Antique Computer Nostalgia

ILLIAC IV 1975 University of Illinois/Burroughs Corporation, United States In 1966, Daniel Slotnik began designing the ILLIAC IV to incorporate 256 processors, each of which would execute the same instruction on different data (SIMD). Burroughs Corporation began construction of the machine at the University of Illinois, but moved the project to the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, in 1971 due in part to fears involving the project’s military-based funding and student unrest over the Vietnam War. Although only 64 processors were built, the computer performed useful work, such as wind tunnel simulation, seismic studies, and image processing, until it was decommissioned in 1982. Memory Type: Semi Speed: 75 MFLOPS Memory Size: 16M Cost: $31,000,000 Memory Width: (64-bit)

At the rate computer technology is advancing, photographer Mark Richards’ collection of computers are indeed historical. These machines are officially antiques. As someone that enjoys pressing buttons, I enjoy the nostalgia of vintage computers; how unsubtle they are compared to modern designs, with a man-made, non mass-produced artisanal quality about them. Core Memory is a coffee table book that documents the most important and bizarre machines from the collection of the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. Now I know what to buy my tech guy for his birthday.

markrichards12

markrichards4

markrichards6

markrichards1

markrichards11

markrichards5

markrichards9

markrichards6

markrichards10

markrichards8

And just a reminder of how much we’ve evolved, a before (1950) & after…

teEdB0N (1)

Discover more of Mark Richards photography and get the book Core Memory on Amazon. 

Related Posts