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Recreating Import Documentation

A project log for WITCH-E Decimal Based Computer

Document and create a modern replica of the Harwell Dekatron computer known as the WITCH

daves-dev-labDave's Dev Lab 02/22/2017 at 21:540 Comments

Documentation is King!

One of the first things I started doing as part of the WITCH-E project was collecting documentation. This article from the August 1951 edition of Electronic Engineering magazine provide a fantastic amount of information about the fundamental design of the WITCH, however the text along with the diagrams were in a terrible state. The scans of the document were very low resolution and the text of course was not searchable. Over a period of a year, the text was painstakingly converted into digital text, and a friend (Matt Tuomala) tediously recreated the figures and diagrams. After doing some editing and side-by-side comparisons we had a solid recreation of the original document. This document continues to be a cornerstone of the WITCH-E project and in the new digital format can continue to educate into the future. The original PDF and the new PDF are available via our github project pages or linked below!

Original Article - An Electronic Digital Computer

Recreated Article - An Electronic Digital Computer

WITCH-E Github Repository

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