The early days of computing
NOV 25, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023872
The Guardian : Walk round the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park and sooner or later you’ll hear a cry of recognition and someone will say: “I remember using one of those."It probably doesn’t happen often to The Millionaire , a mechanical calculator that went into production in 1893, but Sir Maurice Wilkes spotted it, adding: “We used to have one in the lab. I hope it’s still there."In this case, “the lab” was what became the Cambridge University Computer Lab , which Wilkes headed from 1945 until 1980.It was where he built Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac), one of the world’s first electronic computers, using sound beams traversing baths of mercury for the memory units.
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
