Who did what? Engineers vs Mathematicians Title Page America vs Europe Ideas vs Implementations Babbage Lovelace Turing Flowers Atanasoff Berry Zuse Chandler Broadhurst Mauchley & Von Neumann Wilkes Eckert Williams Kilburn SlideSlide 1 1 SlideSlide 2 2 A decade of real progress What remained to be done? A number of different pioneers had during the 1930s and 40s Memory! begun to make significant progress in developing automatic calculators (computers). Thanks (almost entirely) to A.M. Turing there was a complete theoretical understanding of the elements necessary to produce a Atanasoff had pioneered the use of electronics in calculation stored program computer – or Universal Turing Machine. Zuse had mad a number of theoretical breakthroughs Not for the first time, ideas had outstripped technology. Eckert and Mauchley (with JvN) had produced ENIAC and No-one had, by the end of the war, developed a practical store or produced the EDVAC report – spreading the word memory. Newman and Flowers had developed the Colossus It should be noted that not too many people were even working on the problem. SlideSlide 3 3 SlideSlide 4 4 The players Controversy USA: Eckert, Mauchley & von Neumann – EDVAC Fall out over the EDVAC report UK: Maurice Wilkes – EDSAC Takeover of the SSEM project by Williams (Kilburn) UK: Newman – SSEM (what was the role of Colossus?) Discord on the ACE project and the departure of Turing UK: Turing - ACE EDSAC alone was harmonious We will concentrate for a little while on the SSEM – the winner! SlideSlide 5 5 SlideSlide 6 6 1 Newman & technology transfer: Secret Technology Transfer? the claim Donald Michie : Cryptanalyst An enormous amount was transferred in an extremely seminal way to the post war developments of computers in Britain. It wasn’t appreciated that the transference was taking place and people say at Manchester who listened to Newman’s early post war lectures on the possibilities of computing and on computer design were quite unaware that this wa s based on an earlier period of systematic war work but as to the transmission, this transmission was very real and on quite a large scale .... Newman set about quite deliberately and consciously for a period of years to see that what had been learnt was enabled to be transplanted and should flourish in the environment in Manchester over which he had very considerable influence as a very much respected senior Professor of Mathematics and it was he who got Turing to go to Manchester which was a qualified success SlideSlide 7 7 67 seconds SlideSlide 8 8 Post War: Royal Society Grant Turing Post War: NPL With Patrick Blackett’s help Newman obtained a substantial Royal Society Grant: COUNCIL MINUTES UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER July 1946 - May 1952 Extracts concerning support for the Calculating/Computing Machine Laboratory 12th, JULY, 1946 The Vice-Chancellor stated: 1945 Ace Report Move to NPL 1. That Professor Newman had been informed through the Royal Society that Decision taken to outsource ACE the Treasury had decided to make a capital grant of £20,000 to be spread over the five Secondment •Tommy Flowers & Dollis Hill years from October 1st, 1946, and an annual grant of £3,000 for the same •Gentleman’s agreement •TRE Williams (& Kilburn) Huskey & the Pilot Model •Cambridge Wilkes Departure to Manchester SlideSlide 9 9 SlideSlide 10 10 ACE: A general purpose machine. The ACE project Turing suggested the following ten task s to illustrate the scope of his proposed machine: announced 1. The construction of range tables 2. To find the potential distribution outside a charged conducting tube 3. Undertake the solution of simultaneous liner equations 4. Calculate the radiation from the open end of a rectangular wave guide 5. Perform matrix multiplication where the terms are polynomials 6. Calculate response to signal for a given circuit The IEEE Computer Society timeline 7. Not possible to integrate the area under a curve (due to of computer history, completely input restrictions). 8. Count the number of butchers due to be demobilised excludes mention of British (working from Army records) developments and of Alan Turing 9. Find the solution for a simple jig saw problem 10. From a given Chess position, to calculate all the winning positions for three moves on either side. SlideSlide 11 11 SlideSlide 12 12 2 The Baby Announced A Bletchley contribution to the SSEM ? (1) “Meanwhile, Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn had arrived at the Electrical Engineering department and they got their different design for a CRT store to work within a year. So Newman abandoned his plan to build his own computer and waited for the outcome of Williams' and Kilburn's attempts to build one. In practice, he had relatively little influence on the design and building of the Baby and its evolution to the Manchester Mark 1, but he did have discussions with the team and acted as consultant for the potential uses of computers.... Even Newman's grant was not required, as the CRT store research and the building of the Baby were funded in effect by TRE.” Brian Napper SlideSlide 13 13 SlideSlide 14 14 A Bletchley contribution to the SSEM ?(2) A Bletchley contribution to the SSEM ?(3) Now let’s be clear before we go any further, that neither Tom Kilburn nor I knew the first thing about computers when we arrived in About the middle [of 1946]...I remember Newman Manchester University. We knew that ... we’d had enough explained to giving us a few lectures in which he outlined the us to understand what the problem of storage was and what we wan ted to store, and that we’d achieved. So the point now had been reached where organisation of a computer. we’d got to find out about computers. Now we were very fortunate in Williams 1972 this respect because we had in the University here, Professor Newman and Mr Turing, who were both very keen on computers and indeed Professor Newman and Mr. A.M. Turing ... knew a lot Newman had already got a grant from the Royal Society to build a about computers and substantially nothing about computer but had not in fact yet embarked on the problem of building it, nor indeed was Newman, who was a mathematician, the right sort of electronics. They took us by the hand and explained person to build the computer. So it was a very fruitful opportunity for how numbers could live in houses with addresses and collaboration between the Maths Department and the Electrical how if they did they could be kept track of during a Engineering Department. And Newman explained the whole business of how a computer works to us, took him, I should think, all of half an hour. calculation..” So we went away and decided to build one Williams, 1975 68 seconds SlideSlide 15 15 SlideSlide 16 16 A Bletchley contribution to the SSEM ?(4) Some of Turing’s EVANS I suppose I’m wondering really whether Turing, when he came, brought anything of significance with him Babies which helped the development of the Manchester work in its next level of advance? The Bombe 1939 The Pilot ACE 1950 KILBURN No, I’m sure that… that is not so.... ....could I add at that point that the mathematics group, I think they would agree, contributed very little [to the design] The Bendix 1956 The Colossus 1943 The Baby 1948 23 seconds SlideSlide 17 17 SlideSlide 18 18 3 Alan Turing 1912-54 SlideSlide 19 19 4.