Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory
Manufacturer
University of Cambridge
Generation
1
Release date
6 May 1949; 75 years ago (1949-05-06)
Lifespan
1949–1958
Discontinued
yes
Units shipped
1
Operating system
None
CPU
Derated thermionic valves
Memory
512 17-bit words, upgraded in 1952 to 1024 17-bit words (temperature-stabilized mercury delay lines)
Display
Teleprinter
Input
five-hole punched tape
Power
11 kW
Backward compatibility
None
Successor
EDSAC 2 and LEO I
Related
EDVAC
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was an early British computer.[1] Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, the machine was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England. EDSAC was the second electronic digital stored-program computer to go into regular service.[2]
Later the project was supported by J. Lyons & Co. Ltd., intending to develop a commercially applied computer and succeeding in Lyons' development of LEO I, based on the EDSAC design. Work on EDSAC started during 1947,[3] and it ran its first programs on 6 May 1949, when it calculated a table of square numbers[4] and a list of prime numbers.[5][6] EDSAC was finally shut down on 11 July 1958, having been superseded by EDSAC 2, which remained in use until 1965.[7]
^Wilkes, W. V.; Renwick, W. (1950). "The EDSAC (Electronic delay storage automatic calculator)". Math. Comp. 4 (30): 61–65. doi:10.1090/s0025-5718-1950-0037589-7.
^The 1948 Manchester Baby computer predated EDSAC as a stored-program computer, but was built largely as a test bed for the Williams tube and not as a machine for general use. See "A brief informal history of the Computer Laboratory". However, the Baby was developed into a practically useful successor, the Manchester Mark 1 of 1949, which was available for general use by other university departments and Ferranti in April 1949, despite still being under development; EDSAC first ran in May 1949, while also still being under development. "50th Anniversary of the Manchester Baby computer". Archived from the original on 9 February 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
^Wilkes, M. V. (1997). "Arithmetic on the EDSAC". Annals of the History of Comp. 19 (1): 13–15. doi:10.1109/85.560726.
^"Pioneer computer to be rebuilt". Cam. 62: 5. 2011. To be precise, EDSAC's first program printed a list of the squares of the integers from 0 to 99 inclusive.
^Jones, Cliff B.; Lloyd, John L. (24 January 2012). Dependable and Historic Computing: Essays Dedicated to Brian Randell on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday. Springer. p. 29. ISBN 9783642245411.
^"9. The EDSAC, Cambridge University, England". Digital Computer Newsletter. 2 (1). Other early computational problems run on EDSAC; some specifications of the computer: 3. 1 January 1950. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^EDSAC 99: 15–16 April 1999(PDF), University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 6 May 1999, pp. 68, 69, retrieved 29 June 2013.
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America, but the von Neumann report inspired the construction of the E.D.S.A.C. (electronic delay-storage automatic calculator) in Cambridge (see p....
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the builder and designer of the EDSAC, the second computer with an internally stored program. Built in 1949, the EDSAC used a mercury delay line memory...
modern, programmable, digital computers, the Manchester Mark 1 and the EDSAC, were independently invented between 1948 and 1949. Though different in...
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