Old Storage Devices

This is the drum from the Manchester-1 computer, which was designed mostly by the (in)famous Alan Turing, and was first operational in 1949.

This (on the left) is the magnetic drum from the IBM-650, which is often called (by IBM) the first computer. It was announced as a new product in 1953, and first delivered to a customer in 1954. Strange.

And here is a nice big one from the Whirlwind computer from 1951.

Incidentally, this is the probably first real computer, the Colossus, which was first used reliably in 1943.

This is a "Williams Tube", essentially an oscilloscope that stores some bits of data through the persistence of phosphorescence. It was also part of the Manchester-1 computer.

This is the nice clear picture of some magnetic core memory that could never have worked, as it hasn't got the diagonal sense wires.

This is a less clear pciture, but it least it is realistic, you can see the x and y wires, and the diagonal sense wire.