WashDC 2004: Dad and Mom

[Photo: Dad and Mom in front of IAS Machine]

Dad and Mom standing in front of a phone exchange, maybe. Alert reader Jon Elson wrote in to say:

The picture with your folks standing in front of a "phone exchange" is actually of the Whirlwind Mk 1 computer, the first all electronic stored program computer.

He might be right--it seems strange that a phone exchange would make it into the Smithsonian. Then again, I can't find any references to Whirlwind making it into the Smithsonian. Its Wikipedia entry says it went to the The Computer History Museum. So I dunno.

As I look around the net at photos of old computers, now I think that this is the IAS Machine.

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