Was the Manchester Baby conceived at Bletchley Park?

Abstract

In what follows, I look, in a very general way, at a particularly interesting half century, in the history of computation. The central purpose will be to throw light on how computing activity at the University of Manchester developed in the immediate post-war years and, in the context of this conference, to situate Alan Turing in the Manchester landscape. One of the main methodological premises on which I will depend is that the history of technology is, at heart, the history of people. No historically-sophisticated understanding of the development of the computer is possible in the absence of an appreciation of the background, motivation and aspirations of the principal actors. The life and work of Alan Turing is the central focus of this conference but, in the Manchester context, it is also important that attention be paid to F.C. Williams, T. Kilburn and M.H.A. Newman.

Conference

Publication date: June 2004

Publication date (Print): June 2004

Pages: 1-46

Affiliations

School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 3HE, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/TUR2004.3

Copyright statement: © David Anderson. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Alan Mathison Turing 2004: A celebration of his life and achievements, Manchester University

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Alan Mathison Turing 2004: A celebration of his life and achievements

Conference acronym: TUR

Conference number:

Conference location: Manchester University

Conference date: 5 June 2004

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Alan Mathison Turing 2004: A celebration of his life and achievements

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/TUR2004.3

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing