Timeline

A Summary of Manchester Computing

1947-49: Manchester Mark 1 hardware development period.

1948: SSEM, the "Baby" operational - World's first stored program computer.

1949: April: Manchester Mark 1 working in intermediate form.1949 October: Manchester Mark 1 fully operational- First machine with fast random-access two-level store (RAM + Disc).

1951: February: Ferranti Mark 1 first installation - First commercially-available machine.1951-54: Meg hardware development period.

1952-55: Transistor Computer hardware development period.

1953 Manchester Transistor Computer Prototype operational - The first computer to use transistors instead of valves.

1954: Meg Prototype operational - Support for hardware floating point. Manufactured by Ferranti as the Mercury.

1955: Extended Transistor Computer operational.1956: Met-Vickers MV 950 first installation. 1957 August: Ferranti Mercury first installation.

1956-62: Ferranti Atlas (formerly muse) - World's fastest computer when it was built, included virtual memory. The largest version at Chilton had a massive 48k of memory. First British computer to be used remotely via data links.

1962: December: Ferranti Atlas first installation operational.

1966-74: MU5 hardware development period.

1972: First run of MU5.

1974: MU5 machine complex fully operational (hardware and software, all three machines -- MU5, ICL1905E and PDP11/10). Architecture used by ICL for their series 2900 mainframes.


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