Most of the computers built prior to Edsac were purely experimental, said Mr Hauser.

BBC: Work begins on hardware to aid Edsac replica recreation

"Edsac let scientists tackle problems that could never have been solved with mechanical calculators, " he said.

BBC: Work begins on hardware to aid Edsac replica recreation

The rebuild of Edsac will be done in public at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.

BBC: Work begins on hardware to aid Edsac replica recreation

For some more insight into how the EDSAC changed the face of computing, check out the video after the break.

ENGADGET

Maurice Wilkes, the designer of the EDSAC, certainly earned his place in computing history, but David Wheeler's later contributions were equally important.

ENGADGET

By contrast Prof Maurice Wilkes, who designed Edsac, began with the idea of making a machine that would be a workhorse for Cambridge scientists.

BBC: Work begins on hardware to aid Edsac replica recreation

On May 6th, 1949 EDSAC (or Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) ran its first programs, calculating a table of squares and generating a list of prime numbers.

ENGADGET

Using the EDSAC he invented subroutines, an essential component of modern programming that allows developers to reuse bits of existing code to simplify the act of writing software.

ENGADGET

But Cambridge, the birthplace of computers from the Edsac to the BBC Micro, has at least produced an attempt to address that problem with the Raspberry Pi, which aims to inspire a new generation of computer scientists.

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