Maurice Wilkes

Maurice Wilkes was a pioneering British computer scientist who played a foundational role in the development of practical stored-program computers. He is best known for leading the design and construction of the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), the world's first operational stored-program computer to offer a regular computing service. His subsequent innovations, including the concept of microprogramming and the development of early programming techniques, cemented his legacy as a central figure in the history of computing. Wilkes's work at the University of Cambridge profoundly influenced the trajectory of both academic and commercial computing.

Early life and education

He was born in Dudley, then part of Worcestershire, and demonstrated an early aptitude for engineering and mathematics. Wilkes won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied the Mathematical Tripos and graduated with first-class honors. He continued at Cambridge for his postgraduate research, earning a PhD in physics in 1936 under the supervision of John Lennard-Jones, focusing on the propagation of very low frequency radio waves in the ionosphere. During World War II, he worked on the development of radar and operational research at the Telecommunications Research Establishment, gaining invaluable experience in large-scale electronic systems.

Career and research

After the war, Wilkes was appointed as the director of the Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory (later the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory). Inspired by a seminal lecture on the EDVAC design by John von Neumann, he dedicated the laboratory to building a practical stored-program computer. His leadership style emphasized practical utility and providing a reliable service to other scientists and researchers. Beyond hardware, Wilkes made seminal contributions to computer architecture and software, authoring influential texts and pioneering systematic approaches to programming. He remained a prominent figure in the international computing community, contributing to organizations like the British Computer Society and the International Federation for Information Processing.

EDSAC and contributions to computing

The construction of EDSAC began in 1947, with the machine executing its first calculation on 6 May 1949. This event marked a pivotal moment, providing researchers across Cambridge with unprecedented computational power. For input, EDSAC used punched tape and its main memory was implemented using mercury delay line memory. A key programming innovation developed for EDSAC was the Wheeler jump, an early form of subroutine return address management devised by David Wheeler. Wilkes later conceived the revolutionary principle of microprogramming in 1951, a method for designing the control unit of a CPU that became a standard technique in computer engineering. He also oversaw the development of its successor, EDSAC 2, which was one of the first computers to use microprogramming and magnetic core memory.

Awards and honors

His contributions were recognized with numerous prestigious awards. In 1967, he received the ACM Turing Award, often described as the "Nobel Prize of Computing," for his work on EDSAC and the development of programming techniques. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1956. Other significant honors include the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award from the IEEE Computer Society, the Mountbatten Medal from the National Electronics Council, and the Japan Prize for science and technology. He was knighted in 2000, becoming Sir Maurice Wilkes, and was named a Fellow of the Computer History Museum in California.

Personal life and legacy

He was known for his modest demeanor, dry wit, and deep commitment to the engineering ethos of building useful tools. Wilkes married in 1947 and had three children. In his later years, he remained engaged with the field, contributing to developments in computer networking and distributed computing. His legacy is immense; EDSAC directly inspired the first commercial computer systems in the United Kingdom, such as those by LEO Computers, and educated a generation of pioneering computer scientists. The Computer Laboratory at Cambridge stands as a lasting testament to his vision, and his ideas on microprogramming and computer architecture became integral to the design of modern computers.

Category:British computer scientists Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Turing Award laureates Category:1913 births Category:2010 deaths