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Personal Computer Origins: The Datapoint 2200

Personal Computer Origins: The Datapoint 2200

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·May 21, 2025
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msla

Great article. One clarification:

> In 1948, Manchester Baby, the first electronic programmable stored-program computer, had a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display that allowed users to peer directly into its 32-bit word memory. This worked because the CRT itself - what was known as a ‘Williams Tube’ - was memory.

There were four CRTs, three of which were memory (one for RAM, two for registers) and the other was a display device. This is because to be used as memory, the CRT needed a metal plate in front of it. So the Baby put the same data on both the memory and display CRTs, one of which was mounted in its front panel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube