1940s computer blasts through .001MHz barrier

A LEADING EDGE computer called the CSIRAC, which is claimed to be the first computer in the world to play music, is on its last legs in an Australian museum -- like Mageek it's pegging out.

The machine was built in 1949, weighs a few tons, and consumed enough electricity to light up a street.

The machine was the fourth computer to be built anywhere in the world, ran at 0.001MHz, and had a massive 2000 bytes of memory and a behemothic 2500 bytes of storage.

And it's still running, now safe in the Melbourne Museum, in Australia.

The music programs were stored on hand punched paper tapes and have recently been decoded, over half a century later.

You can listen to the computer's version of Colonel Boogey here.

And this is an interesting page that goes into further detail.

The machine is not as old as the editor of the INQUIRER.... µ