The Pilot ACE was one of the first computers built in the United Kingdom, at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the early 1950s. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The National Physical Laboratory (NPL is the national Measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington The 1950s Decade refers to the years of 1950 to 1959 inclusive
It was a preliminary version of the full ACE, which had been designed by Alan Turing. The Automatic Computing Engine ( ACE) was an early Electronic stored-program Computer design produced by Alan Turing at the invitation of John Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (ˈt(jʊ(ərɪŋ (23 June 1912 &ndash 7 June 1954 was an English Mathematician After Turing left NPL (in part because he was disillusioned by the lack of progress on building the ACE) James H. Wilkinson took over the project, Harry Huskey helped with the design. James Hardy Wilkinson ( 27 September, 1919 &ndash 5 October, 1986) was a prominent figure in the field of Numerical analysis, a field Harry Douglas Huskey (born January 19, 1916) is an American computer designer pioneer The Pilot ACE ran its first program on May 10, 1950 and was demonstrated to the press in December 1950. Year 1950 ( MCML) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
Although originally intended as a prototype, it became clear that the machine was a potentially very useful resource, especially given the lack of other computing devices at the time. After some upgrades to make operational use practical, it was into service in late 1951, and saw considerable operational service over the next several years. Year 1951 ( MCMLI) was a Common year starting on Monday. Events of 1951 January
It had approximately 800 vacuum tubes, and used mercury delay lines for its main memory. This article is about the electronic device not an evacuated pipe used for experiments in Free-fall. Mercury (ˈmɜrkjʊri also called quicksilver or hydrargyrum, is a Chemical element with the symbol Hg ( Latinized hydrargyrum Genesis in radar The basic concept of the delay line originated with World War II Radar research as a system to reduce clutter from reflections from the ground Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to Computer components devices and recording media that retain digital The original size of the latter was 128 32-bit words, but that was later expanded to 352 words; a 4096-word drum memory was added in 1954. Drum memory is a magnetic Data storage device and was an early form of Computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s invented by Gustav Tauschek Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Its basic clock rate, 1 megahertz, was the fastest of the early British computers. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. The time to execute instructions was highly dependent of where they were in memory (due to the use of delay line memory). An addition could take anywhere from 64 microseconds to 1024 microseconds. The second ( SI symbol s) sometimes abbreviated sec, is the name of a unit of Time, and is the International System of Units
The machine was so successful that a commercial version of it, named the DEUCE, was constructed and sold by the English Electric Company. The DEUCE ( Digital Electronic Universal Computing Engine) was one of the earliest British commercially available Computers built by English Electric English Electric (EE was a British industrial manufacturer Founded in 1918 it initially specialised in industrial Electric motors and Transformers Its
The Pilot ACE was shut down in May, 1955, and was given to the Science Museum, where it remains today. Year 1955 ( MCMLV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar) For science museums in general check out Science museum. The Science Museum on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London is part
Further reading
- Simon H. Lavington, Early British Computers: The Story of Vintage Computers and The People Who Built Them (Manchester University Press, 1980)
- David M. Manchester University Press is the University press of the University of Manchester, England. Yates, Turing's Legacy: A History of Computing at the National Physical Laboratory, 1945–1995 (Science Museum, London, 1997, ISBN 0-901805-94-7)
References
- James H. Wilkinson, Turing's Work at the National Physical Laboratory and the Construction of Pilot ACE, DEUCE and ACE (in Nicholas Metropolis, J. Howlett, Gian-Carlo Rota, (editors), A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, Academic Press, New York, 1980)
- Martin Campbell-Kelly, Programming the Pilot ACE (in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. Academic Press ( London, New York and San Diego) was an Academic Book Publisher that is now part of Elsevier. The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing is a quarterly Journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. 3 (No. 2), 1981, pp. 133–162)
- B. Jack Copeland (editor), Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine. Oxford University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-19-856593-3)
External links
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