One of Britain’s oldest commercial computers is to go on display
at the Science Museum.
ERNIE (Electric Random Number Indicator Equipment) 1, the
machine which randomly generated winning premium bond numbers, will
take its place in the
History of Computing gallery.
Millions of people checked to see if ERNIE had come up with
their numbers. Draws were televised and celebrities and members of
the public were keen to visit and pose with ERNIE.
If ERNIE 1 was used for the prize draw today it would take 52
days to generate the numbers, while ERNIE 4 takes just three
hours.
Weighing 1.8 tonnes and the size of a van, ERNIE ran for sixteen
years from 1957 until 1972 and was followed by ERNIE 2 in 1973,
ERNIE 3 in 1988 and ERNIE 4 in 2004, with each machine smaller and
faster than the last.
ERNIE was built at the same place as
Colossus, the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, and
by some of the same engineers.
ERNIE used the random movement of electrons in a neon diode to
achieve this through a physically random event and cost £25,000 to
build.
For more on historic computers see:
Colossus is star attraction at National Museum of Computing
More articles about the Colossus, Bletchley Park
Babbage’s vintage supercomputer heads to US
Science Museum: History of Computing
National Museum of Computing website