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[Archive: 10 January 1998]




How to get your hands
on the world's
first computer

By Mark Ward

for the average nerd, it is the chance of a lifetime--to program the machine that ushered in the modern computer age. Now, computer programmers have been invited to do just that--on a full-scale model of Baby, the world's first stored-program digital computer, which is being built at the University of Manchester.

The modern computer age dawned in 1948 when the 5·3-metre-long Small-Scale Experimental Machine, also known as Baby, ran its first program. Baby was the forerunner of all modern computers because it stored both instructions and data in the same memory. Before the Baby was built, computers had to be rewired to tackle each and every new problem.

Now, to mark 50 years of computing, programmers are being given the opportunity to write a new program for Baby. They have until March to submit their programs.

The restrictions involved in writing a program for Baby are formidable. The computer's memory is a cathode-ray tube and data are stored as dots on this screen. The screen is 32 by 32 pixels square, and this gives Baby a maximum memory capacity of 1024 bits. The only output Baby has is the screen of instructions and one flashing light.

Baby cranks through 700 instructions per second and will be able to complete more than 200 000 instructions in the five minutes that the competition rules allow for. It is a task that a modern desktop computer could complete in less than a second. John Sergeant, a research fellow at Manchester and administrator of the competition, says programmers will have to be very creative to write a winning program. As a tip he says that Baby's instructions occupy only the first eight bits of each line and it might be possible to store data in the remaining space.

A Baby emulator has been written for PCs and Unix systems to help entrants refine their efforts.

related sites:

  • Manchester Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the First Stored-Program Computer

  • The rebuilding of the "Baby"

  • The Machine Hall--Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester

    From New Scientist, 10 January 1998
    
    
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    © Copyright New Scientist, RBI Limited 1998