1 The Replica Baby at Manchester Computing
The team was led by Chris Burton, on the left of
the picture. Other members shown (left to right) are Ken Turner, Bill
Purvis and Keith Wood. There are (were!) further
pictures on the
Computer Conservation Society
Website.
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Tom is in fact standing in front of the
"Feasibility
Rig". The
Rebuild team first built a rack of equipment using authentic
circuits to prove that they could still make the technology of CRT storage work.
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This picture is one of the set taken by Tommy Thomas in June 1998, shown on his website. It is copied here with his kind permission.
This shows the
Replica Baby at its final site in the
Museum of Science and Industry in
Manchester, in the 1830 Warehouse
(the first ever railway warehouse). There are no
pictures extant of the original Baby. The familiar pictures show the Manchester
Mark 1 in earlier or later stages of its physical evolution from the Baby.
Although these pictures were invaluable in the process of making a faithful
reconstruction of the Baby, especially a set of detailed close-ups made by
Alec Robinson in late 1948, the Rebuild Team had to
establish which components were part of the original Baby (and would therefore
be positioned correctly) and which belonged to circuitry added or changed for
the enlarged machine (and so would not be in the Replica). Therefore the
pictures taken in the 1830 Warehouse
(especially with its wooden floor!) are the most accurate pictures available!
(The main problem is that the Replica is too clean. The cleaner was ordered
never to touch the Baby, and so it was covered in Manchester grime -- there was
no clean air act in 1948!).
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This picture is one of the set taken by/for Tommy Thomas (far right in the above picture) in June 1998, shown on his website. It is copied here with his kind permission.
This shows an enhanced Manchester Mark 1 team standing in front of the Replica in the 1830 Warehouse: Left to Right: G.C. (Geoff) Tootill, D.B.G. (Dai) Edwards, Tom Kilburn, Laurie Allard, A.A. (Alec) Robinson, J.C. (Cliff) West, and G.E. ("Tommy") Thomas.
This picture was taken after the official
Handover Ceremony on the actual 50th
Anniversary day, when the Computer
Conservation Society formally handed over the Replica Baby to the
Museum of Science and Industry in
Manchester. Note that although the only person missing from the original
engineering team was
Professor Freddie Williams, we did at least have his
son present, Professor Fred Williams of Cardiff University, who looks very much
like his father (and according to Tom has much of his mannerisms as well)!
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