Friday, June 20, 2008
Happy birthday, computer.
Sixty years ago the "modern computer" was born in a lab in Manchester.
The Small Scale Experimental Machine, or "Baby", was the first to contain memory which could store a program.
The room-sized computer's ability to carry out different tasks - without having to be rebuilt - has led some to describe it as the "first modern PC".
Using just 128 bytes of memory, it successfully ran its first set of instructions - to determine the highest factor of a number - on 21 June 1948.
BBC NEWS | Technology | One tonne "Baby" marks its birth