The Spotlight Golf Machine is hogging the limelight in the Australian Golf Museum in Bothwell, Tasmania. The origin of this machine dates back to 1936 in England. This machine is claimed to be the world’s oldest electrical computer-cum-golf machine.
The unique artefact is an arcade-style golf simulation game. According to computer historians, the machine measures direction, elevation, distance, and spin of each shot when a player hits the ball attached to a string connected to the machine. It uses a variety of early computing technologies to enable golfers to play courses like St. Andrews and Muirfield while sitting in the comfort of their homes.
Foundation Professor of Computer Science at the University of Tasmania, Arthur Sale confirmed that Spotlight is a computer with just eight bits of memory. According to Professor Sale, Spotlight Golf Machine has all the components a modern computer encompasses. There is input, output, the memory, instructions, and coding.
