Biz & IT —

Happy Birthday, Baby—The 65th anniversary of computer software

A look back at the first decade of technology that led to the software revolution.

A replica of the Manchester SSEM, aka "Baby"—now at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England.
A replica of the Manchester SSEM, aka "Baby"—now at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England.

On June 21, 1948, at what was then known as the Victoria University of Manchester, software was born. On that day 65 years ago, a proof-of-concept computer called "Baby"—officially designated as the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine—ran the first "program" retrieved not from paper tape or hard-set switches, but from random-access memory.

Designed by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Tootil, Baby wasn't the first programmable computer. But the technology proven in Baby, with its 1,024 bits of cathode-tube based RAM, would become the basis of the first commercial computers.

In celebration of Baby's birthday, here's a look back at the first decade of computing and the computers that led to the birth of software and the computing revolution that would follow.

 

Channel Ars Technica