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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."
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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....
Wikipedia is a fifedom not an encyclopedia. Editor's persistance beats facts a lot of the time.
You should treat wikipedia like the smart guy down the pub who seems to know what he is talking about but he might be just making everything up.
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.
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.
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.