2017

SJ8397 : Williams-Kilburn tube

taken 8 years ago, near to Rusholme, Manchester, England

Williams-Kilburn tube
Williams-Kilburn tube
Part of SJ8397 : Manchester Baby, the world's first proper computer, was this mysterious object which looks like a cathode ray tube. Because it was. But it is a very specialised version of a CRT, a charge storage tube. It has a grid like anode behind the main fluorescent anode, upon which charge can be stored, and the state read back by the beam heading for the display.

This was the 16 16-bit storage registers of the Manchester Baby, and the concept of charge storage tubes persisted for a while. I was using them in CAD terminals in the late 1980s, and they were common in air traffic control and marine radars, where they were both a display and a data processing device
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The Science and Industry Museum, Manchester

The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester is a large museum devoted to the development of science, technology and industry. It places particular emphasis on Manchester’s achievements and contributions in these fields.

The museum was originally called the North Western Museum of Science and Industry when it opened on Grosvenor Street in 1969 (SJ8497 : The North Western Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester). Having outgrown its former site, it was moved to its present location in Castlefield, where it opened on 15 September 1983. It later became known as The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) until its name was changed to the Science and Industry Museum in September 2018 to reflect it becoming part of the Science Museum Group.

The museum is housed in five listed buildings on the historic site of Liverpool Road Station which was vacated by British Rail in 1975. This station is the world’s oldest surviving passenger railway station; one of the original termini of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first passenger railway.

The museum houses extensive displays on the themes of transport (railway locomotives and rolling stock, aircraft, and space vehicles), power (water, electricity, steam and gas engines), Manchester's sewerage and sanitation, textiles, communications and computing. There is currently no charge for entry to the museum.
LinkExternal link Museum web site
LinkExternal link Wikipedia


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Bob Harvey and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Lowlands Suburb, Urban fringe Educational sites Primary Subject: Museum other tags: Computer Science Museum of Science and Industry Click a tag, to view other nearby images.
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Manchester [1283] ·
1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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SJ8397, 2721 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Bob Harvey   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Saturday, 11 February, 2017   (more nearby)
Submitted
Saturday, 11 February, 2017
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SJ 8317 9787 [10m precision]
WGS84: 53:28.6370N 2:15.3028W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SJ 8317 9787
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North-northwest (about 337 degrees)
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