CUCPS 1997-1998

In the 1997-1998 academic year CUCPS held the following talks, in the Hopkinson lecture theatre on the New Museums Site.

• The first talk of the 1997-1998 academic year was Chris Burton speaking on 14 October 1997 to an audience of 13 on The Small-Scale Experimental Machine Rebuild Project, about the project to rebuild the Small-Scale Experimental Machine in time for its 50th anniversary. This was the world's first stored-program electronic digital computer. He also mentioned a competition to write a program for the SSEM; the prize for the best entry was to have it run on the rebuilt machine. There is a simulator to assist you in composing your entries. (The competition has now been closed; the winning entries are available.)
• Two talks organised by other societies were announced as being of interest to CUCPS members:
  • Trinity Mathematical Society talk by Hank Tropp on the history of the Computer Laboratory (formerly the Mathematical Laboratory), on 27th October 1997.
  • Cambridge University Engineering Society talk by Tony Sale on the Colossus, used for codebreaking at Bletchley Park during WW2, on 4th November 1997.
• On 18th November 1997, Philip Belben spoke to an audience of 12 about Tektronix and the Prehistory of the Graphics Workstation, and demonstrated a Tek 4050 with vector graphics display.
• On 2nd December 1997, we showed a short film of the EDSAC computer in operation. This historically important machine was designed and built here in Cambridge. Turnout was poor (probably because it was raining!) but the film turned out to only be ten minutes long, so we may show it again from time to time. (It was shown again at the end of Professor Wilkes's talk in April 1999.)
• On 20th January 1998, Professor Roger Needham talked to us about The Titan computer -- its design and hardware. This was the first Cambridge timesharing computer. This talk attracted an audience of 25, which was then a record for a CUCPS talk.
• On 17th February 1998, Tony Duell gave a talk on The Philips P850 series -- a forgotten minicomputer family. He brought a P850 to the talk, and gave a demonstration of its use. Dr Duell has kindly permitted us to distribute his notes for this talk.

  We have the following photos from this talk, taken by Philip Belben and made available with his permission: (JPEG 260k) (JPEG 430k)

• On Monday 9th March 1998, Dr Barry Landy gave a talk about the software side of TITAN, including the programming of the computer, the initial software design, and how the design was modified to enable the first general purpose computing service with online working. The talk was titled TITAN and the origins of interactive computing, and had an audience of 19.
• The third in a popular series of talks on the Cambridge computer Titan was held on Monday 4th May 1998; in this talk The Software for TITAN, given to an audience of 14, Barry Landy described some aspects of the software, including the debugger, security and the scheduler.

Minutes of the AGM of 9 March 1998 are also available. It is notable that the entire business of the AGM was completed in just two minutes and twenty-five seconds; other societies should learn from this....

Return to CUCPS home page
Return to University of Cambridge home page