The Williams-Kilburn tube, the first RAM, is patented - Event - Computing History

The Williams-Kilburn tube was the first high-speed, entirely electronic random-access memory device.

Invented by Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn, the Williams-Kilburn tube was a modified cathode-ray tube, such as you might find in a TV set of the time. In the same way that the TV used an electron beam and vacuum tube to display a picture on a screen, the Williams-Kilburn tube displayed a continuously-refreshed grid of dots that could be used to store data.

The Williams-Kilburn tube was the primary memory for machines such as the IBM 701.

Williams and Kilburn applied for two British patents arising from their work on the Williams-Kilburn tube:

• Filed 11 December 1946, GB patent 645691, "Improvements in or relating to electrical information-storing means"
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• Filed 2 October 1947, GB patent 657591 was filed, "Improvements in or relating to electrical storage apparatus"

Related information:

• The University of Manchester: History of the Williams-Kilburn Tube

Image:

• Williams-Kilburn Tube
  Credit: ArnoldReinhold, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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