Michael

Sixty-five years ago today, the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine—nicknamed “Baby”—became the earliest computer in the world to run a program electronically stored in its memory. This was a flagship moment: the first implementation of the stored program concept that underpins modern computing.

Earlier computers had their instructions hardwired into their physical design or held externally on punched paper tape or cards. Reprogramming them to do a different task entailed internal rewiring or altering the physical storage media. The Baby marked a new computing era, described by some as the “birth of software,” in which swapping programs was far simpler—requiring only an update to the electronic memory. Both instructions and data were held in the Baby’s memory and the contents could be altered automatically at electronic speeds during the course of computation.



Developed at Manchester University by “Freddie” Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, in size the Baby was anything but: more than 5m long and weighing a tonne (PDF). Its moniker was due to its role as a testbed for the experimental Williams-Kilburn tube, a means of storing binary digits (“bits”) using a cathode ray tube. This was a big deal because up until this point, computers had no cost-effective means of storing and flexibly accessing information in electronic form.

In technical terms, the Williams-Kilburn tube was the earliest form of random access memory, or RAM. The Baby’s memory consisted of one of these tubes, able to store up to 1,024 bits—equivalent to just 128 bytes. In contrast, the average computer today has RAM in multiples of gigabytes, more than a billion times bigger.

The Baby was only ever intended to be a proof-of-concept rather than to serve as a useful calculation tool. So once it had shown the new memory was reliable, attention shifted to building a more powerful and practical machine using the same concepts. This resulted in the Manchester Mark 1, which in turn was the model for the Ferranti Mark 1, the world’s first computer to be sold commercially, in February 1951.

While today nothing remains of the original Baby, a working replica is on display at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester. It’s well worth a visit to reflect on just how far computing has come.

Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations

Note from the cartoonist: I was inspired late last night by how the Reddit community was doing its damndest to identify the Marathon bombers. While this cartoon is no longer timely, I couldn’t be happier that the suspects have been identified .

Following the announcement of the retirement of Google Reader, many users started looking for alternatives as good as Google Reader. The internet is filled with a number of RSS readers but most of them are either not as good or they require users to pay in order to use the service. Since the announcement was made, I researched a lot to find an app that could take the place of Google Reader and luckily, I came across The Old Reader.

It’s a very simple and easy to use application that allows users to read their favourite websites. There is no doubt Feedly is also a very good alternative but I prefer The Old Reader as it has a simple and easy to user interface and can be used with Google account.

Using The Old Reader

The Old Reader is very simple and easy to use. You don’t have to download any browser extension or third party application in order to use the service. All you have to do is login to your Google or Facebook account and you are good to go.

You will be redirected to The Old Reader dashboard after authorizing your account. The next step is to import your feeds from Google Reader. Just use Google Takeout to create a backup of your RSS feeds. After exporting your XML file from Google Takeout, click on Import in the top right corner of the screen.

Now, just browse and select the subscriptions.xml file and click on the Import button. It will automatically start the transfer process. Do note that it might take some time and by some time I mean, days to import your data due to the large number of people switching to it.

After the import process is complete, you will be able to view your RSS feeds in a Google Reader like interface.

Conclusion

The Old Reader is a very useful online RSS reader that can replace Google Reader in most cases. Do you use The Old Reader? If not, please share with us your favourite RSS reader using the comments section below.

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By popular demand, here is our recipe for ScandiKitchen Carrot & Pinenut Cake.  

Recipe: By Bronte Aurell

Ingredients

• 200g Caster sugar
• 200g dark brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 400 ml sunflower oil
• 400 g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar (we love Toersleffs Vanilla Sugar)
• 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 ½ tsp mixed spice
• 400 g grated carrots
• 100 g pine nuts

Icing

• 200g cream cheese
• Juice and zest from 1 lime
• 75g icing sugar

How you do it

Whisk sugar and egg till light and airy, gradually add the sunflower oil whilst whisking.

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl and fold into the egg mixture. Fold in the carrots and the pine nuts.

Pour into a large tin – about 25 x 35 cm or 10 inch round - and bake at 170 C for about 30-35 minutes or until done (it is done when you insert a skewer in the middle and it comes out clean). 

To make the topping: Whisk all icing ingredients well and smear over cooled cake.  Add some grated carrots and lime zest to decorate.

This recently shot work by Andy Prokh is very cute. It captures the playful, friendly relationship between a girl and her cat.

Ellie (Olivia Colman) and Alec (David Tennant).  Pic: ITV

• An ugly mood is rampant among journalists just now – and it's nothing to do with Leveson's proposals for press regulation. There's indignation and much riding of high horses over ITV's refusal to allow journos to see the final two episodes of Broadchurch. 'Can't believe they're not putting Broadchurch 7 & 8 on previews. I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG' – so wailed the editor-in-chief of TV Choice this week on Twitter. And the story is the same at the Mirror's We Love TV magazine, where I've been working this week. Mirror hacks have been stomping around over their inability to glimpse the final instalments of the David Tennant murder drama. When was the last time a UK cop show had the jaded media so much in its thrall? Anyway, this Monday we reach episode 6 when the seaside town comes together to mourn and a new suspect in the murder of Danny Latimer comes to light. After that, the journalists are going to have to wait…

• BBC1's Shetland, in comparison, passed with barely a murmur, but channel honchos were happy enough with combined viewing figures over two nights of 12million to quickly commission a full series of six episodes. Douglas Henshall will return in the stories, based on author Ann Cleeves' series of novels (all split into two parts) – Raven Black, Dead Water and Blue Lightning. I felt that Shetland's debut, shown in February, fell way short of the novels. Television chiefs seem obsessed with whodunit and the location of their dramas – and Shetland is a great location – but not with creating interesting characters. Perhaps detective Jimmy Perez will come to life in the new series.



• The cultured air at Sky Arts was shattered last week by the machine gun blasts and mayhem of Corleone, the channel's new mafia drama about Sicilian mobster Toto Riina. Starring Claudio Gioe, the drama started last Friday (10pm), but you can catch up with it on Sky Go.

• E4 has commissioned an original, eight-part crime drama called Glue. It's written by Bafta-winner Jack Thorne, and is described as 'twisted, wayward… a thrilling murder mystery ride through the countryside'. Thorne says, 'I grew up in Newbury and was fascinated by life around the stables. In an age where the British countryside feels like it's rotting through disrepair, we want to tell a story about ambition, hope, darkness and anarchy.'

• CrimeTimePreview has a new Forum. We'd love to hear what you think about the murder and coppers filling our screens. Drop by any time…

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