Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!spdcc!esegue!johnl
From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Mercury delay lines
Message-ID: <1990Jun7.210822.5230@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: 7 Jun 90 21:08:22 GMT
References: <3040@softway.oz> <2694@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA
Lines: 17

In article <2694@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM> kend@mrloog.WR.TEK.COM (Ken Dickey) writes:
>Maurice Wilkes's EDSAC, the first stored program to operate, used mercury
>delay lines ...  I don't know if it was ever built.  Anyone?

Accoring to Wilkes, the EDSAC ran its first program on 6 May 1949, about
2 years after construction started, and worked until 11 July 1958.

Wilkes' book "Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer," published by MIT Press
is well worth reading for its insights into the origins of modern
computing.  Many people are surprised to learn that Wilkes invented
microprogramming in 1951, though he didn't build a computer based on it
until 1958.

-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl
Marlon Brando and Doris Day were born on the same day.