§ Mr. Alasdair MorganTo ask the Prime Minister what plans the Government have to commemorate the 50th anniversary on 21 June 1998 of the first running of a stored program on a computer at Manchester. [8285]
§ The Prime Minister[holding answer 15 July 1997]: The Government recognises the significance of this anniversary. The original stored-program computer, known as The Baby, was created at Manchester's Computer Science Department, and ran the first computer program on 21 June 1948. The Government welcomes an initiative of the computer conservation specialist group of the British Computer Society, to build a replica of the original machine, to mark the event. The replica is being built at Manchester University, with sponsorship from ICL.