Kevin Murrell who discovered the computer explains how it was brought back to life Continue reading the main storyRelated StoriesDiary helps tell Colossus storyKey computer conservationist diesCash boost for UK computer museum The world's oldest original working digital computer is going on display at The National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire.
The Witch, as the machine is known, has been restored to clattering and flashing life in a three-year effort.
In its heyday in the 1950s the machine was the workhorse of the UK's atomic energy research programme.
A happy accident led to its discovery in a municipal storeroom where it had languished for 15 years.
Cleaning up
The machine will make its official public debut at a special ceremony at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) in Bletchley Park on 20 November. Attending the unveiling will be some of its creators as well as staff that used it and students who cut their programming teeth on the machine.
Design and construction work on the machine began in 1949 and it was built to aid scientists working at the UK's Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in Oxfordshire. The 2.5 tonne machine was created to ease the burden on scientists by doing electronically the calculations that previously were done using adding machines.
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