Mainframe Computer Component, Williams Tube Electrostatic Memory from the Ferranti Mark I Computer

Mainframe Computer Component, Williams Tube Electrostatic Memory from the Ferranti Mark I Computer

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Description
Not long after the end of World War II, developers in both the United States and Great Britain set out to build new forms of room-sized mainframe computers. One challenge was storing the information generated by with a computer program. Frederick C. Williams and Tom Kilburn headed a team at the University of Manchester in Manchester, England, that developed a computer memory in which bits of data were stored on the charged screen of a cathode ray tube. Information on the screen was refreshed every fifth of a second. Such an electrostatic memory came to be called a Williams tube.
Williams tubes were first used on the Manchester Mark I, a computer built at the university there in 1948 and used until 1950. Impressed by the machine, the British government contracted with the Manchester firm of Ferranti, Ltd., to build nine commercial versions of it. These appeared between 1951 and 1957. This Williams tube comes from the Ferranti Mark I built for the AVROE Company in Manchester in 1954. That computer was used there for ten years to solve problems associated with aircraft design, management, and programmable machine tools.
There are six vacuum tubes across the front of the amplifier, all marked: MULLARD. The first on the right is markedL 606VD, the second: 606UB, the thrid: 6064SL. A mark in the upper right corner reads: FERRANTI.
The contents of the memory of a Mark I was represented by a grid of dots on the screens of the Williams tubes. As early as 1951, British schoolmaster Christopher Strachey began work on a program that allowed him to play draughts (checkers) on the Ferranti Mark I at the University of Manchester. Using this program, it was possible to make the screen of one Williams tube appear like a checkerboard – though not to show moves of individual pieces. Other computer programmers – and later video game enthusiasts – would go further.
References:
Accession file.
Martin Campbell-Kelly, “Christopher Strachey,” , 7, #1, January, 1985, pp. 19-42.
J. W. Cortada, Historical Dictionary of Data Processing Technology, New York: Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 256-258.
Simon Lavington, Early British Computers, Bedford, Massachusetts: Digital Press, 1980.
Object Name
mainframe computer component
date made
1954
maker
Ferranti Limited
place made
United Kingdom: England, Greater Manchester
Physical Description
metal (overall material)
plastic; glass (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 70 cm x 33 cm x 29 cm; 27 9/16 in x 13 in x 11 7/16 in
ID Number
CI.334386
catalog number
334386
accession number
309902
Credit Line
Gift of Ferranti, Ltd.
See more items in
Medicine and Science: Computers
Computers & Business Machines
Exhibition
My Computing Device
Exhibition Location
National Museum of American History
Data Source
National Museum of American History
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