The Atlas was the first real supercomputer and was developed by Tom Kilburn and a team at Manchester University in England. A transistorized computer, it was the first to use virtual memory and pioneered paging. It was brought online on December 7th, 1962 as part of a joint project with Ferranti and the Plessey Company. It was in constant use in the mid-sixties, and compilers were added for FORTRAN and ALGOL in 1964. Two other Atlas installations were built at the University of London, and the Atomic Energy Research Establishment for the British government. The machine was shut down on November 30th, 1971 after being eclipsed by other computers such as the CDC 6600.
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