London, Mar 11 : The first task for the world's earliest computer - the Manchester-built Mark One - was to compose romantic verse.

After creating the Mark One's small-scale prototype, the Baby Computer, in 1948, Manchester University scientists earned world-wide fame.

Then dozens of pioneer software programs were specially written, only to be lost over time.

But German academic David Ward has turned up a light-hearted love-poetry generator program written by Manchester scientist Christopher Strachey in 1952 to test the machine's ability to randomly select information, reports The Telegraph.

Ward, a German computer `archaeologist' unearthed the program while researching Strachey's papers at the Bodelian Library, Oxford, and then spent three months creating his own version of the `software.'

His website allows visitors to generate their own random `poetry'.

Also, the expert has created a working replica of the One `Baby' computer which will run the love letter programme for an exhibition in Germany. (ANI)