Solve : Demo shows off first parts of Edsac rebuild?

1.	Solve : Demo shows off first parts of Edsac rebuild?
Answer» A project to recreate a pioneering UK 1940s computer has hit a significant milestone as the first working parts of the restored machine are demonstrated. Key elements of the restored Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) were unveiled on Wednesday. They were shown off at a Bletchley Park event marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edsac's designer, Sir Maurice Wilkes, who died in 2010. The Edsac restoration project began in 2011 and should be completed by 2015. Edsac, widely accepted to be the WORLD's first practical general purpose computer, first ran in May 1949. It was created to do computational work for scientists at the University of Cambridge Its design was copied for the Leo, the world's first computer to be used in business. Restoration of the original machine has been tough as relatively few of the Edsac design documents from the 1940s have survived. Early work on the project has gone into scrutinising pictures of the original to work out which bits go where and what they might do. This has been a mammoth task as Edsac is built of 3,000 valves spread across 140 separate shelves. Once complete, the machine will occupy a 20-sq-m (215-sq-ft) space. Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23079905 Quote This has been a mammoth task as Edsac is built of 3,000 valves spread across 140 separate shelves. Haven't heard the use of "Valves" in ELECTRONICS ( Electric Valves = Diodes, Triodes, and Transistors ) other than electro-mechanical physical valves in a long long time.. http://zipcon.net/~swhite/docs/physics/electronics/Valves.html My first introduction to the term "Valves" for electronic components was on an old Heath Kit tube set in the early 1980s, and the kit was from the 1960s that I picked up at a yard sale. To anyone young ENOUGH to have NEVER heard of electronic valves, they may think of mechanical valves reading this like the ones in motors etc. Or maybe its just a USA thing to think this way to the statement of Valves since according to the site I linked they state it as a common term in Britain. Quote from: DaveLembke on June 27, 2013, 06:22:50 PM Haven't heard the use of "Valves" in electronics ( Electric Valves = Diodes, Triodes, and Transistors ) other than electro-mechanical physical valves in a long long time.. http://zipcon.net/~swhite/docs/physics/electronics/Valves.html My first introduction to the term "Valves" for electronic components was on an old Heath Kit tube set in the early 1980s, and the kit was from the 1960s that I picked up at a yard sale. To anyone young enough to have never heard of electronic valves, they may think of mechanical valves reading this like the ones in motors etc. Or maybe its just a USA thing to think this way to the statement of Valves since according to the site I linked they state it as a common term in Britain. A couple of slight corrections from someone who had electronics as a hobby since the 1960s and worked in manufacturing in the 1970s and 80s - British usage: thermionic valve or just 'valve' (you never hear 'electronic valve' except by younger people or non techies trying to explain them to others). US usage: vacuum tube or just 'tube'. Types of valves/tubes are named by the number of active electrodes: a diode has two: a cathode and anode, a triode has three, it adds a (control) grid; a tetrode has four (cathode, control grid, screen grid, anode) a pentode has five (cathode, control grid, screen grid, suppressor grid, anode), and so on. I don't believe there were valves made with more than around 9 active electrodes (nonodes). One difference you notice is the way they are shown in circuit diagrams - in US diagrams the envelope tends to be drawn as a circle WHEREAS British ones are more elongated. US UK Valves/tubes are still used commercially and industrially for a number of specialist and high power applications - the magnetron used in every microwave oven is a type of thermionic valve, and most high power TV and radio transmitters still use them. Also, transistors may have been called "semiconductor valves" for a year or two after they were invented in 1948, but it soon dropped away.

Answer»

A project to recreate a pioneering UK 1940s computer has hit a significant milestone as the first working parts of the restored machine are demonstrated.

Key elements of the restored Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) were unveiled on Wednesday.

They were shown off at a Bletchley Park event marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edsac's designer, Sir Maurice Wilkes, who died in 2010.

The Edsac restoration project began in 2011 and should be completed by 2015.

Edsac, widely accepted to be the WORLD's first practical general purpose computer, first ran in May 1949.

It was created to do computational work for scientists at the University of Cambridge

Its design was copied for the Leo, the world's first computer to be used in business.

Restoration of the original machine has been tough as relatively few of the Edsac design documents from the 1940s have survived.

Early work on the project has gone into scrutinising pictures of the original to work out which bits go where and what they might do.

This has been a mammoth task as Edsac is built of 3,000 valves spread across 140 separate shelves.

Once complete, the machine will occupy a 20-sq-m (215-sq-ft) space.

Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23079905 Quote

This has been a mammoth task as Edsac is built of 3,000 valves spread across 140 separate shelves.

Haven't heard the use of "Valves" in ELECTRONICS ( Electric Valves = Diodes, Triodes, and Transistors ) other than electro-mechanical physical valves in a long long time.. http://zipcon.net/~swhite/docs/physics/electronics/Valves.html My first introduction to the term "Valves" for electronic components was on an old Heath Kit tube set in the early 1980s, and the kit was from the 1960s that I picked up at a yard sale.

To anyone young ENOUGH to have NEVER heard of electronic valves, they may think of mechanical valves reading this like the ones in motors etc. Or maybe its just a USA thing to think this way to the statement of Valves since according to the site I linked they state it as a common term in Britain. Quote from: DaveLembke on June 27, 2013, 06:22:50 PM

Haven't heard the use of "Valves" in electronics ( Electric Valves = Diodes, Triodes, and Transistors ) other than electro-mechanical physical valves in a long long time.. http://zipcon.net/~swhite/docs/physics/electronics/Valves.html My first introduction to the term "Valves" for electronic components was on an old Heath Kit tube set in the early 1980s, and the kit was from the 1960s that I picked up at a yard sale.

To anyone young enough to have never heard of electronic valves, they may think of mechanical valves reading this like the ones in motors etc. Or maybe its just a USA thing to think this way to the statement of Valves since according to the site I linked they state it as a common term in Britain.

A couple of slight corrections from someone who had electronics as a hobby since the 1960s and worked in manufacturing in the 1970s and 80s -

British usage: thermionic valve or just 'valve' (you never hear 'electronic valve' except by younger people or non techies trying to explain them to others).
US usage: vacuum tube or just 'tube'.

Types of valves/tubes are named by the number of active electrodes: a diode has two: a cathode and anode, a triode has three, it adds a (control) grid; a tetrode has four (cathode, control grid, screen grid, anode) a pentode has five (cathode, control grid, screen grid, suppressor grid, anode), and so on. I don't believe there were valves made with more than around 9 active electrodes (nonodes).

One difference you notice is the way they are shown in circuit diagrams - in US diagrams the envelope tends to be drawn as a circle WHEREAS British ones are more elongated.

US

UK

Valves/tubes are still used commercially and industrially for a number of specialist and high power applications - the magnetron used in every microwave oven is a type of thermionic valve, and most high power TV and radio transmitters still use them.

Also, transistors may have been called "semiconductor valves" for a year or two after they were invented in 1948, but it soon dropped away.

Solve : Demo shows off first parts of Edsac rebuild?

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