13 Jun
2020
13 Jun
'20
4:14 a.m.
ABC-TV "Grantchester" (a detective-priest series[*]) featured someone who
died from mercury poisoning, when someone opened the tanks. Apart from
the beautiful Teletype in the foreground, there was a machine with lots of
dials in the background; obviously some early computer, but not enough
footage for me to tell which one, but is a British show if that helps.
[*]
I suppose that I need not remind any Monty Python freaks of these lines:
"There's another dead bishop on the landing, Vicar-Sergeant!"
"Err, Detective-Parsons, Madam."
Etc... Otherwise I'd go on all day :-)
-- Dave
13 Jun
13 Jun
1:55 p.m.
Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> writes:
Apart from the beautiful Teletype in the foreground,
there was a
machine with lots of dials in the background; obviously some early
computer, but not enough footage for me to tell which one,
There are some shots in this trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQmO2fC00E
The racks are mockups (there's a nice National HRO radio in the middle
of one!), but I think what they're trying to represent is the EDSAC
computer at Cambridge; the noughts and crosses game pictured ran on
EDSAC.
--
Adam Sampson <ats(a)offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
15 Jun
15 Jun
4:38 p.m.
Adam Sampson <ats(a)offog.org> wrote:
Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> writes:
A picture of Wilkes with some mercury delay lines and a corner of an EDSAC
rack.
https://images.computerhistory.org/revonline/images/500004368-03-01.jpg?w=6…
There was a lot of loose mercury kicking around on that site. Some of the
Victorian lecture theatres I attended as an undergrad were later
refurbished for use by another department and the rumours were that they
discovered there had been a lot of spillage from old physics
demonstrations when they were part of the Cavendish laboratory.
More recently (10ish years ago?) my boss was briefly evicted from his
office in the Phoenix building after they discovered mercury under the
floorboards. The building was not named after the IBM mainframe computer,
but because it had been burned down and rebuilt such that the top two
storeys looked quite different from the bottom two.
Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <dot(a)dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
Biscay: West or southwest 4 to 6. Moderate, occasionally slight in north.
Thundery showers. Good, occasionally poor.
Apart from the beautiful Teletype in the
foreground, there was a
machine with lots of dials in the background; obviously some early
computer, but not enough footage for me to tell which one,
There are some shots in this trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQmO2fC00E
The racks are mockups (there's a nice National HRO radio in the middle
of one!), but I think what they're trying to represent is the EDSAC
computer at Cambridge; the noughts and crosses game pictured ran on
EDSAC. 
16 Jun
16 Jun
3:21 a.m.
On Monday, 15 June 2020 at 17:38:18 +0100, Tony Finch wrote:
Adam Sampson <ats(a)offog.org> wrote:
That looks very much like the delay lines on CSIRAC, the oldest
Australian computer, currently on display at Scienceworks in
Melbourne. I have a number of photos of the machine at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/photos/Photos.php?dirdate=20040904 , and
there's a delay line at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/Photos/20040904/big/Delay-line-1.jpeg
CSIRAC was built in 1949. If you're in Melbourne, it's well worth
looking at.
Greg
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Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> writes:
A picture of Wilkes with some mercury delay lines and a corner of an EDSAC
rack.
https://images.computerhistory.org/revonline/images/500004368-03-01.jpg?w=6… Apart from the beautiful Teletype in the
foreground, there was a
machine with lots of dials in the background; obviously some early
computer, but not enough footage for me to tell which one,
There are some shots in this trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQmO2fC00E
The racks are mockups (there's a nice National HRO radio in the middle
of one!), but I think what they're trying to represent is the EDSAC
computer at Cambridge; the noughts and crosses game pictured ran on
EDSAC. 
1887
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3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Adam Sampson -
Dave Horsfall -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Tony Finch