IBM built a secret NSA computer in 1962 that ran 200x faster; how a worn part ended it
The year 1962 marked the inception of a clandestine project by IBM for the NSA, giving rise to the secret computer named Harvest. For fourteen years, this remarkable machine tackled critical cryptographic computations during the tense Cold War era, boasting speeds that eclipsed its peers by a factor of 200.
IBM constructed a covert computer for the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 1962, which operated for 14 years and handled some of the agency's most sensitive cryptographic tasks during the Cold War. Known as Harvest, the system could perform certain tasks up to 200 times faster than comparable machines of its era, according to IEEE Spectrum reports.
Harvest eventually ceased operation on February 27, 1976, due to a mechanical failure in its automated tape library, for which no replacement parts could be sourced as the manufacturer had gone out of business.
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