English: The plaque describing WEIZAC in the weizmann institute of science's computer sciences faculty. (The Ziskind building)

It reads: "The founder and first head of the Weizmann Institute's applied Mathematics Department, Prof. Chaim Leib Pekeris, had a vision: the building of an electronic computer - even though it was an instrument of unclear value in those days, found in only a few high-level scientific institutions. Despite incredible economic difficulties, the Institute invested considerable resources in gathering a top team of engineers, led by Gerald Estrin, to build WEIZAC - one of the most advanced computers at the time. WEIZAC served the Institute and the Israeli scientific community from 1954 to 1964, inspired generations of scientists and sparked the development of Israel's high tech industry"

(Capitalization copied from the plaque)

The smaller, IEEE plaque reads: "The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, built the Weizmann Automatic Computer (WEIZAC) during 1954-1955 with the scientific vision of Chaim Pekeris and the engineering leadership of Gerald Estrin. The WEIZAC was based on drawings from the IAS computer at Princeton University and built with much ingenuity. The machine was the first digital electronic computer constructed in the Middle East and it became an indispensable scientific computing resource for many scientists and engineers worldwide.

December 2006