The Strange Beauty of Historic Computers Brought Back From the Dead Impressions

In the article in WIRED The Strange Beauty of Historic Computers Brought Back From the Dead, I was introduced, and reintroduced into many of the precursors to the modern computer.

The first thing I thought of was how totally obsolete they are, and how long it would take one of them to produce the renders I do every day. However, I reconsidered, knowing that many of these computers are used for specific purposes, such as breaking the German codes during WWII. It's interesting to see the role that computers have taken now. Instead of being born out of purpose for something in particular, they fill many general functions, however the most powerful computers are still created for a distinct purpose, so we still haven't left the age of computing innovation built out of necessity.

It is clear that computers do fantastic things today, but consumer computers seem to come with hardware first, and you have to find a purpose (development) later. This could just be my personal attitude however as I always buy the most powerful phone on the market with hardware, without really having a need for that power.

However, as I recall from Triumph of the Nerds the Altair computer was hardware without software, you had to develop your own software, so until stored programs came around, perhaps a different reason for the effect, but similar none the less.

It's fascinating to see the size of the machines, and the power and intelligence required to engineer and use one of these computers, and see now that companies like Apple have adopted the "It Just Works" model.