Oh Baby! First photograph of early modern computer


	Oh Baby! First photograph of early modern computer

Silkweaver

6-17-2008 7:00 PM

1055 views

tags:

computing, history

Silkweaver says:

Run baby run!

4 Comments |

Add a Comment

6-17-2008 7:09 PM

shandora

http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/45FFB1D3-71BE-4711-8557-FDCB98A79F2A/

A very good documentary about the history of computing.

6-17-2008 10:22 PM

aklimento

...And memory was based on boxes of punched cards, made from thick paper.

6-18-2008 8:43 AM

CHills

We here in Australia think that the first electronic computer was developed by our CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial research Organisation)

6-18-2008 1:53 PM

arifsali

I thought the first computer was Atanasoff's ABC.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/fae398ea-d935-4031-950b-24c30293bc1b/F77CA403-FBAA-4272-B603-7040A54DEA6A/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html" href="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.physorg.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.physorg.com/img/BFEC3DDB-6511-4F45-88CA-DF05791F2E4F" alt="A photograph of a development version of the Baby computer from around 1948." /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html">  
Here is the first known photograph of the great grandfather of modern digital computers – but you couldn’t use it on the train or take it jogging with you.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html"> 
The panoramic black and white image, which has been unearthed in the archives at The University of Manchester, shows a development version of ‘The Baby’ taking up a whole room with its towering Post Office racks and jumble of wiring.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html">The Baby was built using metal Post Office racks, hundreds of valves or vacuum tubes and the keyboard was a series of push buttons and switches, mounted vertically. Instead of a screen, the output was read directly off the face of a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT).</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html">In modern terms the prototype Baby had a RAM (random access memory) of just 32 locations or ‘words’. Each word in the RAM consisted of 32 bits (binary digits) and so The Baby had a grand total of 1024 bits of memory – and a computing speed of 1.2 milliseconds per instruction.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.physorg.com/news132933413.html"><DIV>For more information about Digital 60 please see <A target="_blank" href="http://www.digital60.org" linkindex="30">http://www.digital60.org</A> .
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