FWD: Manchester Baby Programming Competition

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_northernway.net>
Date: Mon Oct 20 11:47:29 1997

Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, hdwarden_at_netins.net
said:

>In <199710201020.LAA12294_at_mailgate.motiv.co.uk>, on 10/20/97
> at 11:20 AM, kevan_at_heydon.org said:
>
>> Program the world's first computer!
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>The world's first computer program was run on June 21st 1948 on the
>>"baby" Mark1 at Manchester. As part of the celebrations to mark the 50th
>>....

World's first computer?!?!? Methinks not on this respect.

> Could some of the list members with more historical knowledge comment
>on this? I thought the first "electronic digital computer" was the ABC -
>Atanasoff Berry Computer from 1939. This was verified in some high
>powered patent cases in '73 and '74, that concluded Sperry-Univac could
>not claim patents for the ideas from thier Univac machine ("43 or '44?).
>Honneywell, CDC, IBM, and others did not want to pay royalties to Sperry.
>The Sperry machine is the first "commercial" machine that was offered for
>sale.
> A replica of the ABC has been built, and is currently on tour of
>midwest Universities.
> Where does the Manchester computer fit in? In seems 1948 was several
>years after the ABC and Univac efforts, yet they're referring to the
>"world's first computer program".

Exactly, on part of the ABC.

However, which was the first computer that enlisted the "stored program
concept" of Von Neumann? Are they referring to an program stored in main
memory instead of external switches? That could be...

Could anyone else expound on this?

Just MHO,
"Merch"
--
Roger Merchberger       | Why does Hershey's put nutritional
Programmer, NorthernWay | information on their candy bar wrappers
zmerch_at_northernway.net  | when there's no nutritional value within?
Received on Mon Oct 20 1997 - 11:47:29 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:30:36 BST