Old computer from hacker legends found in retirees’ basement – only 45 of them
November 9, 2022
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A German Reddit user wrote about the very rare 66-year-old Librascope LGP-30 computer. This rare machine was developed by Stan Frankel at the California Institute of Technology in
A German Reddit user wrote about the very rare 66-year-old Librascope LGP-30 computer. This rare machine was developed by Stan Frankel at the California Institute of Technology in 1954. At the time, the computer sold for $47,000 (about $512,866 today, adjusted for inflation) and weighed 800 pounds.
what is known
At the time of its relevance, it was considered a “little computer”. Its dimensions are approximately 44×33×26 inches.
The LGP-30 contained 113 vacuum tubes, 1,450 solid-state diodes, and memory on a rotating magnetic drum that could store 4,069 31-bit words (equivalent to about 15.8 modern kilobytes).
Librascope 30 General Purpose computers / Photo by c-wizz
Along with the LGP-30 main unit, a Flexowriter-style console (used to input and output data from the machine) and what appears to be a paper tape reader for external data storage were kept.
It is interesting that the author of the original article did not know what this computer and others he found were doing in his grandparents’ basement.
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