computer researchers had long discussed the theoretical advantages of a framebuffer, but were unable to produce a machine with sufficient memory at an economically practicable cost. in 1947, the manchester baby computer used a williams tube, later the williams-kilburn tube, to store 1024 bits on a cathode-ray tube (crt) memory and displayed on a second crt. other research labs were exploring these techniques with mit lincoln laboratory achieving a 4096 display in 1950.