The History of Computers – The Baby
Invention and Development of Small-Scale Experimental Machine
Oct 1, 2009
It was the 21st of June, 1948, when after several unsuccessful trials the first stored-program digital computer ran and solved a mathematical problem.
It was called Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), or The Baby. That machine became a foundation for further research and development in the field, and created a ground for the familiar to everyone personal computers known these days.
Invention of the Prototype of Modern Computers
Frederic Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Tootill, who worked at the Electrical Engineering department of the Victoria University of Manchester, did not mean the Baby to become a prototype of the contemporary computer.
They developed the machine as a test-bed for Williams Tube – one of the created at that time computer memories. The features of the memory – its speed, reliability, and feasibility – were to be tested in order to prepare for creating Manchester Mark 1 computer, so in general SSEM was a prototype of Mark 1.
The machine was created under the influence of John Von Neumann’s work – he was designing a machine that would use an RCA storage device named Selectron. It also was a tube, a large vacuum one, and worked by means of electrostatic charge storage of 4096 bits. However, Von Neumann did not manage to run the Selectron.
The Stored Program Concept of Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine
The Baby was a computer with 128 bytes of memory.
The designers of SSEM used the random access properties of the memory in order to store both data for digital calculations and program instructions. This idea and its implementation lead the scientists to the realization of the stored program concept, which later became a founding principle for the future computers. SSEM stored its information on the cathode ray tube – similar to the ones used in TV, or radar screens used at that time.
Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), or The Baby, was the first prototype of modern computers. It was the first programmable machine that could perform the next operation after a program in its memory was changed by means of a keyboard. On contrast, other designed at that time machines required modifying the circuits in order to perform another operation.
Sources:
- Enticknap, N., 1998. "Computing's Golden Jubilee". Resurrection, The Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, 20, pp. 6-9.
- Hilpert, B., 2002. “The SSEM Computer: Small Scale Experimental Machine.” Cs.ubc.ca.
- Johnson, B., 2008. “The Baby that set off a hi-tech revolution”. Hindu.com. Guardian Newspapers Limited.
- Relph-Knight, T., 2008. “60th anniversary of the world's first programmable computer - "Baby". Heise-Online.co.uk.
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