On February 16, 1948, one of the most significant events in the history of computing took place - the creation of the first general-purpose electronic computer. The computer, called the Manchester Baby or Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), successfully ran its first program on this day at the University of Manchester in England.
The Manchester Baby was designed and built by a team of engineers and mathematicians, including Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Tootill. The computer was based on the stored-program concept, which means that it could store both data and instructions in its memory, allowing for more flexible and efficient processing.
The first program ran on the Manchester Baby was written by Tom Kilburn and consisted of 17 instructions. The program was designed to find the highest factor of a given number by trying every integer from 2 upwards until it found one that divided the number exactly. The computer took 52 minutes to complete the task, which was a groundbreaking achievement at the time.
The Manchester Baby had a memory capacity of 32 words, each containing 32 bits, and a clock speed of around 1 MHz. While these specifications may seem primitive by today's standards, the creation of the Manchester Baby laid the foundation for the development of modern computers.
The success of the Manchester Baby led to the creation of the Manchester Mark 1, which was the first commercially available general-purpose computer. The Mark 1 was used for a variety of scientific and engineering applications, including the design of aircraft and the calculation of astronomical data.
The legacy of the Manchester Baby lives on today, as it paved the way for the development of the computer industry and the digital revolution that has transformed our world. Every time we use a computer or a smartphone, we owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneers who created the Manchester Baby on this day in 1948.
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
