If you are imagining a really old woman with a crooked nose zapping around on a broomstick, you are imagining the wrong kind of witch. The WITCH that we're talking about is actually the Hardwell Dekatron, a 61-year-old giant calculator that looks like something right out of Star Trek. The WITCH weighs over 2.5 tons, has over 10,000 moving parts and can work relentlessly for over 80 hours in a week without making a single mistake. It is made completely out of parts that were commonly available in a 1950s telephone exchange.
The calculator was initially used for mathematical modeling at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell. It was eventually phased out, dismantled into 50 parts and put into storage. However, in November 2012, the device was put together again and is considered to be the world's oldest working digital computer.
The WITCH has not only defied death, but has literally come back from the grave.
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