Looking back: Computers

‘Baby’, the world’s first computer, hums into life at the University of Manchester, 1948. Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian

7 November 1946: Britain is to make an “automatic computing engine” which will multiply two ten-figure numbers in two thousandths of a second.

7 July 1951: A machine able to multiply two 12-figure numbers in .003 seconds is to be officially ‘opened’ at Manchester University.

Alan Turing working on the ‘Madam’ computer, which was commissioned by the British government and based at Manchester University, 1951. Photograph: SSPL via Getty Images

11 June 1954: An appreciation of Dr Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician and scientist, who committed suicide aged 41.

27 September 1954: Lyons Electronic Office, or Leo for short, is what is popularly known as an “electronic brain” which changes the way clerical tasks are shared.

Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1954.

13 August 1966: A new chapter begins as libraries welcome technology.

29 October 1979: A young Soviet mathematician, apparently totally unknown to the world’s senior practitioners, has found an answer to one of the most baffling problems in computer calculation.

25 January 1984: The Macintosh computer is launched by Apple.

The Apple Macintosh computer, 1984. Photograph: Matthew Pearce/PR

18 February 1988: The Tandy is love at first sight in the newsroom, a godsend for journalists whose traditional method of filing copy was shouting words down a telephone.

Tandy portable computer. Photograph: Robin Christian for the Guardian

6 December 2011: Steve Jobs, technology guru and the face of Apple, dies of pancreatic cancer aged 56.

Shrine to Steve Jobs at the Beijing Apple Store, shot on the iPhone 4. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

29 May 2016: Early computers as objets d’art – eye-catching design didn’t begin with Apple, as a new, digitally aided photography series illustrates.