Development
Developed at the University of Manchester in England, it provided the medium on which the first electronically stored-memory program was implemented in the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM) computer, which first successfully ran a program on 21 June 1948. In fact, rather than the Williams tube memory being designed for the SSEM, the SSEM was a testbed to demonstrate the reliability of the memory. Tom Kilburn wrote a 17-line program to calculate the highest factor of 218. Tradition at the university has it that this was the only program Kilburn ever wrote.
The Williams tube tended to become unreliable with age, and most working installations had to be "tuned" by hand. By contrast, mercury delay line memory was slower and not truly random access, as the bits were presented serially, which complicated programming. Delay lines also needed hand tuning, but did not age as badly and enjoyed some success in early digital electronic computing despite its data rate, weight, cost, thermal and toxicity problems. However, the Manchester Mark 1, which used Williams tubes, was successfully commercialised as the Ferranti Mark 1. Some early computers in the USA also used the Williams tube, including the IAS machine (originally designed for Selectron tube memory), the UNIVAC 1103, Whirlwind, IBM 701, IBM 702 and the Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC). Williams tubes were also used in the Soviet Strela-1, in the Japan TAC (Tokyo Automatic Computer).
-
A Williams-Kilburn tube
-
Diagram of Williams tube memory from the 1947 patent
Read more about this topic: Williams Tube
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“I have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Ultimately, it is the receiving of the child and hearing what he or she has to say that develops the child’s mind and personhood.... Parents who enter into a dialogue with their children, who draw out and respect their opinions, are more likely to have children whose intellectual and ethical development proceeds rapidly and surely.”
—Mary Field Belenky (20th century)
“Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)