Menno van den Berg wrote:
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(Don't know why they call in Manchester, maybe someone else can tell us).


I keep asking that question, but I haven't a proper answer yet. Manchester encoding ensures that there is no "DC" in the signal path. This is important for magnetic storage applications. Now as far as I can work out, practical magnetic drum storage was first demonstrated by Ferranti and Manchester University (my local university) in the very early 1950's, which would mean they had to devise the first encoding schemes. I wonder too if the Williams-Kilburn tubeneeded a scheme like Manchester encoding too.

I saw the rebuilt "Baby" computer at the Manchester Science museum on Sunday.

This link has lots of details on "Baby" as well as a simulator. I was very privileged to have met Tom Kilburn, the FIRST writer of what we would recognise as a program for a computer.

Steve