EDSAC 2 facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
EDSAC 2

EDSAC 2 users in 1960
Developer	University of Cambridge, Mathematical Laboratory, UK
Release date	1958; 66 years ago (1958)
CPU	20-bit instructions with 11-bit addresses, two index registers, microcoded; @ fixed point add: 17-42 microseconds, floating point add: 100-170 microseconds
Memory	1024 words RAM, 768 words ROM (core memory, 40-bit words)
Storage	block-structured magnetic tape, 16K words, core memory, added in 1962
Input	5-level paper tape, up to 1000 characters per second read, 300 cps punched output, two-out-of-five code
Predecessor	EDSAC

EDSAC 2 was an early computer (operational in 1958), the successor to the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). It was the first computer to have a microprogrammed control unit and a bit-slice hardware architecture.

EDSAC 2 modular construction

First calculations were performed on incomplete machine in 1957. Calculations about elliptic curves performed on EDSAC-2 in the early 1960s led to the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, a Millennium Prize Problem, unsolved as of 2022. And in 1963, Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews used EDSAC 2 to generate a seafloor magnetic anomaly map from data collected in the Indian Ocean by H.M.S. Owen, key evidence that helped support Plate Tectonic theory.