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65 Years Ago, Manchester's 'Baby' Ran Electronically Stored Program
hypnosec writes that the first ever practical implementation of the stored program concept took place 65 years ago, "as the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine aka 'Baby' became the world's first computer to run an electronically stored program on June 21, 1948. The 'Baby' was developed by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill at the University of Manchester. 'Baby' served as a testbed for the experimental Williams-Kilburn tube – a cathode ray tube that was used to store binary digits, aka bits. The reason this became a milestone in computing history was that up until 'Baby' ran the first electronically stored program, there was no means of storing and accessing this information in a cost-effective and flexible way."
Nobody programs baby in the corner!
Yes, quite. How is the birth of modern computing and something like an old computer in any way interesting to a geek or nerd? What we need here are more inane questions about things that take 10 seconds to Google, or more in-depth articles about what Snowdon had for lunch. Those are clearly the things only a geek or nerd could be interested in!
How is this relevant to geeks and nerds?
Surrender your geek card immediately. How is the anniversary of the first run of an electronically stored program *not* relevant to geeks and nerds?
It goes to show that early adopters are not always capitalized upon, perhaps it is understandable when you consider the UK at the end of WW2 had more pressing issues such as cities to rebuild, population to feed (food shortages were worse after the war than during..).
Wow. It's easy to forget that the entire industry of programmable computers is younger than a lot of ordinary people walking around today. It makes me wonder what entirely new industry I might see develop from nothing over my lifetime.
It makes sure another generation of CS people dont read too much about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z4_(computer)
and the life of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The Z3 and Z4 are great accomplishments, and Konrad Zuse is poorly remembered, but that's nothing to do with the Baby being the first machine to run an internally stored program. It was one of the first Von Neumann architecture machines, which is why it's significant.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
...this machine isn't even mentioned in the Wikipedia computer entry, then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
According to the wiki, the Germans were first with a calculator, followed by the Americans. The Brits are given a sentence, saying that they built the Colossus, which had 'limited programmability', but that the US machine ENIAC was really the first proper computer....
it lays to rest the myth that Americans invented the computer
That would've been enough to store *both* "What hath God wrought?" and "Come here Watson - I want to see you."
Probably Chinese food
It wasn't made by apple, therefore non-relevant.
or if you like, Jack the Knife...
Zuses early machines used a mechanical data memory and a tape for the program. This is about the first computer using electrically stored memory and supporting stored memory programs - a Z4 would most probably be more useful in comparison but that doesn't change the fact that the SCEM did two very important contributions to computation machines.
Fine, make up your own myths if you like.
it lays to rest the myth that Americans invented the computer
It does, but it's been many years since the "ENIAC was the first electronic computer" myth was prevalent anyway.
The post is right that Baby was tremendously important for being the first computer with an electronically stored program. However if you want to debate who invented the modern computer, it's absurd to say that any one person or group did so. Histories are right to trace it back at least as far as Babbage. In the 1930's and 1940's there were numerous people and groups in the UK, US and even Germany (Zuse) that all made important contributions.
Baby, Baby, Baby, Ooh! Baby, Baby, Shiny Lights! Stores few kilobytes!
And it didn't happen in the USA.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And it didn't happen in the USA.
Give it a rest. The idea that Americans think Americans pioneered everything is even more of a shopworn generalization than Americans who actually think Americans pioneered everything.
Are you referring to those ladies with comptometers? Come on, it's 1950's, everyone knows that this contraption is called an "electronic brain". Computers are so a thing of the past.
Ezekiel 23:20
Something posh, I'll wager. After all, he used to be Queen Elizabeth's brother in law.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Two words: Al Gore.
You'll be claiming you aren't all fat next.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And it didn't happen in the USA.
Then--like the Roman Empire and the birth of Barrack Obama--it never happened!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
... when geeks were bold
and punch-cards weren't invented
we drank our joe
by the warm tube glow
and went on quite contented.
And it didn't happen in the USA.
Give it a rest. The idea that Americans think Americans pioneered everything is even more of a shopworn generalization than Americans who actually think Americans pioneered everything.
Yet many Americans do believe that the US invented everything and can often recall names and dates to back this up. Yet they have no knowledge of the many times the same thing was invented before. People only know what they are taught so I blame the American education system for that one.
Amusingly Indians (from India, not native Americans) believe the exact same thing.
Is it just me, or does it seem with each passing year, the earliest date in which something is claimed to have happened for the first time gets pushed back a year? Just about this time last year, it seems that it was 64 years ago that the first electronically stored program was run by a computer, and now they're claiming it was 65. Way to revise history, guys. Next you'll be claiming that everyone is a year older now than they were before. Where will it end?
Two words: Al Gore.
Two words: urban legend.
Yet many Americans do believe that the US invented everything and can often recall names and dates to back this up.
Concrete examples?
Better yet, stats or studies. You can always cite anecdotes of a few people with an absurd misunderstanding of something, but inferring too much from that may be a matter of confirmation bias, or worse yet, over-generalization.
As all geeks know, space exploration gave us all technology. Before 1957, people were stupid. But as soon as a test pilot went into a tin can in the upper atmosphere, he came back with the knowledge of the gods. I am very suspicious of stories that challenge that. Obviously we had no technology before we went into space.
In the midst of a history of a similar project at Princeton by George Dyson. Despite the name of the book, Dyson's hero is Johnny von Neuman.
"I took the initiative on creating the internet".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnFJ8cHAlco
Let's hope it also lays to rest the myth that we only have computers because of NASA.
When I first started in this industry, I worked with Chris Burton who'd worked on Baby (and later led the team which rebuilt it); he had known Turing, as had another man I worked with later. Our team was led by Charlie Portman, who gets a credit in The Mythical Man Month. It's pretty amazing how close we are - two generations away - from the legendary figures who founded our industry, who built the first computers.
Chris was famous in our team because we had some new Mannesman Tally inkjet printers, which could only print ASCII, and we needed them to print bitmaps. The processor in the printers was one that no-one in the team had any experience of. So Chris took the datasheet for the printer, the datasheet for the processor, a dump of the printer ROM, and a square ruled pad home with him on the train, and came back in the morning on the train with code for a new ROM for the printer, written not in assembler but in the actual opcodes (hexadecimal), in pencil on the pad. We blew them into the ROM and it worked first time printing perfect bitmaps, no errors, no bugs to fix.
That's how good the first generation programmers were. I am still in awe of that. And he was a very modest man, very generous with his experience. I'm proud to have learned from him.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Let's hope it also lays to rest the myth that we only have computers because of NASA.
Sounds like you're creating myths about myths.
There's a standard template to apply to any debate about the history of computing:
The first computer with $GIVEN_FEATURE was actually invented by $GENIUS_LONER who worked for $SOME_INSTITUTION in $CENTRAL_EUROPEAN_COUNTRY a full $N_GREATER_THAN_10 years before $GIVEN_DATE. Sadly, his invention was ignored because of $INSTITUTION_POLITICS, the inventor's $PERSONAL_FAILINGS, and meddling by the $OPPRESSIVE_REGIME. Only a single example of the system was built, and it languished in $DISUSED_BASEMENT, until was unfortunately destroyed during $WARTIME_EVENT.
This was the first electronically-stored program. Earlier computers had things like tubes of mercury with vibrations travelling down them to do the same thing.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The urban legend is that Gore claimed he invented the Internet. What he actually said was poorly phrased, and typical of a politician, but no different from Eisenhower saying he took the initiative on creating the Interstate Highway system. Even Vint Cerf and Newt Gingrich have said the the urban legend is silly.
It's not that I'm a great Gore defender, or even that I mind people using the urban legend as a joke, but it's going too far for the aptly pseudonymous Hognoxious to use it as support for his resentment of Americans.
That's just a myth.
A billion years ago, when I was studying for my Computer Science degree at Manchester University, the design of the Mark 1 and its test machine was certainly on the curriculum. I remember an exam where I had to describe the evolution of ALUs from Mark I to Cray I. Kids these days just get a bunch of Java and Hadoop.
I don't where 'Baby' came from, I never heard it referred to as that by the staff who worked on it. I graduated in 1990. I don't think I heard it referred to as 'Baby' until I was living in the 'States post 2000.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
depends on definitions. first electronic binary computer was invented by Vincent Atanasoff, but it was not a general purpose machine.
It works the other way too! Americans think that Europeans thought the earth was flat, but that is just a 19th century US thing, popularised by e.g. Washington Irving.
The ABC was not a computer.
Two words: Al Gore.
Two words: urban legend.
I'm reasonably certain that Al Gore isn't an urban legend. But if anyone could prove it, there might be 10 quid in it for charity.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Amusingly Indians (from India, not native Americans) believe the exact same thing.
Proof here.
Using a CRT to scan data onto high persistence phosphor, and then use optical sensors to feed that data back to the electron gun created the first dynamic storage system. This machine not only was the first machine with electronic storage, but was the first machine to exercise an example of Dynamic Random Access Memory.
It depends how you define 'modern computer'.
If you mean 'programmable machine', Babbage's Difference Engine is usually credited as the first.
If you mean 'electronic general-purpose computer', it was ENIAC
If you mean 'stored-program computer' (which all modern PCs are), then it was the 'Baby'.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
'Hello my dear canine friend, since you have expressed a liking of myths, I have endeavoured to place a myth within your myth...'
And I can't think of a good ending :(
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Well if only I had a capacious vocabulary like you I could have chosen a different one.
Of course that assumes as a prerequisite that I'm capable of donating an airborne copulatory event.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nobody thinks we only have computers because of NASA. It's velcro. Or do I mean post-it notes? I always get them confused because they're next to each other in the dictionary.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
... in order to facilitate recursive and/or parallel mythologising?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It works, can't argue with that :-)
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
of course it was, look up the definition of computer sometime.
The ABC was not a computer. No one with any knowledge of the history of computing would call the ABC a computer: the word "computer" in that context is always taken to mean a general purpose computing device, and the ABC does not fit into that category: it was an electronic calculator. If you want to count the ABC as a computer than you have to also include a whole bunch of similar non-general purpose computing devices alongside it, including many which came before the ABC.