This Sunday marks the 78th anniversary of the world’s first modern computer, Baby.
On 21st June 1947, the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine (Baby) achieved a radical feat, by becoming the first computer to run a program stored in electric memory.
Developed and built at the University of Manchester, the technology proved the basic concept still used as the basis for today’s computers and propelled the city to the forefront of the tech revolution.
That included a rapid progression in computer technology, including the more powerful Manchester Mark 1, which in 1951, Manchester-based, Ferranti, used to produce the world’s first commercially available computer, the Ferranti Mark 1 – which this year has its 75th anniversary.
The Science and Industry Museum already has a full-scale replica of the original Baby and has updated the display surrounding the machine to celebrate the anniversary.
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New objects added highlight the city’s role in developing, testing and refining computing technologies including a 48-node SpiNNaker circuit board, part of a neural-network supercomputer developed at the University of Manchester, which has a million processor cores of the sort found in mobile phones.
Prototype BBC Micro:bits. Developed by the BBC in Salford, this pocket-sized codable computer has introduced millions of children world-wide to coding.
Also a personal account from pioneering Ferranti Mark 1 programmer Mary Lee Woods, later the mother of World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
“Baby is a remarkable piece of computing history that set the ball rolling for all subsequent developments in computing. We’re lucky enough to be one of the only places in the world where you can get up close to a working machine that has had this sort of impact in helping shape the world as we know it,” said Thomas Lean, Project Curator at the Science and Industry Museum.
“Today, it’s hard to imagine a world without computers, but cast your minds back to the early 1950s and Manchester was just on the verge of being the very first to sell them. In 1951, Manchester’s own Ferranti launched the first-ever commercial computer, inspired hugely by its predecessor, Baby. It was developed at the University of Manchester with the help of mathematician Alan Turing, electronics engineers at the University of Manchester, and a team of female programmers, including Mary Lee Woods, later Mary Lee Berners-Lee, the future mother of inventor of the world wide web. This development paved the way for a world where computers would be everywhere, and it all started with Baby.
“The Science and Industry Museum continues to bring life to these historic stories alongside, cutting-edge innovations like SpiNNaker, to spotlight Manchester’s pioneering role in computer science and inspire the next generation of engineers and innovators.”
