Mother Board's Detail and Views

286 Computer and CGA Monitor

286 Mother board and Flophy Drive

286 Processor

Sound Card, VGA and Keybord

Fully Electronic Stored-program Computer.

On May 6, 1949, an English mathematician, physicist, and engineer named Maurice Vincent Wilkes designs the first practical, fully electronic stored-program computer. It was designed at the University of Cambridge and called EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer).

EDSAC

On May 6, 1949, an English mathematician, physicist, and engineer named Maurice Vincent Wilkes designs the first practical, fully electronic stored-program computer. It was designed at the University of Cambridge and called EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer).

286 processers

286 Computer

286 "Basic" Computer with 20-40 mb Hard Drive, Choice of 5.25" or 3.5" Floppy Drive, 1 mb RAM and Choice of video card. Boots to DOS only.

XT PC HD, FDD 5 1/4"

IBM PC

The IBM PC XT is the successor of the IBM PC. The XT stands for EXtended Technology and was introduced in early 1983. It has enhanced features: CGA graphic card, hard disk, more memory, and no more tape port (!). But it wasn't very innovative.

There are in fact two versions of the XT motherboard. The first one can accept from 64k to 256k RAM, whereas the later one has support for 640K RAM max, the 101-key keyboard, a 3.5'' FDD and a few other details...

In addiditon to the removal of the cassette port, the XT also had eight 8-bit ISA expansion slots VS the PC's five. The XT's slots were also positioned closer together, the same spacing all PCs still use today. This made old PC's totally worthless because you couldn't buy an XT clone board and drop it into a PC case. Eight slots was a huge boon to the "power user" who had previously found himself having to pick and choose what upgrades to install in the paltry five slots of the PC.

Delay Line Memory

delay line memory

A memory technology in some of the earliest computers that used an acoustic delay line. For example, in the 1940s and 1950s, the memory in the EDSAC and UNIVAC I was made of tubes of liquid mercury that were several feet long. Electrical pulses were converted to sound and back to electrical in a continuous loop.

First Programmable Devices

The Jacquard loom, on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England, was one of the first programmable devices.