KU’s first computer unearthed

An IBM 650 found in the base­ment of Learned Hall is believed to be the Uni­ver­si­ty’s first com­put­er. It was bought in 1957.

An emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of com­put­er sci­ence was told about the dis­cov­ery, and has been tak­ing the com­po­nents to his home, where he plans to restore the com­put­er to its full mag­net­ic drum glo­ry. When it was ful­ly func­tion­al, the com­put­er could store a whop­ping 1,000 ten dig­it numbers.

The lab direc­tor who dis­cov­ered the com­put­er esti­mates that the com­put­er sci­ence depart­men­t’s 500 2 giga­hertz desk­top com­put­ers have 100 mil­lion times the pro­cess­ing pow­er of the 6 foot tall 650. 

You can pre­tend you have your own 650 with the IBM 650 sim­u­la­tor.