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Introduction to computer architecture
Published in Joseph D. Dumas, Computer Architecture, 2016
Although the original EDVAC design was never built (it was eventually modified and built as Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies [IAS] machine), its concepts were used in many other machines. Maurice Wilkes, who worked on EDVAC, built the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), which became the first operational stored-program computer using the von Neumann architecture. In 1951, the first commercially available computer was produced by the Remington-Rand Corporation. Based on the stored-program designs of the EDVAC and EDSAC, this computer was known as the UNIVAC I (for Universal Automatic Computer). The first of 46 of these machines were delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951; the following year, another UNIVAC found the spotlight as it was used to predict the outcome of the Eisenhower–Stevenson presidential race on election night. With only 7% of the vote counted, the machine projected a win for Eisenhower with 438 electoral votes (he ultimately received 442).
The west side story
Published in David M. Adamson, An Era of Expansion, 2015
And it started fast. Three projects swung into development as soon as that permission was granted. The first and highest profile in the University was a new building for the Computer Lab, more properly the Faculty of Computer Science and Technology. Founded formally as such in October 1970, one might trace the history of the Computer Lab back under different names to 1937, or to 1949 when the Cambridge Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), the world’s first fully operational computer, did its first run. Much of the credit can be attributed to the Lucasian Professor Charles Babbage (1792–1871) who was even then thinking about automatic computation. While still a student at Trinity College he first thought about what he called his ‘difference machine’ which would change the way people looked at arithmetical tables by calculating values and printing results directly. The mathematical laboratory was set up in 1937 in a spare area which previously had been part of the old Anatomy School in the New Museums Site: that can be thought to mark the beginning of computer science per se in the University. The head of the mathematical laboratory for a crucial period of its history was the great computer pioneer Maurice Wilkes, the designer of EDSAC.
Using Performance Metrics to Select Microprocessor Cores for IC Designs
Published in Luciano Lavagno, Igor L. Markov, Grant Martin, Louis K. Scheffer, Electronic Design Automation for IC System Design, Verification, and Testing, 2017
ISSs serve as benchmarking platforms because processor cores as realized on an IC rarely exist as a chip. ISSs run quickly—often 1000 times faster than gate-level processor simulations running on HDL simulators—because they simulate the processor’s software-visible state without employing a gate-level processor model. The earliest ISS was created for the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), which was developed by a team led by Maurice V. Wilkes at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory (shown in Figure 10.3). The room-sized EDSAC I was the world’s first fully operational, stored-program computer (the first von Neumann machine) and went online in 1949. EDSAC II became operational in 1958.
Scientific computing in the Cavendish Laboratory and the pioneering women computors
Published in Annals of Science, 2022
Research in the Cavendish Laboratory, the physics department of the University of Cambridge, during the 1950s to 1970s in both radio astronomy and X-ray crystallography was of considerable importance.12 Several Nobel prizes were earned, including one in 1974 by Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish for their pioneering research in radio astronomy, particularly around telescope design.13 It was also during this time that the EDSAC 1, EDSAC 2, TITAN and IBM computers became operational at the University Mathematical Laboratory in Cambridge (1949, 1958, 1964 and 1971 respectively).14 The EDSAC 1 and 2 computers were built by Maurice Wilkes and his team and were unique to Cambridge. The EDSAC was the University’s first machine to electronically store programs, the second of those in the world. The EDSAC 2 was replaced by TITAN, a prototype for Ferranti’s Atlas 2 computer.15 TITAN was a time-sharing system, which allowed it to be used from multiple terminals in different locations simultaneously. The University then bought an IBM 370/165, its first commercial computer.