industrial archaeology from the dawn of the information age

[OT from cottage renovations]

it is interesting enough (well, to some) to learn that one of the early Colossus computers is coming back to life in Bletchley Park and will be tested against Enigma message intercepts.  better yet is the observation that "A virtual Colossus written to run on a Pentium 2 laptop takes about the same time to break a cipher as Colossus does" (BBC). 

I don't believe any of the IBM 360/91s (only fifteen were built) were preserved.  pity, though: the imprecise interrupt was its finest legacy. 

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[edit: it turns out that the console of the Columbia 360/91 is on display in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California]

regular habits

[OT from cottage renovations]

more moggy news from Across The Water: Dorset's carpool kitty (BBC).