First Programs
The first realistic program to be run on the Mark 1 was a search for Mersenne primes, in early April 1949, which ran error free for nine hours on the night of 16/17 June 1949. The algorithm was specified by Max Newman, head of the Mathematics Department at the University of Manchester, and the program was written by Kilburn and Tootill. Turing later wrote an optimised version of the program, dubbed the Mersenne Express.
The Manchester Mark 1 continued to do useful mathematical work between 1949 and 1950, including an investigation of the Riemann hypothesis and calculations in optics.
Read more about this topic: Manchester Mark 1
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