Talk:Harwell computer

The Nine Billion Names of WITCH

In an email with Brum CC Museums Collection Centre in 2007, the curator there referred to this beast as the "Harwell Dekatron Computer". What with Harwell Computer, WITCH, Harwell Dekatron Computer, this machine seems to have had more than its fair share of names. Are there any others? Andrew Oakley (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I've found a truly excellent essay on Computing at Harwell by one of the chaps who worked there. He also uses the name "Harwell Dekatron Computer", apparently to distinguish it from a number of other electronic/electro-mechanical computers at AERE and, notably, people who were called "hand-computers" (i.e. mathematicians). The essay includes numerous photos. It would seem that "Harwell Computer" may have initially been a job role, performed originally by people and then later by the WITCH machine and her descendants. Andrew Oakley (talk) 14:45, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

"One of the chaps who worked there" turns out to be the Director of the Computing Lab at AERE. If he calls it the Harwell Dekatron Computer then I think that's as close to definitive as we get. Should we adjust the article name to match? Andrew Oakley (talk) 15:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the links! --Pier4r (talk) 10:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

The original name for the machine was certainly simply 'The Harwell Computer' - see the original paper presented by its designer, Ted Cooke-Yarborough, at NPL in 1953 It was renamed by its users as the Harwell Dekatron Computer simply to distinguish it from the second machine built at Harwell known as CADET. --Krmurrell (talk) 10:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Change it back to WITCH as everyone knows it as this.

Who calls Elton John. Reg Dwight or Vin Diesel, Mark Sinclair? Mariegriffiths (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I think it should stay "Harwell Dekatron" or "Harwell computer". That is what it was called when it was doing production work (i.e. its career name). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:39, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

On which campus was it located at Wolves & Staffs tech college / Wolves poly?

I have a dim, possibly false, memory of sitting in front of this as a toddler, when my dad took me to Himley Hall where he was a business professor for Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Can anyone confirm, ideally with a reliable source, that Himley Hall was indeed the (or one of the) campus for this beast during its WITCH phase? Thanks. Andrew Oakley (talk) 13:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Da has corrected me, he swears it was the "Main Site on Stafford Road, Wolverhampton". I suppose he means what is now the City Campus off Stafford Street. That campus is huge these days, and a lot of it has been built or re-built since the 1970s when the WITCH was last in residence. Any more accurate and reliable sources welcomed (not that I'm saying my father isn't reliable... perhaps I mean verifiable ;-). Andrew Oakley (talk) 21:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Now working again

I've added another BBC News link, showing the computer now working again at Bletchley Park. GrahamN-UK (talk) 02:33, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Updated BBC story with video

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20395212 pschemp | talk 13:00, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Technical data

RAM? MIPS? MHz? kg? 46.115.74.144 (talk) 09:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Vacuum tube computer?

The article says "relay-based" computer, but the links indicate it's a vacuum-tube system based on the decatron tube, and it appears in List of vacuum tube computers. I don't want to change this myself, but someone knowledgeable should bring things into alignment. Peter Flass (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Dekatrons are tubes but they are not vacuum tubes. They're gas-filled cold cathode tubes. See Dekatron

Did the 1957 documentation of the cases survive?

"In 1957, at the end of its life at Harwell, the Oxford Mathematical Institute ran a competition to award it to the college that could produce the best case for its future use" . Is there any chance that one can see the application and the cases exposed by the various colleges? it would be interesting to read them.

--Pier4r (talk) 10:57, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Stored program?

The article says "Although it could on occasions act as a true stored-program computer, that was not its normal mode of operation." I can't find anything about that in the reference that follows the next sentence. Could it act as a true stored-program computer, or did it always read the program from paper tape? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:11, 10 November 2025 (UTC)