My first job in 1967 was for Elliott Automation, Frimley working on the FACE system for the Army, based on an Elliott 920B. It was an 18 bit machine with 8k of core store. I remember the same console which you have in your video. Some of engineers were brilliant at keying in programs using the control box, including solving puzzles and playing tunes on the speaker in the control box as you demonstrated. The system could compute the gunnery solution for a battery of 8 guns in only a few seconds. You say the machine was slow, which it was, but the programming (in SIR) was tight, efficient and accurate and was stored in 8k of core. Compare this with the bloatware in modern computers!

Egads! I was programming and running a CDC3600 in 1966. And now what I was working with is in a freaking museum. Time flies when you're having fun.

@BIaze

8 жыл бұрын

George Steele What is the language used to write software for one of those things? Assembly? Also how do you give input to the machine which "writes" on the tape? Is there a keyboard or something?

@BIaze

8 жыл бұрын

George Steele wow, thanks for your exhaustive reply! As a computer science student I found both the video and your reply very fascinating. The idea of "listening" to the program being executed is pretty weird/unexpected though ahaha :D

@George4943

8 жыл бұрын

I could not resist. I made it play Twinkle ...

@BIaze

8 жыл бұрын

George Steele I would have done the same and even more! I mean, how could someone possibly resist the temptation?

@RoyUnit

8 жыл бұрын

George Steele It's okay. Today's computers will be museum pieces someday too. Heck, I'm 24 and the CDs I used for years are almost museum pieces now.

The Elliott 903 was one of the first computers I learned to program, back in 1970. Our school obtained permission to use one at a local technical college in Rochester, Kent. Ours also had a huge quad 9 track tape deck and a very noisy line printer. I used Algol 60 on the machine and my favourite achievement was a program that output a tape to draw lissajous figures on a plotter.

"The Elliott 903 was the civilian successor to the 920B computer which was installed in RAF Nimrod Mark I aircraft. It has an 18-bit processor with 8192 words of magnetic core storage. Core access time was typically six microseconds. Additional core storage could be added in blocks of 8 kilowords, up to a maximum of 64 kilowords. The 903 is physically large: it came installed in a standard-sized desk unit. The left side of the desk contains the power supply (the main logic circuits run on +/- six volts; other voltages are required by the various peripherals). The right side of the cabinet houses the processor cards and core storage. There are no microchips in the 903: logic gates are implemented on small daughterboards using a resistor-transistor logic (RTL). The top of the desk is where the paper tape punch, paper tape reader, and control unit sit."

@Seegalgalguntijak

9 жыл бұрын

Winston Smith I'd really like to see a circuit board with such a resistor-transistor logic (RTL) on it.

@Seegalgalguntijak

9 жыл бұрын

Winston Smith Thank you - that gives me an idea (I expected it to look like that), but I'd love to see a picture of one individual card, maybe of the front and back side...

@azzajohnson2123

4 жыл бұрын

Seegal Galguntijak it takes like 25 transistors and 15 resistors just to make one but register.

@gregorymalchuk272

3 жыл бұрын

No integrated circuits at all? It was all implemented in discrete transistors and resistors?

@johnwoody9505

2 жыл бұрын

@@gregorymalchuk272 Absolutely, this 903 was replaced by the 905 which was an integrated version of this 18 bit computer.

"Nice big even numbers." 3 Flawless.

The hands on approach required to operate these computers is so fascinating. Just how these fundamental stages of computing have lead to what we all know and use today is incredible to me. Mr. Thackray does an excellent job of explaining what is happening in layman's terms.

That appears to be one of those new-fangled "optical" paper-tape readers :-) The ASR-33 was a whole lot more noisy

I'm really glad people are preserving the history of computing, it's fascinating, and thanks for the great vid!!!

Pretty interesting machine, glad to see it in use rather than cooped up behind glass gathering dust!!

The book-printing firm I worked for in the 1960s (C. Tinling & Co. Ltd) used an Elliott 903 linked to a Photon 713 photosetter for typesetting. The 903 was used mainly for hyphenation and justification of text.

I have to say, this is hella more advanced than I thought it would be. When told about extremely old computers, you're always told of the computers that were the size of huge buildings. For it's time, I'm quite impressed that this isn't much bigger than a normal sized computer today.

@PeterWalkerHP16c

8 жыл бұрын

+BOOM95 This thing was sort of like a programmable calculator Sharp PC-1211 - where as the multi tasking time sharers were 'folk lift separate bits off truck" sized mothers.

Penang Malaysia, In the RAF, I maintained a computer assisted air defence system (GL 161) based on 5 Elliot 920B computers and an extra core store block. Program was stored on Mylar (plastic) tape Which was only ever used to provide copies used to reprogram. Then there was a daily 'data' tape which fed in the daily instructions and weather. if that failed to load in any way the system was not working properly and you had to start again. Programing was Machine code with the help of a very primitive assembler caller SIR Symbolic Input Routine

I built and commissioned these systems when working at Elliott Automation in Borehamwood. There are at least two of us original computer engineers still around

You got an old computer to play Tic Tac Toe? I've seen Wargames and I know that never ends well...

@gummipalle

9 жыл бұрын

***** which has also been solved now I think....

@xXMegaUltraNinjaXx

9 жыл бұрын

Frabbledabble exactly, a computer will always beat a human if you remove limitations.

@gummipalle

9 жыл бұрын

***** nono, you misunderstand... The game chess itself is solved, its not a question of computer-power... Unfortunatly, only a computer can store and utilize such a huge data base of possible outcomes... But ANY computer could do this, its only a question of data storage capacity. -Which is practically limitless... Of coarse if you gave such an indexed library to a human, he could compete equal to any computer... only slower.... But ofcoarse the POINT here is, that CHESS has been reduced to the initial draw for the white pieces....

@SchumiUCD

9 жыл бұрын

Frabbledabble Chess hasn't been solved, not even close. Most positions with 7 or fewer pieces on the board have been solved but that's a very long way from solving the game. Draughts/checkers has been solved, maybe that's what you're thinking of.

@gummipalle

9 жыл бұрын

SchumiUCD Deep blue wins because a method exsists to consistantly win at chess... It is solved!

- "How do you know how to use the machine?" - "It's my job!" Could have filmed more of the machine instead of air.

way cool! you never get to see these older computers working! thanks!

My late farther leaned to program on 803 and 903 he then went to work for NCR as a operator in 1971 at 1000 North Circular Road , we went on to become a systems designer and consultant

Great to see this. My first personal computer! While my class-mates at University (Queen Elizabeth College, Univ. London) were sending off decks of punched cards I was doing stuff interactively with the (already ancient) 903. Algol, Fortan and SIR assembler. The Algol & Fortan were both two pass compilers with two tapes about 4 inches thick to read-in plus an intermediate stage output from the punch to seed in for the pass two. On Tuesdays the university accountant took the machine all-day to run the university payroll etc. (written in Algol).

Would love to know more technical details of the implementation, instruction set, speed, storage capacity, how it communicates with the terminal. And where did this machine come from? What was it used for before the museum?

@TheCentreforComputingHistory

9 жыл бұрын

joe72205 Our Elliott 903 was once owned by the British Ceramic Research Association. It was originally purchased in 1967 and was in regular use until mid 1982. www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/32480/Elliott-903/

@jczeigler

3 жыл бұрын

I tried to down load the manual, but it did not populate the shopping cart!

That computer has seen many days my friend. Keep it in good working order!

Awesome! Also, shaving has literally made him look 10 years younger...!

the electric motor in that computer is larger than some starters ive seen on cars.

@johnwoody9505

2 жыл бұрын

That motor was just for punching the paper tape machine, it ran at about 110 characters a second I believe.

This is the first machine I learned to program in 1972.

"I explain to those kids: it's exactly like copy-pasting a file to cd." kids: "what's a cd?" Nerds are alright, but they should keep up with their times....

@azzajohnson2123

4 жыл бұрын

qqleq2 that’s actually pretty funny. They should explain the encoder and method, checksums and how the teletype worked.

I played this back in the early 1970s at University of Manchester open day. I didn't win either but was determined. But then it really was state of the art stuff! Now I'm a software engineer :)

Its great that you guys are keeping those wonderful alive.

Interesting to see one of those again, it being the first computer I actually got to run hands-on, back around 1968-ish. What did surprise me was the condition of the console, which looked like it had never really been used. Did they somehow get hold of one that had never left the warehouse? Note the top row of 36 switches which was used to set up the initial jump to the start of your program (which might be an interpreter or compiler), one switch for each bit of the 36 bit word. In test mode you could even set up an entire program, literally bit by bit, if you had the patience. I have a simulator somewhere (found on the web and rewritten) of the hardware plus Algol60 compiler. Does anyone have a memory image of the SIR assembler?

remember my Cyrix 486 made a similar processing sound when I was listening to AM radio while it was on. I remember it well, I'd listen to the sounds for hours. lol.

Love these old computers, you actually had to think before programming them.

I didn't expect to be so fascinated by this video.

Man, this is so cool and fascinating.

I'm not saying it was terrible camera work. But it was :)

@Marios5556

9 жыл бұрын

terrible in what way?

@DanFrederiksen

9 жыл бұрын

Marios5556 explosive zooms, restless camera, not sure what he's focusing on, oddly not centered on the obvious target. Not filming the device in question but just looking at his face. When it's about a device you don't look at face. The light in the room was too bright for the monitor as well so you get mostly glare but if that was the only problem...

@Marios5556

9 жыл бұрын

AlainHubert​ I think maximizing depth of field is a pretty minor complain. He should try to improve in some other aspects though as previously mentioned.

@AlainHubert

9 жыл бұрын

Marios5556 Well, if he could master the principle of depth of field, he wouldn't have to keep moving that focus ring uncontrollably ! lol !

@gummipalle

9 жыл бұрын

Dan Frederiksen I like it :-) I think there is an organic or natural feel to it... The camera switches around like my attention might in such a place... Not swerving off topic, but picking up various details of the environment and people involved...

so that is what RUNNING the code, literally, looks like! :|

@inner200k

9 жыл бұрын

Bibek Gautam eh? modern code, well kind of it's all still on/off, until you get to quantum processing and that's beyond my skills to describe, you can look at it yourself just open any 'exe' file with a hex editor.

@taterbits

9 жыл бұрын

Bibek Gautam badam tuss....

I find that playing a song using this computer is an interesting nod back to the origins of punched tape.

How disappointing. Nothing about the technology or architecture of the macine...

@tjejojyj

7 жыл бұрын

Buzzy Buzz Yes. Exactly. This is computerphile after all.

@azzajohnson2123

4 жыл бұрын

It’s because they are too busy watering it down for the school children they don’t actually have any idea themselves now.. I would prefer they pack in as much as they can in a presentation and if you loose 80% of the groups interest in not watering it down the advantage is your stimulating the other %20 who actually want and care to know about the deeper stuff and really engaged.

this is a quality computerphile vid

A military engineer mentioned there was a briefcase size model made for the military. And if I remember right, also (perhaps it was this briefcase one) mosfet version of it and the 905.

1:23 Ahhh ... how many MILES of 6- and 8-level punched paper tape from those Burpee punches I've handled in my youth. I mean MILES. Every day, eight hours a day, for YEARS. Nobody young can even _imagine_ how much paper tape we used in the '70s.

A note to google, an advertisement with no timer or skip button... just don't. I don't mind watching ads to support youtubers, but tell me how long I'm going to have to wait.

Superb

You gave it a prime number.

What language was used to write those programs? How much RAM does it have/how many bytes can a program be for it? Are the programs on the tapes precompiled, or are they written in an interpreted language?

@eightmegsandconstantlyswap8862

6 жыл бұрын

8 18 bit kilowords by default, expandable to 64.

@johnwoody9505

2 жыл бұрын

All the memory was magnetic core memory and it was all random access. The memory data would stay in memory even if the power was turned off!! Most programs were written in assembler, SIR was the assembler language, so all programs were actually compiled.

@MrStephenRGilman

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnwoody9505 You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. :-)

@johnwoody9505

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrStephenRGilman Thank you for those kind words but I was just a field service engineer on the Elliott 903 & 905 series computers, firstly out of the headquarters at Borehamwood then out of the Bristol office. Had a great time in those far off days from 1969 till about 1975. Cheers, John Adkins

Very interesting.

0:47 The sounds though!!!!!!!!!!

I had a moment and looked up the 903 - I recall my college lecturer saying he used to use a paperclip to issue command's could that be true? (that was late 80s when I was at college)

What's it's cup speed p. How much memory does it have

I remember reading about people writing programs which would play music on the IBM 1401's printer. Since the computer could control the printer directly in software it was actually quite easy if you knew how the printer worked.

@dannygjk

6 жыл бұрын

Been there done that.

The assembly language for the Elliot 903 was taught as part of the ICL-sponsored Computer Education in Schools scheme in the early 1970s.

Would you like to play a game?

@witchofengineering

6 жыл бұрын

Let's play Global Thermonuclear War

I wonder where you can get paper tape these days?

Are there any working 905s or 920Cs? Those were the first British IC-based computers (from what I understand).

I see the two handles on the front. I guess this computer was designed to be mounted in a cabinet?

Does it run NET BSD? :) Fond memories of DEC VT220 in amber, writing and running COBOL programmes at college on the PDP then VAX.

My soloq teammates' favorite!

I wonder if software that does what the number program could do. I'd have fun messing around with something like that.

My grandfather Andrew & my grandmother Dina St Johnston worked in making that. At Elliot Brothers

@geoffcrisp7225

2 жыл бұрын

I knew them as an Ex Elliott engineer when they had Vaughan Programming Serices in Ware. I used to service their Elliott macines when working for SRL

At nearly the same time when the first model of PDP-8 came out

I'd love to see a video of the internals of the computer

He looks very proud of himself.

A DEC terminal on an elliot , sacrilege !

Almost an episode of objectivity!

Wow. those gradual displaying of letters and random beeps by super hi-tech equipments featured in movies must be originated from this type of machine...

Reminds me of making a mancala game in college.

What sort of algorithm was it running when doing the Countdown problem ? Was it intelligent or brute force ? A comparison with a modern PC (or smartphone) using the same algorithm would be interesting

@Seegalgalguntijak

9 жыл бұрын

UKHeliBob No, it wouldn't. Because you can't really tell the difference between .2 microseconds and 2.1 microseconds (or something like that - these numbers were just meant as an example).

@Bob_Burton

9 жыл бұрын

Seegal Galguntijak You would amplify the difference if you did the calculation say 1000 times. Then it would be easy to see the difference. In any case, if the program was running at full speed in the video then it is taking much longer than the numbers you made up. How long would a PC or smartphone take is the question.

@Seegalgalguntijak

9 жыл бұрын

UKHeliBob The answer is a few microseconds.

As a Kid i remember being shown punchcards the a hospital used in their comp btw i'm 52 the Hospital was Kansas City University Medical center i was maybe 7 years old

Just think, machines like the space shuttle, the SR71 and a 747 were all brought about by computers just like this. Maybe even that machine itself.

Thumbs up to all the Elliotts out there :D

What is its CPU Speed? KIPS?

So, how many times has a tape been accidentally ripped, and had to be re-printed?

@TheCentreforComputingHistory

8 жыл бұрын

Danomnomnom Surprisingly not many times at all, the tape is put into a reader that has metal pins to guide it, so none to my knowledge has never been damaged through reading, reeling it back up again can be slightly more tricky, it has a habit of looping. If this has happened, and the tape is badly creased or torn, as long as the programme is still running, it is easy to turn the machine from read to write, it can soon punch out another tape.

Ohh... So _Noughts and Crosses_ means _Tic Tac Toe_ Took me a minute.

but the best opening move in noughts and crosses is the corner :(

Cheers! I was born in 1966.

What programming language is this programmed with?

@johnfrancisdoe1563

6 жыл бұрын

Theodor Berza Algol 60 or SIR assembler.

Mhh, seems quite user friendly and powerful for this size and age. Are there any jump and run or racing games for it? Can it do Black MIDI? What about an office application?

@Seegalgalguntijak

9 жыл бұрын

derLPMaxe You're thinking 80s, not 60s. These things were not used for that kind of stuff back then. Only the most basic calculations. He also said that it didn't come with a monitor, but with a printer instead. So no way to play a jump and run game on it, or anything like that. With an "office application", it would do as much as a typewriter does, so it would have been better to use a typewriter back in the day.

9 жыл бұрын

Seegal Galguntijak I know that this is a computer of the 60s and this is why I was absolutly serious when asking this questions. It can do quite some nice things though for such a computer. And it seems that you can hook up a monitor on the computer.

@gummipalle

9 жыл бұрын

derLPMaxe You wouldnt be able to get great bit depth/variation or memory capacity ie small map sizes and unit counts... It can differentiate between a limited range of values, which it can do operations on, within rather narrow limitations... but thats about it I think... There would have been no real-time visual output or graphics support, no extensive libraries, or graphics editing software for creating game assets. Fonts werent invented yet, or perhaps barely... And even printing was a large scale operation... This thing could barely do text in real time, as we saw when it was printing to the screen. -It would do the calculations for you, and give you updated coordinates for, say, units in a war game, but you would need a real-life table-top set of models, that you then moved around yourself USING those coordinate printouts.... turn by turn rather than frame by frame.... -The same way a chess machine/computer worked back when, with an actual physical board and pieces... I think you would use something like this to print out tables or sets of data in physical form, and then actually do work with the hard-copy.... That way, one machine can service many more people, within a company, forex. You probably wouldnt be reading off the actual machine directly...

9 жыл бұрын

Seegal Galguntijak You don't get my point, right?

9 жыл бұрын

Frabbledabble When Naughts and Crosses works, then with alot of time maybe Chess or even a Rogue clone could work. The actualy questions were not really meant to be serious. But I guess it would be worth thinking about what is possible with todays way of thinking about computers and this piece of hardware.

What language are these programs written in? Is it just Assembly or some high level language?

@Seegalgalguntijak

9 жыл бұрын

Henrik Sommerland I think it's in binary machine code. Nothing as high level as Assembly ;) - but that's just my guess.

@TheMorMor

9 жыл бұрын

Well that's whats on the tape. It is most likely ALGO since there apparently as a Elliott version of ALGO.

@Richardincancale

9 жыл бұрын

Henrik Sommerland You had a choice of Elliott Algol (similar to Algol 60), Fortan II or (most likely) assembler. The assemlber was called SIR (Symbolic Input Routine) and since there are only 16 instructions it just used numbers 0 - 15 rather than ADD, SUB etc.

@TheMorMor

9 жыл бұрын

Cool cool! How incredibly annoying to not use menonics for an assembly language. Seems a bit silly considering that it is not much work for the assembler to parse three letter symbols instead of a two digit number.

@TheCentreforComputingHistory

9 жыл бұрын

Henrik Sommerland The programmes demonstrated here are in Binary code, they were both created by the gentleman who donated the machine.

If it can play songs like that, it's just screaming to have "Never Gonna Give You Up" on a paper tape roll played on it. You haven't Rick Roll'd someone until you've done it with an Elliot 903 from 1966.

4 8 15 16 23 42

@RC-1290

9 жыл бұрын

Shouldn't you be on an island somewhere?

@RobinTheBrave

9 жыл бұрын

***** 16 * 23 / 8 - 4 = 42 :)

@Inaflap

9 жыл бұрын

***** 4 + 15 + 23 = 42

@martinmine

9 жыл бұрын

***** That's numberwang!

@TahreyUK

5 жыл бұрын

*Sixty-nine, dudes!*

So at 2:40 we can see the 1-9 grid with 1 at the top left, like a phone, but then at 3:30 we can see the numberpad on the keyboard with the 1 at the bottom left, very confusing for little kids!

What was this computer actually used for back in 1966?

@PeterWalkerHP16c

8 жыл бұрын

+Yipyap all sorts, I could imagine calculating complex values in circuit design for TVs or any number of things. Much faster than a slide rule. :-)

How about ENIAC next?

We got an Elliot 803 in my school in about 1975.

@marconatrix

8 жыл бұрын

+Nilguiri There was little in common between the 803 and 903 IIRC, different architecture and instructions etc. From what little I recall the 803 was really weird internally.

@Nilguiri

8 жыл бұрын

marconatrix Sounds like you know more about it than I do! I can't remember much about it, to be honest. I do remember it occupied a whole room which we had to have checked to make sure it would hold the weight. Cheers.

@Nilguiri

8 жыл бұрын

marconatrix Interesting... cheers.

Beautiful. P.S: Can it run Crysis 3?

Make a video solving linear programming models please.

@GrahamLaight

2 жыл бұрын

Wrong computer for that job!

Wow it reads the tape pretty fast compared to a teletype...

Why is the system displaying each letter one by one? Is this native behavior to old computers?

@d2factotum

9 жыл бұрын

HauntingShock More than likely a computer of this age would be treating its output device like a teletype machine, in which case you don't have random access to any point on the screen, you have to just stream out a sequence of characters. That, combined with the machine not being very fast, leads to the "one character at a time" thing.

@zubirhusein

9 жыл бұрын

d2factotum In addition, teletypes themselves are pretty slow, so the baud rate is mostly likely hardwired to the speed the typical teletype would print at

@DFX2KX

9 жыл бұрын

HauntingShock if you've ever seen one of those old electric typewriters, this computer is designed to use a device like that, albeit slightly different (Teletype machine as previously noted). They're loud and obnoxious, but fun to use at least once in a lifetime.

What's that beautyful IBM thing on the wall?

@TheCentreforComputingHistory

8 жыл бұрын

ö. . , It is the front operators panel of an IBM 370/138 www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/2224/IBM-370-138/

You didn't specify exactly what was the program's task in the exercise after TTT.

@Tevildo

5 жыл бұрын

Dan - Combine (as few as possible) of the first six numbers to make the final number using simple arithmetic operations. It's one of the rounds of the popular UK gameshow "Countdown".

Cool

in my experience you get a beeping noise from just having a memory component disconnected, not exactly horrendously broken

Wow :D

so the name of the protagonist in Mr. Robot is basically a tribute to an older machine?

i wonder how a tape got twisted up (i say as i observe that he didn't bother to line up the tape with the device)

@kght222

9 жыл бұрын

kght222 the second tap was lined up better by far, the first one might have worked from that angle. he seems to be ignoring the physical part of programming a system like that.

@TheCentreforComputingHistory

8 жыл бұрын

kght222 The tape has two guide pins, and then the metal guide plate is clicked down to keep it straight, it is not really possible to misalign the tape, if it is not between the pins it simply would not read and stop.

How does it work? .....???

Shaved my beard .. and that guy (Jeremy) did too :D but to be honest you look much better with a beard.

I miss amber DEC terminal screens.

nice m8 i r8 it 8/8

370/138 frontpanel ! Me wanna have that! :-D

you guys need to keep the camera a little bit more stable

In TTT best opening move is in a corner.

Computer games are pretty much as old as computers. Programmers probably were making it play music and other silliness.