Golden Jubilee photos: Computers for physics

CERN's first computer, a huge vacuum-tube Ferranti Mercury, was installed in building 2 in 1958. With its 60 microsecond clock cycle, it was a million times slower than today's big computers. The Mercury took 3 months to install and filled a huge room, even so, its computational ability didn't quite match that of a modern pocket calculator. "Mass" storage was provided by four magnetic drums each holding 32K x 20 bits - not enough to hold the data from a single proton-proton collision in the LHC. It was replaced in 1960 by the IBM 709 computer, seen here being unloaded at Cointrin airport. Although it was taken over so quickly by transistor equipped machines, a small part of the Ferranti Mercury remains. The computer's engineers installed a warning bell to signal computing errors - it can still be found mounted on the wall in a corridor of building 2.