Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine the Master Codebreaker's Struggle to Build the Modern Computer
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine The Master Codebreaker's Struggle to Build the Modern Computer Edited by B. Jack Copeland OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Contents List of Photographs xvi Contributors xvii Introduction 1 B. Jack Copeland Part I The National Physical Laboratory and the ACE Project 1. The National Physical Laboratory 15 Eileen Magnello 2. The creation of the NPL Mathematics Division 2 3 Mary Croarken 3. The origins and development of the ACE project 3 7 B. Jack Copeland 4. The Pilot ACE at the National Physical Laboratory 93 James H. Wilkinson Part II Turing and the History of Computing 5. Turing and the computer 107 B. Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot 6. The ACE and the shaping of British computing 149 Martin Campbell-Kelly 7. From Turing machine to 'electronic brain' 173 Teresa Numerico Contents Part III The ACE Computers 9. The Pilot ACE instruction format 209 Henry John Norton 10. Programming the Pilot ACE 215 /. G. Hayes 11. The Pilot ACE: from concept to reality 223 Robin A. Vowels 12. Applications of the Pilot ACE and the DEUCE 265 Tom Vickers 13. The ACE Test Assembly, the Pilot ACE, the Big ACE, andtheBendixGis 281 Harry D. Huskey 14. The DEUCE—a user's view 297 Robin A. Vowels 15. The ACE Simulator and the Cybernetic Model 331 Michael Woodger 16. The Pilot Model and the Big ACE on the web 335 Benjamin Wells Part IV Electronics 17. How valves work 341 David 0. Clayden 18. Recollections of early vacuum tube circuits 345 Maurice Wilkes 19. Circuit design of the Pilot ACE and the Big ACE 349 David 0. Clayden XIV Contents Part V Technical Reports and Lectures on the ACE 1945-47 20. Proposed electronic calculator (1945) 369 Alan M. Turing 21. Notes on memory (1945) 455 Alan M. Turing 22. The Turing-Wilkinson lecture series (1946-7) (edited with an introduction by B. Jack Copeland) 459 AlanM. Turing and James H. Wilkinson 2 3. The state of the art in electronic digital computing in Britain and the United States (1947) 529 Harry D. Huskey Index 541 xv.