Dambusters' computer goes on show

A COMPUTER that was used to calculate the designs of Barnes Wallis bouncing bombs has been restored and gone on show in Auckland, New Zealand.

Differential Analysers were used from 1935 until the 1950s to perform difficult computing tasks. The only one left is the one that Barnes Wallis used for the famous Dam Busters attack on German hydro electric dams, in the Ruhr Valley, during World War II.

The machine was sold for £100 and moved to New Zealand in 1950 and was ironically used to help design the Benmore Hydro Dam. The machine went on to calculate rabbit populations for the the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

According to ComputerWorld (NZ) It now has gone on display at the New Zealand Transport Museum which has a very nice Lancaster Bomber too.

Differential Analyser was built by J B Bratt at Cambridge University in 1935 and if it looks like it was made from Meccano, it was because it was.

The computer covers a base of three or four square metres and is an arrangement of cogs, string and chains, used to drive a plotter (pictured). It just qualifies as a true computer you can programme it.

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