To: Scrapps who wrote (11151 ) 12/30/1997 4:13:00 PM From: Glenn D. Rudolph Respond to
World's Oldest Computer Comes Back To Life, Reports CMPnet's TechWeb
Business Wire - December 30, 1997 15:01
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MANHASSET, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 30, 1997--
Web-based Contest Asks Programmers to Write Code for "Baby"
Born in 1948, "Baby" was a 1-ton mass of wires and vacuum tubes said to the be the world's first software-driven computer. According to an article written by Douglas Hayward and posted on CMPnet's TechWeb (http://www.techweb.com), programmers from around the world are now being invited to compete for the honor of writing code for the reconstructed Baby.
"The story began on June 21, 1948, when Tom Kilburn ran a 17- instruction program on Baby in Manchester, England," said Hayward. "Kilburn's program, which calculated the highest factor of 2 to the power of 18, was the first to run on a fully automated computer."
Baby was hardly a model of sleek design, according to Hayward. It was 16 feet long, seven feet high, and two feet deep. It contained a sprawling mass of electrical wires and 600 vacuum tubes. Still, it had 1,024 bits of memory and could calculate seven instruction types.
Anyone interested in entering the contest to program Baby can download the simulator from the Computer Conservation Society's Web site, a group dedicated to preserving and reconstructing historically important computer machinery. "Because Baby was built before programming languages -- let alone transistors -- were invented, entrants don't have to be professional programmers," notes Hayward. The winning entry will be selected by the original Baby's two designers, Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams, and will run on the reconstructed Baby at exactly 11:15 in the morning -- just like Kilburn's original program.
The article on Baby can be found at techweb.com .
TechWeb is the technology news component of CMPnet, the most comprehensive technology network on the Internet. CMPnet (http://www.CMPnet.com) reaches the broad spectrum of builders, sellers and users of technology and the Internet, and is consistently one of the top 10 sites across the entire Web in advertising revenue, according to Jupiter Communications. The network integrates powerful content sites such as TechWeb, TechInvestor, TechTools, TechShopper, NetGuide, ChannelWeb, EDTN, GamePower, File Mine and Net Insider, as well as all of CMP's publication sites.
CMP Media Inc. (Nasdaq: CMPX) is a leading print and online publisher of newspapers and magazines about technology and an innovator in technology-related Internet products and services. CMP's offerings serve the broad technology spectrum in key high-tech markets worldwide: those who build technology, those who sell it, and those who use it. The company's publication titles include EE Times, InformationWeek, Computer Reseller News and Windows Magazine.
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