The University of Manchester Computing Machine

The University of Manchester, UK, computing machine is described. The computing machine represents the culmination of a research project of several years´ standing. It seems appropriate to outline the various steps in the development of this project, since these have given the final machine its major characteristics. The project was initiated at the Telecommunications Research Establishment, Great Malvern, at the end of Worl War II. The development of radar had produced many new techniques, and it was natural to seek other fields for their application. The original store used the anticipation pulse system, but since then many other configurations have been tried. The one in favor at the moment is the defocusfocus system. The successful operation of a single cathode-ray-tube (CRT) store containing 1,024 digits for a period of hours during the autumn of 1947 finally set the main line of the design of the machine, since from then on it was clear that it would use cathode ray tube storage.