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2011 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

5. NRDC and the Market

verfasst von : Emeritus Professor Simon Lavington

Erschienen in: Moving Targets

Verlag: Springer London

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Abstract

The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) was set up in July 1949 to encourage the commercial exploitation of the flood of British ideas that had emerged during and after the Second World War. Fortunately, the early NRDC documents have been catalogued and preserved in the (British) National Archive for the History of Computing (NAHC), currently housed at the University of Manchester. As explained in the preface to the NAHC’s holdings of NRDC papers, ‘during the 1950s, computer development was the single most important aspect of the NRDC’s activities’. The broad-brush story of government policy on the exploitation of computer technology and the role of the NRDC has been presented by John Hendry in his 1989 book [1] and summarised by John Crawley, formerly of NRDC [2]. However, neither of these sources provides detailed assessments of computer hardware and software, nor of the deeper interactions between NRDC and Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd.

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Hendry J (1990) Innovating for failure: government policy and the early British computer industry. MIT Press, London. ISBN 0-262-08187-3

(a) Crawley HJ (1957) The National Research Development Corporation Computer Project. NRDC Computer Sub-Committee, paper 132, Feb 1957. (b) John Crawley (1993) NRDC’s role in the early British computer industry. Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, issue number 8, winter 1993, pp 25–32

Research Laboratories, Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., Visitors Book

D Hennessey, three-page confidential NRDC Internal Memorandum MDR 14/Annexe B, dated 12 Aug 1950 (on page 1) and 14th August (on page 3). Addressed to: Managing Director. NAHC file 86/13/1

(a) Campbell-Kelly M (1989) ICL – a business and technical history. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (b) Mounier-Kuhn P-E (1994) Product policies in two French computer firms: SEA and Bull (1948–1964). In: Bud-Frierman L (ed) Information Acumen – the understanding and use of knowledge in modern business. Routledge, London

Mounier-Kuhn Pierre-E (2008) E-mails to Simon Lavington, Nov 2008

Crawley HJ (1950) Note on visit to Elliott Bros on Monday 25th September. NRDC Internal Memo dated 27 Sept 1950

Lavington SH (1975) A history of Manchester computers. First edition published by the National Computing Centre, 1975. Second edition published by the British Computer Society, 1998. ISBN: 0-902505-01-8

Johnson WEP (1950) NRDC Internal Memo dated 24 Nov 1950. NAHC file 86/13/1

10.

Managing Director’s Report Electronic computers, Elliott Brothers Ltd., to the 18th NRDC Board meeting, 20 Dec 1950. NAHC file 86/13/1

11.

Campbell-Kelly M (1985) Christopher Strachey, 1916–1975 – A biographical note. IEEE Ann Hist Comput 7(1):19–42MathSciNetMATHCrossRef

12.

Hodges A (1983) Alan Turing: the enigma. Burnett Books, London, p 447. ISBN: 0-09-152130-0

13.

Clarke SLH (1993) Recollections of the Elliott 400 series. Computer Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, Issue number 6, summer 1993, pp 15–21. See also a similar paper by Laurence Clarke entitled Early computer production at Elliotts, Computer Resurrection, Number 41, Autumn 2007

14.

Bradburd EM (1951) Magnetostrictive delay line. Electrical Commun 28(1):46–53

15.

Millership R, Robbins RC, De Barr AE (Oct 1951) Magnetostriction storage systems for high-speed digital computers. Br J Appl Phys 2(10):304CrossRef

16.

De Barr AE (May 1953) Digital storage using ferromagnetic materials. The Elliott J 1(4):116–120, See also Borehamwood Internal Research Reports numbers 309 dated 30 Dec 1952 and 325 dated 22 Feb 1953

17.

Andrew St Johnston (2001) Interview with Simon Lavington at Hedgegrove Farm (Andrew’s home) on 29 Oct 2001

18.

Laurence Clarke (2009) E-mail to Simon Lavington dated 14 Oct 2009

19.

MH (Harry) Johnson (2002) My work with computers: from the Ferranti Mark I to the ICT 1900 (1952–1966). 84-page typed manuscript, circulated privately, June 2002

20.

SLH Clarke (Aug 1975) The Elliott 400 series and before. Radio Electron Eng 45(8): 415–421CrossRef

21.

SLH Clarke (2007) Conversations with Simon Lavington on 7th June 2007

22.

SLH Clarke (1993) Recollections of the Elliott 400 series. Computer Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, Issue number 6, summer 1993, pp 15–21

23.

Lavington SH (2000) The Pegasus story: a history of a vintage British computer. Science Museum, London. ISBN: 1-900747-40-5. (Second edition to appear in 2011)

24.

The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Halsbury (1959, Jan) Ten years of computer development. Comput J 1(4)

25.

See file NAHC/NRD/C13/4: Verbatim note of meeting with Elliott Bros, 5th November 1953. Present at this meeting were (for NRDC): Mr D Hennessey, Mr J F Lockwood and Mr H J Crawley, and (for Elliotts): Dr L L Ross, Commander H Pasley-Tyler, Mr A St Johnston and Mr D H Marlow. At this tense meeting, accusations and insinuations flowed back and forth. Although the name of W S Elliott was not recorded, Dr Ross was moved to make the following observation half-way through the meeting: “Ever since the machine [the 401] went to Cambridge and ever since a certain person left the Bros. [i.e. Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd.] we have heard rumours to the effect that we have lost interest in the machine. This is incorrect. Our team is an excellent one and is very much larger than it has been at any time since the inception of the machine”

26.

Healy M (1995) Frank Yates, 1902–1994 – the work of a statistician. Int Stat Rev 63:271–288

27.

Michael Healy (2009) E-mail to Simon Lavington, 11 June 2009

28.

Yates F, Lipton S (April 1957) An automatic programming routine for the Elliott 401. J ACM 4(2):151–156CrossRef

29.

Gavin Ross (2009) E-mails to Simon Lavington, June 2009

30.

See the editorial comment entitled 40 years of the Elliott 401 on page 6 of the Summer 1993 edition of Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society

31.

John Bunt (2001) Eight-page typed letter sent to Simon Lavington, dated 11 Dec 2001

32.

Andrew St. Johnston (1995) History of the research laboratories of Elliott brothers (London) Ltd. – Andrew St. Johnston’s Contribution. Nine-page typed manuscript dated 31 May 1995 and sent to Laurence Clarke

33.

Obituary of Andrew St Johnston in The Times newspaper on 2 May 2005

34.

Laurence Clarke (2004) Oration at the funeral of Andrew St Johnston, 15 Apr 2005

35.

Lavington SH (May 2009) An appreciation of Dina St Johnston, 1930–2007, founder of the UK’s first software house. Comput J 52(3):378–387CrossRef

36.

Ince, David (1992) Combat and competition. Newton, Swindon. ISBN 1-872308-23-6

37.

Mounier-Kuhn P-E (2008) (CNRS & Centre de recherches en Histoire de l’Innovation Université Paris-Sorbonne): e-mails to Simon Lavington, Nov 2008

38.

Anon, Elliott Automation: Computers and Orders, 1947–1966. Brochure published in early 1967 by the Directorate of Information Services, Elliott-Automation Ltd., 21 Portland Place, London W1

39.

Anon, Computer and data processing installations. Elliott Computing Division. Issued 31st August 1963 by Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., Borehamwood

40.

See: Computer Survey, vol. 1 number 1, June 1962. Published by United Trade Press Ltd., London

41.

See the Rothamsted Annual Reports for the following years: 1961 (p 164), 1962 (p 173), 1963 (p 168), 1964 (p 205) and 1965 (p 206)

42.

Woodland L (1969) The 402 story. Computer Weekly, 8 May 1969, p 10. This was Part 5 in a series of Computer Weekly articles on early British computers

43.

Hersom Ed (2007) Nicholas, the forgotten Elliott Project. Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, vol 27, spring 2002, pp 10–14. Also quoted by G E Felton, in his presentation at the BCS@50 Conference, London, 12–14 July 2007

44.

Felton GE (2006) Getting the job done. Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, Issue number 38, summer 2006, pp 13–17. See: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res38.htm#e

45.

Hunt PM (1956) The electronic digital computer in aircraft structural analysis, parts 1–3. Aircraft Engineering, Mar 1956 (pp 70–76), April 1956 (pp 111–118), May 1956 (pp 155–165)

46.

Mills RG (1956) A general description of the Elliott 404 Electronic Digital Computer. Report S64 published by the Computing Machine Division, Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., Borehamwood, in May 1956 (42 typed pages)

47.

Brian Millis (2007) E-mails to Simon Lavington, Aug 2007

Titel: NRDC and the Market
verfasst von: Emeritus Professor Simon Lavington
Verlag: Springer London
Buch: Moving Targets
Print ISBN: 978-1-84882-932-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-84882-933-6

Copyright-Jahr: 2011
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-933-6_5

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