The Small-Scale Experimental Machine, known as SSEM, or the "Baby", was designed and built at the University of Manchester, and made its first successful run of a program on June 21st 1948. It was the first machine that had all the components now classically regarded as characteristic of the basic computer. Most importantly it was the first computer that could store not only data but any (short!) user program in electronic memory and process it at electronic speed.
From this Small-Scale Experimental Machine a more powerful machine was designed and built, the Manchester Mark 1, which by April 1949 was generally available for computation in scientific research in the University. With the integration of a high speed magnetic drum by the Autumn (the ancestor of today's disc) this was the first machine with a fast electronic and magnetic two-level store.
This machine in turn was the basis of the Ferranti Mark1, arguably the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer, with the first machine delivered in February 1951.
You can see a history of the Mark1 and a some information on the set of later machines designed in the Electrical Engineering Department and then the Department of Computer Science, up to 1975, elsewhere on these pages.
The University and City of Manchester celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the birth of the Baby in 1998. The main components of the University's celebrations and the project to rebuild the "Baby", are summarised below. The City of Manchester celebrated with "digital summer 98".
The rebuilding was carried out at Manchester Computing on the ground floor of the Computer Science Building. The Replica Baby was then transferred to its permanent home in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Here it was reassembled and made operational again (in a remarkably short time!).
The Replica Baby is housed in the 1830 Warehouse, the world's first railway warehouse, at the inland terminus of the original Manchester-Liverpool railway. This is a powerful reminder of the major contribution on the world stage that Manchester has made to both the Industrial Revolution and the Computer Revolution.
A simulator for the Baby was made available, and a competition was organised to find the most interesting new program written for it.
The Replica Baby was officially handed over to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester at a ceremony on June 21st 1998, on the exact anniversary (and rerunning the first program at the appropriate time!). The ceremony was followed later by the Competition Award Ceremony.
The team for the SSEM Rebuild Project consisted of experienced engineers, many of whom made significant contributions in the early days of computing in Manchester. The team leader was Chris Burton who, in addition to master-minding the rebuild effort, found time to give most entertaining talks about the trials and tribulations of sorting out exactly what the machine consisted of and then finding the valves, racks and other parts to re-create a working version.
The focus of the University of Manchester's celebrations was the Launch Event, held at the Bridgewater Hall, at 3.15 p.m. on the 17th of June 1998. All 1,800 tickets were taken.
The programme for the event included a presentation giving the background to the Manchester 'Baby' and a brief talk by Professor Kilburn describing the machine and the events on June 21st 1948. The Replica Baby, in the Museum of Science and Industry, was switched on officially by remote link from the Bridgewater Hall. There was a special Honorary Degree ceremony, and a set of presentations on the impact of computers on society now and in the future.
The Launch Event was followed by a reception given at the Town Hall by the City of Manchester.
Clustered around the events on Wednesday June 17th 1998 were a number of international conferences/symposia/seminars. Contact details and a short description for each conference are given at the end.
The Launch Event at the Bridgewater Hall on the afternoon of June 17th formed a part of all the conferences.
There were two major exhibitions running in Manchester in the summer of 1998, asociated with the Celebrations :
There were many events associated with the Celebrations in the summer, apart from those reported elsewhere on this page. These included :
The 1998 IEE MicroMouse Competition took place on Saturday June 20th 1998 in the Department of Computer Science, as part of the Open Day. This competition is held annually in the UK and involves mini-robots finding their way through mazes of varying complexity.
A "Baby" Programming Competition was organised, to find the most interesting new program written for the original computer. A documented down-loadable simulator is (still) available. There were (appropriately!) 128 entries from 19 countries, and the winner, Yasuaki Watanabe from Japan, came to Manchester to run his noodle-timer program on the Replica Baby at the Competition Award Ceremony on June 21st.
Manchester Computing (in the same building) also held an open day, and visitors were also encouraged to visit the exhibitions at the Manchester Museum (across the road) and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester (by free shuttle bus).
A Graduates Dinner was held on Saturday June 20th in the Whitworth Hall, with around 200 attendees. The Guest of Honour was Sir Brian Jenkins, President of the British Computer Society. This was not solely for people connected with the Department, or computing in Manchester over the last 50 years, but obviously they formed a significant component. This dinner was organised by Patricia.Ross for DARO (the Development and Alumni Relations Office).
On Thursday June 18th, on the evening of the first day of the Golden Anniversary Conference, there was a special dinner by invitation for people associated with the distinguished history of computing at the University; this was held in the Whitworth Art Gallery.
On Thursday June 18th there was also a special Reunion Dinner for the graduates of 1969 (the second year of graduation from the Department of Computer Science) organised by Lucy Davies (now Tedd) and Anne Rogers (see photo).
On Friday evening June 19th there was a party for present and past members of the Department, in a marquee put up ouside the IT Building, with buffet and music (see photos).
The 1998 Conference Office was delighted to hear from many people with a connection with Computing at Manchester, especially from people involved in the early years. The Office and the Department are very happy to continue to hear from such people, and it is hoped to keep a log of contacts and to establish a network of related people.
You are very welcome to tell us about your connection with Computing at Manchester. If your connection is from the early years (say pre 1965) we would be especially interested in what you did. If you are a graduate from the Department of Computer Science we will be especially interested in a summary of what you have done since you left. You can email anniv98@cs.man.ac.uk or fill in the form for (Computer Science or other departments) or other personnel as appropriate.
Thankyou for people who have already used the forms. In the end not that many people have used them so far and (coupled with the general punch-drunkedness of people involved at this end leading up to the week of June 15th) no attempt was made to set up networking in time to be useful to help people meet each other at the Celebrations. But all information has been logged, and the Department is planning to keep the operation open permanently, and keep its own data base on past associates, possibly in connection with the Alumni Office. Obviously we will advertise any new arrangements in this section if and when they come into place.
The Office will stay open indefinitely (but without known support!). It was staffed by Suzanne Briscoe, later joined by Neale Jones, with some part time helpers. The office worked very hard to make the Celebrations a success, particularly in dealing with the invitations and ticketing for the Launch Event and the Hallé Concert at the Bridgewater Hall. Much overtime was done, and apologies for people caught up in the almost inevitable glitches in such an intense one-off operation.
Brief details of each of the
Conferences/seminars are given below, with
the original (1998) contact and a short description.
Links to the pages on the
conferences are given in the conference titles; links or Email addresses
no longer active are
indicated by underlining the text describing the original link.
Fax numbers should be regarded as no longer active.
| Dates: | June 17 - 19 |
| Contact: |
Prof. Frank H Sumner c/o The 1998 Conference Office Department of Computer Science University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 6280 |
| e-mail: | anniv98@cs.man.ac.uk |
The Launch Event on June 17th was the prelude to the conference. The first day of presentations (June 18th) focused on the computing achievements of the University of Manchester and the links forged with industry to carry the innovative designs produced in the Department of Computer Science through to products. The final day of the conference looked at current research in the department and at future developments from academic and industrial perspectives.
| Dates: | June 16 - 19 |
| Contact: |
Dr Richard N Zobel Department of Computer Science University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 6236 |
| e-mail: | rzobel@cs.man.ac.uk |
This is one of the major international conferences on simulation and we were delighted to welcome it to Manchester in June 1998. This year, in addition to covering the normal topics ranging from simulation algorithm design through to applications across a range of diverse domains, there was a special History of Simulation track reflecting the role that simulation has played in design over the years.
| Dates: | June 15 - 19 |
| Contact: |
Dr Kung Kiu Lau Department of Computer Science University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 6204 |
| e-mail: | kung-kiu.lau@manchester.ac.uk |
The conference was the fourth joint event for the International Conference on Logic Programming and the International Logic Programming Symposium, and was the fifteenth conference in each of the two series of premier international conferences on Logic Programming, both sponsored by the Association for Logic Programming.
| Dates: | June 17 - 19 | |
| Contact: |
Dave Snowdon Xerox Research Centre Europe, Grenoble 6, chemin de Maupertuis 38240 Meylan, FRANCE |
Or: Elizabeth Churchill FX Palo Alto Laboratory Inc., 3400 Hillview Avenue, Building 4, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA |
| e-mail: | Dave.Snowdon@xrce.xerox.com | churchill@pal.xerox.com |
A Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) is one that actively supports human-human communication in addition to human-machine communication and which uses a Virtual Environment as the user interface. This is an exciting field with much potential for inter-disciplinary collaboration particularly in the fields of computer science, psychology, sociology, architecture & urban planning, cultural & media studies and Artificial Intelligence. CVE'98 presented the current state of the art in Collaborative Virtual Environments and fostered inter-disciplinary links between researchers in this field.
| Dates: | June 16 - 17 |
| Contact: |
Prof. Nick Higham Department of Mathematics University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 5819 |
| e-mail: | nicholas.j.higham@manchester.ac.uk |
This symposium addressed issues relating to the influence of computing on Numerical Analysis over the past 50 years - and the influence anticipated in the future.
| Dates: | June 16 - 18 |
| Contact: |
Ron Chisnall Manchester Computing University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 6040 |
| e-mail: | ron.chisnall@mcc.ac.uk |
This conference addressed pressing issues relating to the provision of all classes of information services essential in Higher Education today.
| Dates: | June 16 - 17 |
| Contact: |
Prof. John Helliwell Chemistry Department University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 4734 |
| e-mail: | john.helliwell@manchester.ac.uk |
This special conference explored themes relating to the harnessing of computers in meeting challenges in structural chemistry and molecular biology. This was one of the first areas to which the early Manchester computers were applied.
| Dates: | June 16 - 17 |
| Contact: |
Dr Steve Kay Department of Computer Science University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 6932 |
| e-mail: | sk@cs.man.ac.uk |
This conference took a wide-ranging look at the application of computers in medicine. The event structure included a series of master classes.
| Dates: | June 16 - 17 |
| Contact: |
Dr Jon Agar Centre for the History of Science University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL |
| Fax: | +44 161 275 5699 |
| e-mail: | jon.agar@man.ac.uk |
This meeting focused on the history of computing and included a visit to the National Archive for the History of Computing which is housed in the University.
This conference was organised by the British Society for the History of Science.
| Date: | June 17th, 11.00 - 13.00 |
| Contact: |
Gaby Porter or Simon Cane The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester Liverpool Road Castlefield Manchester M3 4FP |
| Fax: | +44 161 834 5135 |
| e-mail: | gaby@mussci.u-net.com |
| or: | archive@mussci.u-net.com |
This seminar explored and discussed how to care for and give meaningful access to computing collections in museums.