ERNIE-1 in the Conservation Laboratory Science Museum, Swindon
One of the first popular uses of computing in the UK was to pick prize-winning Premium Bond numbers in 1957, and ERNIE -- Electric Random Number Indicator Equipment -- did the job for 16 years, until 1972. It has been stored in an aircraft hangar in Swindon, but will become part of the Science Museum's History of Computing gallery in London on Thursday June 26. The Science Museum says:
Aside from its cultural influence, ERNIE has great technological importance. It was the 'son of' the world's first digital electronic computer, the code breaking Colossus, created during World War II to read messages sent by German commanders. ERNIE was built at the same place as Colossus, the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, and by some of the same engineers. The Colossus machine was so secret that it was not until well into the 1970s that people began to hear of Colossus's wartime code breaking exploits, and the link between Colossus and ERNIE became clear.
You can see the resemblance to the reconstructed tube-based Colossus in a photo with my recent article on the proposal for a National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, the now-famous code-breaking centre, and on this blog.
ERNIE tends to make news when the hardware is changed. For example, we ran a big feature in Computer Guardian in the late 1980s when ERNIE 3 was installed, and Money Guardian did one when ERNIE 4 arrived in 2004.
The table below, from National Savings & Investments, shows how technology has advanced. It shows the effects of inflation, too.
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