_604_OperMan.pdf
The change to the payroll tax withholding system that required table lookup in the calculation process spelled the death knell to the plugboard programmed machinery as that equipment lacked that capability.
Those IBM machines were built to last. Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas still uses an IBM 402 from 1948. They have dozens of plugboards, each one with a different program.
You probably saw the youtube video from 2010 about "Four California Crazy guys" visited the company to try to talk them into upgrading to PC's and donating the equipment. The last reference that I found about the company was in 2015 saying they were switching over to PC's. That was probably because the closest person that could repair the machines was an retired man living in New Mexico!
I've actually seen a close cousin of this machine with the plug board and all. But this is too cool - essentially an electronic calculator but still very vool.
Here is a Wikipedia link to the computer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_604 "Clock speed was increased from the 603's rate of 35kHz to 50 kHz. " "Initial versions supported 40 program steps, and this was soon expanded to 60." I don't know how many arithmetic operations per second it could carry out...
So; this is the great grandfather of Gaming... the IBM Mainframe; 1948 ~ 1994, 1 year after Windows '93; 1993 I found out about this beauty of a system, while looking up lists of games
FWIW, we had DEC PDP-11's with 208 volt power supplies on a raised-floor computer room with custom air conditioning. Each 300MB disc drive required its own 208 volt power supply, and we had to put rubber feet under the disc drives (the size of small washing machines) to prevent them from "walking" around the floor.
Computers in the 1950s and early 1960s had lots of blinking lights, because that was an easy way to report the state of the machine when it halted for some reason. As computer circuits became more compact, and the systems more complex, designers abandoned the panel of lights and used a programmable display of some sort.
I wonder if it's actually in working order, as in capable of completing calculations, or did they just wire it to blink lights in an entertaining fashion?
This is not quite a computer, as we think of them today. It was an extension of the unit record equipment of the day, which were “programmable” by wiring a patch panel. It was a calculating punch.
Well yes and no.. the first computers were made to calculate ridiculously high numbers. The fundamental bare Bones of what computers are are in both but more complex forms of thinking that machines can do today are absent in this machine. The phone in your hand or the iPad or whatever is vastly different yes but when it comes down to the bare Bones of chips and transistor or vacuum tube whatever the case may be it's a simple thing back in the day but it's pretty much the same if you think about it you're converting ones and zeros into something that the machine can read. After that basically it comes down to machine language and what your machine can do with it. Like I said the first one comment to calculate... After that it was the compile numbers list things like things for the IRS so basically Cobal your car and other government things still run on it. Real to real machines still exist they're not as popular as a matter of fact until the very recently as in a few years ago the government was still using a real to real type machine to store long-term storage Cobal is still a thing they basically just hatched in newer machines that can reverse their engineering whatever to simpler machines. But Cobal is there why because the good program and the machine languages are hard and the government doesn't like change. So your employment records and your IRS records and a good lot of the machines running today industrial wise are all ran on Cobal but she basically similar to what you were running here Punch cards and vacuum tubes and an old machine that could calculate and save. The safe part came later but you know the safe part was on the punch card. And a bunch of cards could be read IRS loved this that's why they didn't let it go . And in they're defense it was a damn good system that serve them well for 30 40 whatever however many years and the only problem was I started having like I said to upgrade and they make things that were reversed engineering for to make them backwards compatible to the old machines and that was hard like saying 80s computer trying to talk to '70s computer or 60s computer is just really difficult who wants to write that program? I mean I say '80s because a good lot of the online features came up then you could do your taxes online or just call it in or both I mean you like to be on the phone while you're using your computer and you know like walk you through it or you keep your information to someone and they do it. That involves faxing things and yes a lot of people don't really know this but internet early internet started in the late '80s early '90s in other words my computer could call your computer like a fax machine would and basically they would talk. This Is how they did taxes in the eighties. But we're talking about the rudimentary form of this computer but like I said it's kind of like the beads the calculating beads Chinese have it's all relative. That was the first way to calculate machine wise then you have the old Cotton machines. I realize I'm also discounting some toys in here like music boxes and things that ran on little cards little Punch cards and I don't mean to do that with a lot of rudimentary little machines and mechanized things that some of them are centuries old. but they were rudimentary they weren't meant to think they were meant to play a certain program or a certain song. They really were only meant for one thing they weren't meant for thinking. But hey I'll add them in here now because they are part of what makes machines machine today. But if you were to look at that way the first robot some of them existed centuries ago. Music boxes could be considered some of the first mechanized things. So when the factories and the cotton Mills went came along and they used Punch cards as well it was just part of it. And then someone theorized that what if they could calculate for us. Because the machine could be more reliable whereas a human would not be. Because we lose our place or we can miscalculate it's not that we're not intelligent enough it's just that there's always errors machines that were created to do perfect calculations. Then like I said there was this and compiling facts about family members for the IRS they still use them today. So that's where the yes and no comes in there are still machines that work as simply as out there as this but they're rare in fact you would not need them for more than what the government or something like that runs them for but the kinds of machines that take up entire rooms still exist. I got to say it's got to be a nightmare to cool them though and God help you if anything breaks on them because that's where the IRS had a problem several years back when they're entire computer system crashed. I imagine going back to doing things manually really sucked. From what I understand they've had some bearings success and updating their system instead of the old Cobal system they're running a newer version basically 0.2 or 3 or whatever but like I said they don't really like changing so yeah they're going to crash again.
Can't believe anyone is still interesting in this. I have a programming manual for the 605 I think it is, one of these days I'll scan it and put it on line. My dad took a programming course in community college and this is what they learned on. It was part of an Accounting / Business School program. Back then, that was the only access you got to computers. He ended up ditching it and getting into Air Traffic Control. I got his study books, punch cards, manuals from this though... lol. And went on to collect hundreds of computers myself and become a hardcore computer geek, probably too his chagrin, as it took me nowhere but down a dead end path.
SouthwesternEagle Exactly the same way as the solid state transistors in your iPad or i7 s processor. Its just boolean algebra translated into electricity. In the case of the tubes or valves LOTS of high voltage electricity. The British invented the stored program computer to crack the German and Japanese codes in world war two.
andrew allen I don't understand square 1 of computing. How can math be translated into electricity, and how can that perform calculations with just on/off switches? I can't wrap my head around that.
SouthwesternEagle google boolean algebra then discrete logic gates like and,nand,or,nor as well as xor. The gate functions are completed electronically and are logically identical to the boolean algebraic functions. The logic gates may be composed of thermionic valves, transistors or even pneumatic valves.
Mr Eagle. Let me simplify Mr. Allen's answer a bit. Tubes and transistors can act as switches like he said, and they can be either on or off. Let's call On a (1), and Off a (0). By doing that, the tubes or transistors can deal with binary numbers, which can be converted to base 10 numbers that we're all familiar with. Now, go study this for a few years and get back to us.
These things really were something else entirely when they came out - most businesses were still entirely paper based, and mechanical calculators like the Frieden STW-10 were only just starting to come around as viable alternatives. Even now, these big refrigerator sized machines are still revered in their magnificence, with their multitudes of flashing lights and loud noises as they go through their paces. The 604 is truly a symbol of what engineering means.
Where I worked, in the data center they had a few mainframes. One day IBM came in to unhook the old mainframe, and install the new one. I asked why they were replacing the old one, as I didn't think it was too old. They told me it was like 10 years old and in mainframe terms that was ancient. These two very smart technicians were in their late 50's or early 60's. They used to joke about how the new guys had a totally different work ethic. There was definitely a generational gap between them and the 20 something newer techs. The IBM techs told me the new mainframes were so much faster and much more energy efficient than the old ones.
i wanted to build my own computer, but after watching some of these videos what it would look like on decent level, i threw this idea away, like it will not even reach this level of engineering, since there are few components you can assemble at your home, only if you build from existing components and it wont be fully yours.
Those tubes were self destructing, they are not supposed to be glowing purple. When they glow like that it means the vacuum is no longer right in them and air has seeped in.
+ElfNet Gaming That's true for high vacuum tubes used in audio and radio, but being a computer it would uses a few regulator tubes and some thyratrons for powering relays. These glow from the low pressure argon (blue) or neon (orange) present in the tube. It's impossible to tell from the video if they're argon tubes or just gassy because the camera won't reproduce the correct colours.
256byteram That Flying Toasters icon truly brings back fond memories. I remember in '94 when my dad worked at Berkeley Systems and wrote After Dark's engine and the game "You Don't Know Jack". He had an inflatable Flying Toaster. :)
SouthwesternEagle Thanks! (I'll admit to pinching it from the screensaver with ResEdit on a Performa 575) You Don't Know Jack was a great game, I played it years ago.
256byteram That's awesome!! I'm proud to say that my dad made that game! :) My dad still has copies of After Dark signed by the CEO of Berkeley Systems when it was released. He gave me the source code to it as well, which (to my knowledge) was never released. Between only you and me, my dad told me about a new screen saver program he plans to make someday, called Sunset Dreams, based on his After Dark. :)
Seeing the actual working machine, I really wonder ...what was the function of the blinking lights? They seem completely random, so seeing those on computers in old sci-fi movies I always thought they were pure cosmetic, however they must've had some meaning after all.
Take a look: www.piercefuller.com/collect/ibm7090/sim7151text.jpg The blinking lights were the display. There wasn't a separate monitor in those computers. Just lights, printers, punch card readers and (later) tapes.
Those blinking lights actually _were_ useful. We would kind of learn the "pattern" of the lights, and the program got caught in some kind of fatal loop, the repeating pattern of the lights was obvious. 100032
The lights show the state of the machine. They blink because the machine is constantly changing state. When the program halts, the lights stop flashing and the programmer can interpret the lights to determine where it stopped and what values were in the registers at the time.
How much did this cost new, in today's dollars? I bet a smart watch is more powerful today. I like the bzzzzzzzzzzz sound it made, you could tell it was really working !
I ran across this old digital computer patent 3109554 that used compressed air instead of electricity. Was such a computes ever build and used for anything? Could one be built today using 3 D printing?
+ufoengines In the 70s I remember reading that these fluid dynamic logic circuits were being used for the low speed logic to control the status of DASD units (the hard drives of the day) without generating electromagnetic "spikes" when switches changed state, which could result in spurious data pulses. I'm not sure if this got beyond the prototype stage, since circuits to filter out noise spikes were cheaper than fluidic logic circuits.
+Allan Richardson Thanks for the reply. Seems some kid came up with this fluid logic, patent 3107850, and then gave it to the world. (Must have known microchips where coming. : ) Seems like it would make a cool project for some tech high school kids to make one using 3D printing and then post a You Tube on it before donating it to a computer museum. Read that making Army Crabs run logic gate mazes you can do computation and now I thinking you can do the same with brush bots. Something a bunch of eight graders could make a You Tube about. I guess if Babbage had gone this air computer route that his Diff. Engine could have been built by the pipe organ people and Lady Ida could have invented COBOL. Another guy replied to my question on this when I asked if this tech was ever considered for the moon shot and he said no but rocket exhaust was though as a source of power for a fluidic computer for I.C.B.M.s. I'm going back to read his reply to see if I got that right.
+Quentin “SpecialBomb” Jankosky The logic is in vacuum tubes; the ALU contains approx. 1,250 tubes. There was one 604 built with DTL logic using 2,000 transistors, but this was only a prototype. The successor machine, the 608, was the first solid-state computer sold by IBM.
Computers need to have blinking arrays of lights, so this computer is a true computer. However, computers are also supposed to make beepilly-beep sounds when the lights are blinking. This computer just makes a constant electric hum sound, so that is not appropriate.
GregoryTheGr8ster
Instead of beeps, it makes noise like a nail gun punching the cards. More like a pinball machine.
@@larryscott3982 If Charges Babbage had finished his Analytical Engine, it would have made "clankety-clank" sounds and would have been a computer.
Only in the movies, did computers EVER make beepity-beep noises. Computers care little about the noises they make, largely because they are deaf. But filmmakers? Filmmakers are not deaf, and the actual sounds that computers made - especially highly electro-mechanical ones like this - are offensive to filmmakers. Why? Because unlike other big machines, computers don't usually indicate what they're doing with sound. In punched-card and line printer systems, the card reader makes a fairly unobtrusive sound while it's reading in the program and data, and a LOT of noise when it's sending output to the card punch or line printer. But if it's a magnetic tape- or disc-based computer, it makes very little noise when the program and data are being read or written, and again, lots of noise when the job is actually done, as the results are being printed out. And for more sophisticated machines, the printing may be going on after the job is done, as it is starting up the next program.
When you get into slightly later computers, in the late 1960s and 1970s, these still have card punches and line printers, but they are always running with a queue, so the line printer noise is way behind the actual work being done, and even with the line printer running, the cooling fans on all of this collected space heating equipment swamps out even the line printer, and certainly any mag tape or disk units, and the card punch mostly takes up space and contributes its own fan noise.
Even when home computers came out, these rarely used beeps, except to indicate situations needing attention, so even in the 1980s, you see movie computers making all kinds of beeps and blaats, even though most of the audience knows that this just doesn't happen.
On one Burroughs batch computer I used for a day in a decade long ago, programs were punched my noisy typewriter-operated equipment called an "029", which just sounded like a louder-than-necessary electric typewriter. These programs, or "jobs" were then stacked in the card reader, where they made a kind of loud whisper as they were read in, and the CPU lights went mad with activity for a bit, followed by one of two outcomes: 1) if the program was at least partially successful, in short order the line printer would start making noise as it printed the results, or 2) the machine would just go silent and the lights go into what looked like a fixed state, signaling to the operator that the program was in an infinite loop requiring intervention, and your only feedback would be the word of the operator that the job "hung". No beeps, no squawks, no mechanical farting noises, just the ongoing drone of a hundred cooling fans. Because computers are deaf.
BrightBlueJim it was a joke god damn
@@BrightBlueJim wow, you took that so seriously and ran with it. But still very informative none-the-less.
Love these old machines. I used to operate an IBM 1410 in 1968. Learned how to wire panels for a 403 also.
+mike klaene That's awesome man did you have any custom tools for reaching the cables and untangling them without disturbing other connections ?
No special tools. Just be careful.
mike klaene Well they don't say Engineers are the surgeons for machines for nothing huh..
Can you tell us more about that?
@@mikeklaene4359 youll love the new machines too
I'm glad to see these 'classic' computers in operation (albeit in a museum). Most people don't know - or even care - how computers got where they are today.
Bob H
Why would they? I still see your point, tho.
Yeah, true. This is the 21st century.. nobody's interested in anything of the past and how we got to now. Ignorance is bliss.
This punch machine would look great with my old Heath Kit tube shortwave radio. Would be nice to have punch cards for logging contacts and reception. Punch out the callsigns and RSTs and slip it into the card reader for data aggregation.
@@LibertyWarrior68 And also the 8 Track :)
@@RayEttler banks and big companies still use as400 or ms-dos computers in critical situations...reliability and crash free operation is more important than fancy icons
i run a small business and i recently "upgraded" my msacess database on a dual core pc to a cardfile style database on a 286 in ms-dos...faster boot time, faster search time, the customer waits less, fits my needs...no need to use the mouse, i prefer keyboard only.....
i just need a stock database where i can search for parts and it tells me in wich warehouse and shelf the part is located..then after selling i remove the part from the database or when i buy i introduce the new parts on the respective shelves..nothing fancy.....you can believe it or not but it works 100% better than in windows 10..I will upload a video soon on the build of that machine. it stays on 24/7
Look at the gas triodes (thyratrons) used as relays in this machine. Lots of beautiful tube circuitry 👍♥️👏
The Colossus codebreaking machine used thyratrons as relay based memory.
Wow, fascinating! Look at all that wire looming on the back of the unit, I specialise in relay logic systems with the kit that I'm interested with, lifts aka elevators. I appreciate the work and complexities involved with creating these machines. Great vid.
it's funny when kids ask, "who invented computers?"
"it's complicated."
Charles babbage
In what sense?
@HAL
Babbage's analytical engine was on paper only. So we can't be sure that it would have worked. The science museum in London built the difference engine and it works. But that isn't a computer. During Babbage's lifetime only a small prototype of the difference engine was built. And parts of the "CPU" called mill of the analytical engine.
I vote for Konrad Zuse.
@Herr Friberger
Probably in the sense, that depending on who you ask, you will get different answers. There were many people involved. Also, when people talk about computers they mean different things. For most people today a computer is an electronic device using microchips/transistors. But the first computers were electro-mechanical. I'd say in any case it has to be digital (not necessarily binary) and it has to be Turing complete programmable.
If you ask somebody from the US he/she will probably say: "Eckert & Mauchly with the ENIAC", somebody from the UK: "Tommy Flowers with the Colossus (for the cryptoanalysis of the Lorenz cipher at Blechtley park)", somebody from Germany (like me) says: "Konrad Zuse with Z3", as that is the first I know of which is Turing complete.
Explaining all this to a child, well, is going to be difficult.... ;)
There is also Percy Ludgate (an Irishman) in 1909 (published a paper on it in the journal Nature 1914) it would have been a general purpose, Turing complete computer which (would have) measured about 2 feet at it's widest (i can't recall the exact measurements) however he died of pneumonia in 1922 and somebody threw the drawings in the trash. (I'd say Zuse too even though I'm not German, It's a shame Z1 got bombed by the British, although I think it's a shame when anything is bombed by anyone)
crazy. this makes MS-DOS look amazingly advanced.
it makes me wonder what we will think when we look back on the computers of the 2010s and 20s in 2089
Back when your home computer didn't get annoyed and pissed off from our stupidity and didn't care what software and hardware you bought for him. When your home computer ate less donuts and big macs than you.
Probably how primitive our machine interfaces were with mice and keyboards. And how we had to write our own programs instead of thinking of the problem we wanted solved and having the machine construct a program itself to solve it.
scarcity could force us back to slide rules and abacus. maybe magnetic relay computers. by then america could be a desert and people may have different opinions about what is the highest thought, it may no longer be rocket science. death is a normal part of life.
You might be around in 2089 but many who post here will not be. Indeed, I'll be lucky to make it to 2050.
Has anyone ported Doom to it yet?
Unfortunately, an IBM 604 is not really a computer. It is a device for performing calculations - including multiplications - on numbers read in from some punched cards and punching the results into other punched cards (with the reading and punching done by other connected boxes).
+John Savard Any sort of electrical or mechanical device that can do math is technically a computer.
+John Savard It's a proper computer all right, it has got the stored (and modifiable) program in the way of the plug board(s) seen at 0:58 and of course the cards that represent the instruction steps, and there are the registers to hold the intermediate results. See: bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/604/22-5279-10_604_OperMan.pdf
+John Savard It's sacarsm, why would take seriously. It's Computer kategorized by the way
Looks like the WOPR from "War Games"
It would be nice to have a modern computer that visualizes the computing process with lights again. Its so satisfying to watch.
I know everybody has to start somewhere, including machines but I am so glad for transistors and microchips.
MMM, I love the humming/buzzing sound it makes. I would love to feel the heat off of it and feel it's vibrations.
Sounds naughty?
@@benji.B-side can’t tell if it’s Bill Gates or Barry White
The change to the payroll tax withholding system that required table lookup in the calculation process spelled the death knell to the plugboard programmed machinery as that equipment lacked that capability.
The power of the mind and a structure education
And this is 2021 Now!
Reminds me of the W.O.P.R. from War Games.
schitlipz The W.O.P.R. was "modeled" to look like early IBM computers., The resemblance is intentional.
"S H A L L....W E.... P L A Y.... A.... G A M E?" ... Yeah I thought the same thing.
1:39 "I am ready", the computer says.
HOLY SHIT
Those IBM machines were built to last. Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas still uses an IBM 402 from 1948. They have dozens of plugboards, each one with a different program.
You probably saw the youtube video from 2010 about "Four California Crazy guys" visited the company to try to talk them into upgrading to PC's and donating the equipment. The last reference that I found about the company was in 2015 saying they were switching over to PC's. That was probably because the closest person that could repair the machines was an retired man living in New Mexico!
this was when computers were interesting.
Anything that makes that kind of a noise and has that mean looking of a set of tubes should *_NEVER_* be trifled with.
I dont know what is more amazing... all those wires that make this run or that today we put all of this into the palm of your hand.
I am saving up to buy one of these new fangled contraptions!
IBM was so much ahead of the time. No headphone jack or full size usb!
DUTCH. SIR, THANK YOU. MUCH OBLIGED. WE LOVE PRESERVATION OF HISTORY.
What amazes me is how compact - and dare I say "portable" - the 604 is for 1948!
A true magical brain for it's day, it must have really dazzled people and made them think of what might be possible in the future.
What a work of art!
*HOW MUCH POWER DOES THIS THING PULL FROM THE GRID?*
Wow, how cool to see a tour of such an early IBM computer!
reminds me of NOVAC from the movie GOG (1954). Nuclear Operative Variable Automatic Computer (NOVAC)
I've actually seen a close cousin of this machine with the plug board and all. But this is too cool - essentially an electronic calculator but still very vool.
Here is a Wikipedia link to the computer:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_604
"Clock speed was increased from the 603's rate of 35kHz to 50 kHz. "
"Initial versions supported 40 program steps, and this was soon expanded to 60."
I don't know how many arithmetic operations per second it could carry out...
Amazing
Forget the i9! this is my next processor!
Wow.... it still works
So; this is the great grandfather of Gaming... the IBM Mainframe; 1948 ~ 1994, 1 year after Windows '93; 1993
I found out about this beauty of a system, while looking up lists of games
i dunno whom to admire , the people who built those or those who made them fit in our backpockets.
looks like the wopr from war games
0:57 Cable management goddammit! D:
The computer says “what would a computer do with a life time supply of chocolate?”
"I am now telling the computer exactly what he can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate!"
I wish I was alive in the 40s but knew what the future was going to be like
After several hours of computing, they finally compute pi to the third digit.
And computer in movies have looked like that forever since! Blinkenlights.
Yes, it makes me want to watch _War Games_ and see the WOPR in action :-)
I do so much miss the blinking lights on modern computers
Clearly, this was the inspiration for the "Whopper" computer, from the movie War Games!
all of those beautiful vacuum tubes, however I can't imagine that any of those wax capacitors are still within tolerance
Sometimes I wonder how long these tubes will last
50hz buzzzzzz from computer .... priceless
A typical small audio amplifier with 6 tubes requires around 200 watts to operate. I wonder what the power requirements of the IBM 604 might be ??
FWIW, we had DEC PDP-11's with 208 volt power supplies on a raised-floor computer room with custom air conditioning. Each 300MB disc drive required its own 208 volt power supply, and we had to put rubber feet under the disc drives (the size of small washing machines) to prevent them from "walking" around the floor.
so the blinking lights on the original starship Enterprise wasn't to far off from the actual truth
Computers in the 1950s and early 1960s had lots of blinking lights, because that was an easy way to report the state of the machine when it halted for some reason. As computer circuits became more compact, and the systems more complex, designers abandoned the panel of lights and used a programmable display of some sort.
no way those paper caps are Still in tolerance!
Awesome! I love computers!
-ONO
This looks like the computer in Iron Sky.
This is a guy who goes to gym and the laptop is a guy who knows martial arts. 😂
My phone : hello my ancestor
I bet you could warn your house in the winter with that old relic. Very cool though!
This is a bad ass computer! thanks so much for posting the video.
This is awesome!
They haven't changed a bit. :)
Pure beauty ;)
Imagine turning your computer on every day and having it be as loud as a lawn mower.
Imagine turning it on every day and spending two hours testing and repairing it before you could use it. Yea. That happened.
I would love to have a computer case that is shaped like an IBM 604.
No DvD player ?
Oh my! This is first one, when I see lots of blink lamps, which works not for formality, like in cheap fantastic films.
I wonder how they were able to make such complicated circuits.
Is this the only working 604 computer left?
Wow, listen to that monster hum. I wonder how much power it draws just being idle.
7.59 kva.
So happy to see old machinery still in working order. Saddest thing is when there is nothing left but a photo.
I wonder if it's actually in working order, as in capable of completing calculations, or did they just wire it to blink lights in an entertaining fashion?
@@aleksandersuur9475 the vacuum tubes are lit so it has proper operating high voltages so i highly doubt its just wired to lights
Tell me... How many watts does it take during processing?
Near enough to a half a MegaWatt.
This is not quite a computer, as we think of them today. It was an extension of the unit record equipment of the day, which were “programmable” by wiring a patch panel. It was a calculating punch.
Well yes and no.. the first computers were made to calculate ridiculously high numbers. The fundamental bare Bones of what computers are are in both but more complex forms of thinking that machines can do today are absent in this machine. The phone in your hand or the iPad or whatever is vastly different yes but when it comes down to the bare Bones of chips and transistor or vacuum tube whatever the case may be it's a simple thing back in the day but it's pretty much the same if you think about it you're converting ones and zeros into something that the machine can read. After that basically it comes down to machine language and what your machine can do with it. Like I said the first one comment to calculate... After that it was the compile numbers list things like things for the IRS so basically Cobal your car and other government things still run on it. Real to real machines still exist they're not as popular as a matter of fact until the very recently as in a few years ago the government was still using a real to real type machine to store long-term storage Cobal is still a thing they basically just hatched in newer machines that can reverse their engineering whatever to simpler machines. But Cobal is there why because the good program and the machine languages are hard and the government doesn't like change. So your employment records and your IRS records and a good lot of the machines running today industrial wise are all ran on Cobal but she basically similar to what you were running here Punch cards and vacuum tubes and an old machine that could calculate and save. The safe part came later but you know the safe part was on the punch card. And a bunch of cards could be read IRS loved this that's why they didn't let it go .
And in they're defense it was a damn good system that serve them well for 30 40 whatever however many years and the only problem was I started having like I said to upgrade and they make things that were reversed engineering for to make them backwards compatible to the old machines and that was hard like saying 80s computer trying to talk to '70s computer or 60s computer is just really difficult who wants to write that program? I mean I say '80s because a good lot of the online features came up then you could do your taxes online or just call it in or both I mean you like to be on the phone while you're using your computer and you know like walk you through it or you keep your information to someone and they do it. That involves faxing things and yes a lot of people don't really know this but internet early internet started in the late '80s early '90s in other words my computer could call your computer like a fax machine would and basically they would talk. This Is how they did taxes in the eighties. But we're talking about the rudimentary form of this computer but like I said it's kind of like the beads the calculating beads Chinese have it's all relative. That was the first way to calculate machine wise then you have the old Cotton machines. I realize I'm also discounting some toys in here like music boxes and things that ran on little cards little Punch cards and I don't mean to do that with a lot of rudimentary little machines and mechanized things that some of them are centuries old. but they were rudimentary they weren't meant to think they were meant to play a certain program or a certain song. They really were only meant for one thing they weren't meant for thinking. But hey I'll add them in here now because they are part of what makes machines machine today. But if you were to look at that way the first robot some of them existed centuries ago. Music boxes could be considered some of the first mechanized things. So when the factories and the cotton Mills went came along and they used Punch cards as well it was just part of it. And then someone theorized that what if they could calculate for us. Because the machine could be more reliable whereas a human would not be. Because we lose our place or we can miscalculate it's not that we're not intelligent enough it's just that there's always errors machines that were created to do perfect calculations. Then like I said there was this and compiling facts about family members for the IRS they still use them today. So that's where the yes and no comes in there are still machines that work as simply as out there as this but they're rare in fact you would not need them for more than what the government or something like that runs them for but the kinds of machines that take up entire rooms still exist. I got to say it's got to be a nightmare to cool them though and God help you if anything breaks on them because that's where the IRS had a problem several years back when they're entire computer system crashed. I imagine going back to doing things manually really sucked.
From what I understand they've had some bearings success and updating their system instead of the old Cobal system they're running a newer version basically 0.2 or 3 or whatever but like I said they don't really like changing so yeah they're going to crash again.
And my point is if you think that we don't still use Punch cards and stuff like that you'd be so wrong .
It has several OBEY! switches.
Looks Like WOPR
Now what did we learn here. You need a big shaft to punch the holes.
That's what _she_ said!
Can't believe anyone is still interesting in this. I have a programming manual for the 605 I think it is, one of these days I'll scan it and put it on line. My dad took a programming course in community college and this is what they learned on. It was part of an Accounting / Business School program. Back then, that was the only access you got to computers. He ended up ditching it and getting into Air Traffic Control. I got his study books, punch cards, manuals from this though... lol. And went on to collect hundreds of computers myself and become a hardcore computer geek, probably too his chagrin, as it took me nowhere but down a dead end path.
nice gaming setup
How can vacuum tubes be used as logic?
SouthwesternEagle Exactly the same way as the solid state transistors in your iPad or i7 s processor. Its just boolean algebra translated into electricity. In the case of the tubes or valves LOTS of high voltage electricity. The British invented the stored program computer to crack the German and Japanese codes in world war two.
andrew allen I don't understand square 1 of computing. How can math be translated into electricity, and how can that perform calculations with just on/off switches? I can't wrap my head around that.
SouthwesternEagle google boolean algebra then discrete logic gates like and,nand,or,nor as well as xor. The gate functions are completed electronically and are logically identical to the boolean algebraic functions. The logic gates may be composed of thermionic valves, transistors or even pneumatic valves.
Mr Eagle. Let me simplify Mr. Allen's answer a bit. Tubes and transistors can act as switches like he said, and they can be either on or off. Let's call On a (1), and Off a (0). By doing that, the tubes or transistors can deal with binary numbers, which can be converted to base 10 numbers that we're all familiar with. Now, go study this for a few years and get back to us.
Larry Cook :)
На один накал очень большой ток потребления.
These things really were something else entirely when they came out - most businesses were still entirely paper based, and mechanical calculators like the Frieden STW-10 were only just starting to come around as viable alternatives.
Even now, these big refrigerator sized machines are still revered in their magnificence, with their multitudes of flashing lights and loud noises as they go through their paces. The 604 is truly a symbol of what engineering means.
Where I worked, in the data center they had a few mainframes. One day IBM came in to unhook the old mainframe, and install the new one. I asked why they were replacing the old one, as I didn't think it was too old. They told me it was like 10 years old and in mainframe terms that was ancient. These two very smart technicians were in their late 50's or early 60's. They used to joke about how the new guys had a totally different work ethic. There was definitely a generational gap between them and the 20 something newer techs. The IBM techs told me the new mainframes were so much faster and much more energy efficient than the old ones.
And now my watch can outperform this monster 😂😂
How many of these will it take to beat an iPhone?
How the hell did they repair those when a part went bad or bad solder connection. Good night!
i wanted to build my own computer, but after watching some of these videos what it would look like on decent level, i threw this idea away, like it will not even reach this level of engineering, since there are few components you can assemble at your home, only if you build from existing components and it wont be fully yours.
Just incredible how we have come along way to what computers are now these day’s.
Just fashinating.
Those tubes were self destructing, they are not supposed to be glowing purple. When they glow like that it means the vacuum is no longer right in them and air has seeped in.
+ElfNet Gaming That's true for high vacuum tubes used in audio and radio, but being a computer it would uses a few regulator tubes and some thyratrons for powering relays. These glow from the low pressure argon (blue) or neon (orange) present in the tube. It's impossible to tell from the video if they're argon tubes or just gassy because the camera won't reproduce the correct colours.
256byteram That Flying Toasters icon truly brings back fond memories. I remember in '94 when my dad worked at Berkeley Systems and wrote After Dark's engine and the game "You Don't Know Jack". He had an inflatable Flying Toaster. :)
SouthwesternEagle Thanks! (I'll admit to pinching it from the screensaver with ResEdit on a Performa 575) You Don't Know Jack was a great game, I played it years ago.
256byteram That's awesome!! I'm proud to say that my dad made that game! :)
My dad still has copies of After Dark signed by the CEO of Berkeley Systems when it was released.
He gave me the source code to it as well, which (to my knowledge) was never released.
Between only you and me, my dad told me about a new screen saver program he plans to make someday, called Sunset Dreams, based on his After Dark. :)
256byteram Thyratrons ARE vacuum tube relays. Thermionic valve equivalents of modern triads and silicon controlled Rectifier's :)
The IBM computer looks really fallout style!
electric eficient
Are the indicator lights similar to Nixie tubes?
thekornreeper Probably, in that I think what you're seeing there are neon gas discharge lamps and Nixie tubes were but a special class of those.
Yes. Neon indicators have a single light emitting pole and nixie tubes 10 :)
1rst home digital clock that’s larger than the home...
anyone ever wonder why the bridge of the original enterprise from star trek was nothing more than blinking lights and switches? ~Behold~
And I thought my old computer was a cluster fuck....
Esa cosa es de 1948? 😱 Aún no nacía ni mi mamá y aun vivía mi abuelo (murió en 1957).
Seeing the actual working machine, I really wonder ...what was the function of the blinking lights? They seem completely random, so seeing those on computers in old sci-fi movies I always thought they were pure cosmetic, however they must've had some meaning after all.
Take a look: www.piercefuller.com/collect/ibm7090/sim7151text.jpg
The blinking lights were the display. There wasn't a separate monitor in those computers. Just lights, printers, punch card readers and (later) tapes.
Those blinking lights actually _were_ useful. We would kind of learn the "pattern" of the lights, and the program got caught in some kind of fatal loop, the repeating pattern of the lights was obvious.
100032
The lights show the state of the machine. They blink because the machine is constantly changing state. When the program halts, the lights stop flashing and the programmer can interpret the lights to determine where it stopped and what values were in the registers at the time.
Yesterday, less theory, more complexity. Today, more theory, less complexity.
How much did this cost new, in today's dollars? I bet a smart watch is more powerful today. I like the bzzzzzzzzzzz sound it made, you could tell it was really working !
Wonderful! I have 'only' a working Anita MK8 calculator built with approx 200 tubes. But this IBM is a real computer! Really a beauty!
I ran across this old digital computer patent 3109554 that used compressed air instead of electricity. Was such a computes ever build and used for anything? Could one be built today using 3 D printing?
+ufoengines In the 70s I remember reading that these fluid dynamic logic circuits were being used for the low speed logic to control the status of DASD units (the hard drives of the day) without generating electromagnetic "spikes" when switches changed state, which could result in spurious data pulses. I'm not sure if this got beyond the prototype stage, since circuits to filter out noise spikes were cheaper than fluidic logic circuits.
+Allan Richardson Thanks for the reply. Seems some kid came up with this fluid logic, patent 3107850, and then gave it to the world. (Must have known microchips where coming. : ) Seems like it would make a cool project for some tech high school kids to make one using 3D printing and then post a You Tube on it before donating it to a computer museum. Read that making Army Crabs run logic gate mazes you can do computation and now I thinking you can do the same with brush bots. Something a bunch of eight graders could make a You Tube about. I guess if Babbage had gone this air computer route that his Diff. Engine could have been built by the pipe organ people and Lady Ida could have invented COBOL. Another guy replied to my question on this when I asked if this tech was ever considered for the moon shot and he said no but rocket exhaust was though as a source of power for a fluidic computer for I.C.B.M.s. I'm going back to read his reply to see if I got that right.
Incredible
Jawul!, Zat is a vonderful mashine, herr doctor!!! ;)
This computed using magnetic logic, right? I saw many inductors within the computer, so I am assuming it did.
+Quentin “SpecialBomb” Jankosky
The logic is in vacuum tubes; the ALU contains approx. 1,250 tubes. There was one 604 built with DTL logic using 2,000 transistors, but this was only a prototype. The successor machine, the 608, was the first solid-state computer sold by IBM.
douro20 sounds like a maintenance nightmare.
But most important, does it run Crysis?
Really cool :)