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Manchester Baby Lost

Manchester Baby
KindMachine
Introduced1948
Discontinued1948
StatusLost
ManufacturerWilliams & Kilburn / Manchester
ClassEarly computer
PlatformWilliams tube, 32-bit
Sourcewww.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk ↗

The machine that ran the first stored program — 17 instructions on June 21, 1948, proving the Williams tube memory worked. Scrap within a year; a replica runs at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Created by Frederic Calland Williams Tom Kilburn

The Baby (SSEM) was built to test Williams's CRT memory — a tiny proof-of-concept with seven instructions. On June 21, 1948, Kilburn's 52-instruction program factored 2^18 — the first program ever run on a stored-program computer, anywhere.

It was cannibalized for the Manchester Mark 1 within the year; the replica at MOSI was built from photographs and memories. Kilburn later said the machine's significance was that it was 'small enough to be made to work.'

→ Read the full article on the ALB Wiki

Sources

  1. scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/manchester-baby-computer
  2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Baby