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Atlas Does the Heavy Lifting

Atlas logic module

Atlas was the fastest computer in the world—for a while. It introduced the concept of “virtual memory,” using a disk or drum as an extension of main memory. This is one of the 500 logic modules used in each Atlas.

Atlas Does the Heavy Lifting

Bristling with 60,000 transistors, 300,000 diodes, and 40 circuit board types, the Atlas Computer vied with IBM’s “Stretch” as the fastest supercomputer of the early 1960s.

A joint project of England’s Manchester University, Ferranti Computers, and Plessey, Atlas debuted in 1962, nine years after Manchester’s computer lab began exploring transistor technology.

Atlas designer and British computer pioneer Tom Kilburn at the Manchester Atlas console on its last day of operation

Kilburn helped design sophisticated computers at Manchester from 1947 (the "Baby") to the early 1970s (the MU5). The last of the many honors he received before his death in 2001 was being made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum.

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