Program the Manchester Baby

The Manchester Baby was the world’s first real computer. Mike Bedford introduces this pioneering machine and shows you how to write code for it.

- Mike Bedford

Were we to conduct a poll, asking for the identity of the first-ever electronic computer, we’d get a diverse range of responses. Colossus, as created for code-breaking at Bletchley Park in England, would surely get a look-in. It probably was the world’s first programmable electronic computer, but it wasn’t universal since it was designed for specific tasks. On the other side of the pond, ENIAC, which was developed at the University of Pennsylvania, is another strong contender. Unlike Colossus, it was universal, but it was programmed by switches, dials and patch leads.

While both of these pioneering machines were firsts in their own ways, there’s little doubt about the identity of the machine that paved the way for the information revolution that took place during the second half of the 20th century and continues apace today. That was the so-called Small Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), that was developed at the University of Manchester, and which has been nicknamed the Manchester Baby.

What made it so ground-breaking is that it was the first stored-program electronic computer, meaning that it stored its program in its own memory, as do all today’s mainstream computers . It ran its first program – to calculate the highest proper factor of a number – on 21 June 1948, and the world hasn’t been the same since.

Baby be mine!