I’ve just released my latest online simulation of the Pilot ACE computer (of course run by Three.js).
The Pilot ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) was one of the first computers to be built in the United Kingdom. Designed by Alan Turing, the Pilot ACE was a cut-down version of Turing’s full ACE design and was built at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) at the beginning of the 1950s
It is one of the earliest general-purpose, stored-program computers, had mercury-filled delay lines as memory, used around 800 valves (vacuum tubes) and ran at 1MHz speed which made it the fastest of its time.
On 10th May 1950, it ran it’s very first program and it’s on that day that I’m releasing my simulation 75 years later!
You can read about it (and the nightmare of programming it), then try it out for yourself here in your browser.