Model of printer and teletype punch from a Ferranti Pegasus computer

Model of a printer/teletype and tape punch from a Ferranti Pegasus computer.

This is a model of the printer and teletype punch from a Ferranti Pegasus computer.

The Ferranti Pegasus computer was developed in the early 1950s. Thirty-eight Pegasus computers were manufactured by Ferranti in Manchester and they were widely used by universities, businesses, and research establishments. Pegasus had a modular design that was convenient to maintain and the machines were easy to program by the standards of the day. The standard method for programming a Pegasus was to encode the program by punching holes into a paper tape, which could then be fed into the computer.

The teletype punch allowed the computer to punch its own paper tape with the result of a program, the data on the tape could then be fed back into the computer at a later point. The teletype printer allowed the computer to print the results of its program as text and numbers – it was essentially a computer controlled typewriter. The technology was developed from earlier teleprinter machines, which were used to send text messages over long distances by telegraph.