Architectural Museum
A catalog of legacy hardware featuring technical specifications and immersive imagery.
Sumerian Abacus
Sumerian Engineers • -2700
The first known tool for positional arithmetic, using columns drawn in sand.
mobility
High
logic
Manual Positional
material
Clay/Sand
Chinese Suànpán
Han Dynasty • 190
The classic bead-frame calculator, utilizing the Zhùsuàn technique for rapid accounting.
beads
2/5 configuration
technique
Zhùsuàn
usage
Accounting
Antikythera Mechanism
Hellenistic Engineers • -100
An ancient analog computer discovered in a Roman-era shipwreck, used for celestial tracking.
gears
30+
mechanism
Bronze Differential
display
Astronomical Dials
Pascaline
Blaise Pascal • 1642
The first mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction.
mechanism
Gear-based
digits
8
usage
Tax calculation
Stepped Reckoner
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz • 1673
A mechanical calculator that introduced the stepped drum mechanism for all four arithmetic operations.
operations
Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division
innovation
Stepped Drum
Difference Engine No. 2
Charles Babbage • 1847
A mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.
precision
31 digits
parts
8,000+
power
Hand-cranked
Differential Analyzer
Vannevar Bush / MIT • 1928
A massive electromechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations.
weight
100 tons
components
Vacuum Tubes/Motors
logic
Analog Integration
Zuse Z1
Konrad Zuse • 1938
The world's first programmable binary computer, constructed from thin metal sheets.
logic
Binary Mechanical
clock
1 Hz
memory
64 words
ENIAC
UPenn • 1945
The first general-purpose electronic computer, built with vacuum tubes.
tubes
17,468
power
150 kW
weight
30 tons
IBM 704
IBM • 1954
The first mass-produced computer with floating-point arithmetic hardware.
memory
Core Storage
arithmetic
Floating Point
primary_os
GM-NAA I/O
IBM System/360
IBM • 1964
A landmark family of compatible mainframe computers.
architecture
32-bit
range
Small to Super
legacy
Industry Standard
Cray-1
Cray Research • 1976
The world's most famous supercomputer, featuring a unique C-shaped cooling tower.
speed
160 MFLOPS
architecture
Vector Processing
cooling
Freon