1. Reading Computing
50 years old
on
Friday 13 April 2012
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2. Up to 1962
Emeritus Professor Alan Lidiard (Physics) recalls:
• Reading computing was done at other centres (mainly
Southampton (Pegasus), but also N.P.L. and Manchester
(Mercury) and anywhere else it could be scrounged),
• In 1960 we started to agitate for our own computer. I got
together with Ian Mills (Chemistry) and Leonard Dresel
(Mathematics) and with one or two others we worked up a
case which in the following year we persuaded
Guggenheim, Ditchburn and Rado to take to the V.C. for
submission to the U.G.C.
• The bid was for an Elliott 803 (fully transistorised, at a cost
of £30,000 - which was a lot of money.
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4. Timeline British Computing
1944 Colossus Bletchley
1948 Baby Manchester ?1st stored program
1949 EDSAC Cambridge 1st service m/c
1951 Leo 1 Lyons, London 1st commercial m/c
1956 Pegasus Ferranti Still a valve m/c
1959 Elliott 803 Borehamwood Transistorised;mt/film
1962 Elliott 803 Tony Hoare 1st commercial Algol
13 April 1962 an Elliott 803 delivered to UoR
1962 Atlas Manchester Ferranti
1964 1900 ICT Series launched
1966 BCPL Cambridge 1st curly bracket lang!
1974 2900 ICT Series launched
1981 BBC Micro +Open Univ ‘mass’ training via TV
1992 WWW Everywhere
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5. Elliott 800 series
1957 801 one-off test machine
1958-61 802 production model - seven sold
1959-60 803A short-lived
1961- 803B more internal parallel paths
larger memory
hardware floating point
~250 built >200 delivered
~£29,000 each =~£530,000 today
Many universities got one via grant (UGC/Computer Board?)
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6. What it + academics & students looked like
A cheap 1962 m/c, the Monrobot, was advertised as ‘no bigger than your
secretary’s desk’. Above, the desk houses the console, the 803 is at the back.
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8. Specification
Transistor circuits
Ferrite core store
4K words
40-bit word [39 bits plus parity bit] (~20K bytes)
5-hole paper tape
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9. Elliott 803 video
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-
technology/engineering-and-technology/the-four-generations-
computers?track=a76677781c
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11. Other early initiatives
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12. UoR computing service timeline
1962 Elliott 803 Physics bdg->Maths->Physics 103/4 soundproofed
1967 Elliott 4130 Upgraded 16K->32K for Algol compiler
BCS Local branch Dr Leonard Dresel Chair
ICT Card punches (more noise)
1968 Evening shifts introduced
1970 Elliott 803 ->Earley Gate Cybernetics maintenance stopped…
1970 DEC PDP8 Frontend-online teletypes Maths 100
1973 ICL 1904S m/c room built for 25 years life…
CTL Mod1 Frontend plus BASIC teaching service. 10MB disc
1979/? Norsk Data Teaching service
1984 Amdahl 470 Mainframe service + Norsk frontend
mid 80s PC labs Gradually introduced
1989 Amdahl 580 Distributed system/ethernet
+Suns coloured books X25 v TCP/IP
1992 Auspex Dedicated central fileserver
1993 Amdahl retired End of ‘mainframe’ computing

13. ICL
1904S
Amdahl
580
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14. ..and what happened after that?
More machine rooms, aircon, batteries…
more store, more network, more…
Move from shared (S@il etc) to BYOD
How much store on campus in term?
15K people ?GB each -> >> 10**9*Elliott 803
Now full circle. M’frame=n*Virtl m/cs->Cloud
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15. April
1962
20KB
April
2012
16GB
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16. Elliott
4130
m/c
Room
In
Maths
Bdg.
1967-
1973
ICL
1904S
m/c
room
in new
bdg
1973-
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