Editing History of computing hardware (section)

===EDSAC===
[[File:EDSAC (19).jpg|right|thumb|EDSAC]]
The other contender for being the first recognizably modern digital stored-program computer<ref>{{cite web |first=Mark |last=Ward |date=13 January 2011 |work=BBC News |title=Pioneering Edsac computer to be built at Bletchley Park |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12181153 |access-date=2018-06-21 |archive-date=2018-06-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180620162103/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12181153 |url-status=live }}</ref> was the [[EDSAC]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilkes |first1=W. V. |author-link=Maurice Wilkes |last2=Renwick |first2=W. |title=The EDSAC (Electronic delay storage automatic calculator) |journal=Math. Comp. |year=1950 |volume=4 |issue=30 |pages=61–65 |doi=10.1090/s0025-5718-1950-0037589-7|doi-access=free }}</ref> designed and constructed by [[Maurice Wilkes]] and his team at the [[University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory]] in [[England]] at the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1949. The machine was inspired by [[John von Neumann]]'s seminal ''[[First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC]]'' and was one of the first usefully operational electronic digital [[Von Neumann architecture|stored-program]] computers.{{efn|The Manchester Baby predated EDSAC as a [[stored-program computer]], but was built as a test bed for the [[Williams tube]] and not as a machine for practical use.<ref>{{cite web |title=A brief informal history of the Computer Laboratory |work=EDSAC 99 |url=https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/history.html |access-date=2020-12-01 |publisher=University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130506195233/http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/history.html |archive-date=2013-05-06 |url-status=live}}</ref> However, the Manchester Mark 1 of 1949 (not to be confused with the 1948 prototype, the Baby) was available for university research in April 1949 despite being still under development.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Manchester Mark 1 |website=Computer 50 |url=https://www.computer50.org/mark1/MM1.html |access-date=2014-01-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140209155638/http://www.computer50.org/mark1/MM1.html |archive-date=2014-02-09}}</ref>}}

EDSAC ran its first programs on 6&nbsp;May 1949, when it calculated a table of squares<ref>{{cite journal|title=Pioneer computer to be rebuilt|journal=Cam|volume=62|date=2011|page=5}} To be precise, EDSAC's first program printed a list of the [[square number|square]]s of the [[integer (computer science)|integer]]s from 0 to 99 inclusive.</ref> and a list of [[prime number]]s.The EDSAC also served as the basis for the first commercially applied computer, the [[LEO (computer)|LEO I]], used by food manufacturing company [[J. Lyons and Co.|J. Lyons & Co. Ltd.]]  EDSAC 1 was finally shut down on 11 July 1958, having been superseded by EDSAC 2 which stayed in use until 1965.<ref>{{citation |title=EDSAC 99: 15–16 April 1999 |publisher=University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory |date=1999-05-06 |pages=68–69 |url=https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/booklet.pdf |access-date=2013-06-29 |archive-date=2020-09-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200926061030/https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/booklet.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{blockquote|The "brain" [computer] may one day come down to our level [of the common people] and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and there is no sign of it so far.|British newspaper ''The Star'' in a June 1949 news article about the [[EDSAC]] computer, long before the era of the personal computers.<ref>{{Cite web |first=Martin |last=Campbell-Kelly |date=July 2001 |title=Tutorial Guide to the EDSAC Simulator |publisher=Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick |url=https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/Software/EdsacTG.pdf |access-date=2016-11-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222132057/http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/Software/EdsacTG.pdf |archive-date=2015-12-22 |url-status=dead }}<br/>{{*}}{{Cite web |date=March 2018 |title=Tutorial Guide to the EDSAC Simulator |publisher=The EDSAC Replica Project, The National Museum of Computing |url=https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/Software/EdsacTG.pdf |access-date=2020-12-02 |archive-date=2015-12-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222132057/http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/Software/EdsacTG.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>}}