How Does Manchester Baby: world's first stored program computer Work?

The Manchester Baby is like a super smart robot that can learn new tricks without being told every single step, it just needs to be given a list of instructions.

Imagine you have a toy robot that can do different tasks, like drawing shapes or counting. Normally, someone has to tell it exactly what to do each time, like “go forward 3 steps, turn left.” But the Manchester Baby is special, it can read a whole list of these instructions all at once and follow them on its own.

Think of it like a recipe book for your robot. You write down the recipe (the instructions) in a special code that the robot understands, and then you give it the book. The robot reads the book one line at a time and does what it says, no need to tell it every step separately!

This is called being a stored program computer because the list of instructions lives inside the machine, just like your robot’s recipe book.

The Manchester Baby uses something like memory, kind of like sticky notes you write on and stick around your room. Each sticky note has one instruction. The robot reads each sticky note one by one, does what it says, and moves to the next one until all the instructions are done.

It’s a clever way for the robot (or computer) to do many different tasks, just by changing the recipe!