Roger Holmes with Flossy the oldest working digital computer at Buss Farm

by Tim Collins

One of the world’s oldest electronic computers has been restored to working order by two enthusiasts working in a barn near Bethersden.

The International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) 1301 mainframe computer, known as Flossie, was brought back to life by Roger Holmes and Rod Brown.

Flossie was first sold to the University of London at auction for £247,000 in 1962, but was bought by Mr Holmes for just £200 some 15 years later in 1977.

Mr Holmes, a Computer Conservation Society Volunteer, and Mr Brown, who worked as a service engineer for the company who manufactured the machine, have been working to fully restore the 50-year-old machine for around nine years.

Although the computer came from humble origins and was designed to undertake office work, machines of Flossie’s type are no stranger to the limelight.

Among the screen credits enjoyed by the ICT 1301 model are appearances as props in the 1974 James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun, starring Roger Moore, and the BBC Television science fiction series, Doctor Who and Blake’s 7.

Flossy in all her glory!

Closer to home, visitors to the Darling Buds Classic Car Show held at Buss Farm back in July may recognise Flossie from the supporting role she played in the show.

Now restored to her past glory, Mr Holmes says that being around Flossie while running is a multi-sensory experience.

“It’s loud and has an odour which is unique to computers of that era,” he said. “People who worked with the machines of that time often say ‘oh, that takes me back.’

“It appeals to all of the senses, bar taste of course - I haven’t licked it yet!”
Mr Holmes says he is now hoping to find a suitable home for his piece of computing history.

He added: “The machine is a considerable size, and moving it will take months, so I’m not quite sure what is going to happen.

“I have had offers from a number of people, and I’ve spoken to several organisations, including Bletchley park, who may be able to house it.

“However, it is my hope to find somewhere that will be prepared to keep it up and running, as well as finding a space for storing it.”

The techy stuff

• Flossie weighs around five tons and the 25 foot square beast occupies 700 square feet of room - a space considerably larger than the size of an average double garage
• Itconsumes around 13 kilowatts of industrial electricity
• The machine receives its operating instructions from specially created punch cards, and features three methods for storage of information.
• On-board storage is comprised of ferrite cores, a type of iron-based magnetic core, which holds around 12 kilobytes of storage space, as well as three magnetic drums which can store around 72 kilobytes each of data.
• The main storage system is formed of exchangeable reels of magnetic tape, each containing 2mb of data, when formatted
• A maximum of eight reels can be used at once, giving the machine a maximum operational storage space of around 16 megabytes.