Editing BESK (section)

==Performance==
BESK was a 40-bit machine; it could perform an addition in 56 μs and a multiplication took 350 μs. The [[electrostatic]] memory could store 512 words. The instruction length was 20 bits, so each word could store two instructions. BESK contained 2400 "radio tubes" ([[vacuum tube]]s) and 400 [[germanium]] [[diode]]s (so it was partly [[Solid state (electronics)|solid state]]). The power consumption was 15 [[kilovolt-ampere|kVA]].

Initially an average runtime of 5 minutes was achieved before hardware problems appeared. In 1954 the system became more stable. Breakpoints were introduced to allow software to restart after hardware failures.

Originally BESK had a British [[Williams tube]] 512 word x 40 bit memory based on 40 cathode tubes, and eight spare tubes. The memory was from the beginning found to be insufficient and [[Carl-Ivar Bergman]] was given just a few weeks to build and install a [[ferrite core memory]] in 1956. To complete the work before the deadline they hired housewives with knitting experience to make the memory. One of the new memory bits did not work at first, but it was easily cut out and replaced.