“Flossie,” the world’s oldest commercial computer and one that served as a prop in The Man With the Golden Gun, has just been returned to “life” by scientists Rod Thomas and Roger Holmes. From Derek Brown at the Sun:

“All of the data the computer has inside it would fit onto 1/3 of a CD. The computer’s main purpose was to produce GCE exam results and certificates at London University in the 1960s.

Rod, 67, and Roger, 59, have spent 2,500 man hours working on breathing life into the machine over the past decade.

Roger, a volunteer of the Computer Preservation Society, said: “The technologies in this machine need to be recorded for archaeological reasons.

‘It is important they are available to future British generations.

‘We are talking to a couple of places about where it could eventually go. It would be nice if it could end up at the Science Museum or Bletchley Park.

‘I know 1/3 of a CD doesn’t sound like much, but that contains the early years of the British computer industry.’

Technology has progressed so much that its 16,000 transistors and 4,000 logic boards could fit onto two 10mm silicon chips today.”