Sir Maurice Wilkes | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Maurice Wilkes in 1980 | |
| Born | John Maurice Vincent Wilkes (1913-06-26)26 June 1913 Dudley, Worcestershire, England |
| Died | 29 November 2010(2010-11-29) (aged 97) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Education | King Edward VI College, Stourbridge |
| Alma mater | St John's College, Cambridge (MA, PhD) |
| Known for | Cache memory |
| Spouse | |
| Children | one son, two daughters |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The reflexion of very long wireless waves from the ionosphere (1939) |
| Doctoral advisor | John Ashworth Ratcliffe[3] |
| Doctoral students | |
| Website | www |
Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (26 June 1913 – 29 November 2010[11]) was an Englishcomputer scientist who designed and helped build theElectronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), one of the earlieststored-program computers, and who inventedmicroprogramming, a method for using stored-program logic to operate the control unit of acentral processing unit's circuits. At the time of his death, Wilkes was anEmeritus Professor at theUniversity of Cambridge.
Wilkes was born inDudley,Worcestershire, England[12] the only child of Ellen (Helen), née Malone (1885–1968) and Vincent Joseph Wilkes (1887–1971), an accounts clerk at the estate of theEarl of Dudley.[13] He grew up inStourbridge, West Midlands, and was educated atKing Edward VI College, Stourbridge. During his school years he was introduced toamateur radio by his chemistry teacher.[14]
He studied theMathematical Tripos atSt John's College, Cambridge, from 1931 to 1934, and in 1936 completed his PhD inphysics on the subject of radio propagation of very long radio waves in theionosphere.[15] He was appointed to a junior faculty position of theUniversity of Cambridge, through which he was involved in the establishment of a computing laboratory. He was called up for military service duringWorld War II and worked onradar at theTelecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and inoperational research.[16]
In 1945, Wilkes was appointed as the second director of theUniversity of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory (later known as the Computer Laboratory).[12]
The Cambridge laboratory initially had many different computing devices, including adifferential analyser. One dayLeslie Comrie visited Wilkes and lent him a copy ofJohn von Neumann'sprepress description of theEDVAC, a successor to theENIAC[17][18] under construction byPresper Eckert andJohn Mauchly at theMoore School of Electrical Engineering. He had to read it overnight because he had to return it and no photocopying facilities existed. He decided immediately that the document described the logical design of future computing machines, and that he wanted to be involved in the design and construction of such machines. In August 1946 Wilkes travelled by ship to the United States to enroll in theMoore School Lectures, of which he was only able to attend the final two weeks because of various travel delays.[19] During the five-day return voyage to England, Wilkes sketched out in some detail the logical structure of the machine which would become EDSAC.
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Since his laboratory had its own funding, he was immediately able to start work on a small practical machine,EDSAC (for "Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator"),[8] once back at Cambridge. He decided that his mandate was not to invent a better computer, but simply to make one available to the university. Therefore, his approach was relentlessly practical. He used only proven methods for constructing each part of the computer. The resulting computer was slower and smaller than other planned contemporary computers. However, his laboratory's computer was the second practicalstored-program computer to be completed and operated successfully from May 1949, well over a year before the much larger and more complex EDVAC. In 1950, along with David Wheeler, Wilkes used EDSAC to solve adifferential equation relating togene frequencies in a paper byRonald Fisher.[20] This represents the first use of a computer for a problem in the field ofbiology.
In 1951, he developed the concept ofmicroprogramming[10] from the realisation that thecentral processing unit of a computer could be controlled by a miniature, highly specialised computer program in high-speedROM. This concept greatly simplified CPU development. Microprogramming was first described at theUniversity of Manchester Computer Inaugural Conference in 1951,[21] then expanded and published inIEEE Spectrum in 1955.[citation needed] This concept was implemented for the first time inEDSAC 2,[9] which also used multiple identical "bit slices" to simplify design. Interchangeable, replaceable tube assemblies were used for each bit of the processor. The next computer for his laboratory was theTitan, a joint venture withFerranti Ltd begun in 1963. It eventually supported the UK's first time-sharing system[22][23] which was inspired byCTSS[24][25] and provided wider access to computing resources in the university, including time-shared graphics systems for mechanicalCAD.[26]
A notable design feature of the Titan'soperating system was that it provided controlled access based on the identity of the program, as well as or instead of, the identity of the user. It introduced the password encryption system used later byUnix. Its programming system also had an early version control system.[26]
Wilkes is also credited with the idea of symbolic labels,macros and subroutine libraries. These are fundamental developments that made programming much easier and paved the way for high-levelprogramming languages. Later, Wilkes worked on an early timesharing system (now termed a multi-user operating system) anddistributed computing. Toward the end of the 1960s, Wilkes also became interested incapability-based computing, and the laboratory assembled a unique computer, theCambridge CAP.[27]
In 1974, Wilkes encountered a Swiss data network (at Hasler AG) that used a ring topology to allocate time on the network. The laboratory initially used a prototype to share peripherals. Eventually, commercial partnerships were formed, andsimilar technology became widely available in the UK.
Wilkes received a number of distinctions: he was aKnight Bachelor,Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society, aFellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and aFellow of the Royal Society.[28][29][30][31][32][14][16][33][34]Wilkes was a founder member of theBritish Computer Society (BCS) and its first president (1957–1960). He received theTuring Award in 1967, with the following citation: "Professor Wilkes is best known as the builder and designer of the EDSAC, the first computer with an internally stored program. Built in 1949, the EDSAC used a mercurydelay-line memory. He is also known as the author, withDavid Wheeler andStanley Gill, of a volume onPreparation of Programs for Electronic Digital Computers in 1951,[35] in which program libraries were effectively introduced." In 1968 he received theHarry H. Goode Memorial Award, with the following citation: "For his many original achievements in the computer field, both in engineering and software, and for his contributions to the growth of professional society activities and to international cooperation among computer professionals."[36]
In 1972, Wilkes was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science byNewcastle University.[37]
In 1980, he retired from his professorships and post as the head of the Computer Laboratory and joined the central engineering staff ofDigital Equipment Corporation inMaynard, Massachusetts, US.[12]
Wilkes was awarded theFaraday Medal by theInstitution of Electrical Engineers in 1981. TheMaurice Wilkes Award, awarded annually for an outstanding contribution to computer architecture made by a young computer scientist or engineer, is named after him.In 1986, he returned to England and became a member ofOlivetti's Research Strategy Board. In 1987, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by theUniversity of Bath. In 1993 Wilkes was presented, by Cambridge University, with an honorary Doctor of Science degree. In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of theAssociation for Computing Machinery. He was awarded theMountbatten Medal in 1997 and in 2000 presented the inauguralPinkerton Lecture. He wasknighted in the2000 New Years Honours List. In 2001, he was inducted as a Fellow of theComputer History Museum "for his contributions to computer technology, including early machine design, microprogramming, and the Cambridge Ring network."[38] In 2002, Wilkes moved back to the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, as an emeritus professor.[12]
In his memoirs Wilkes wrote:[16]
I well remember when this realization first came on me with full force. The EDSAC was on the top floor of the building and the tape-punching and editing equipment one floor below. ... It was on one of my journeys between the EDSAC room and the punching equipment that "hesitating at the angles of stairs" the realization came over me with full force that a good part of the remainder of my life was going to be spent in finding errors in my own programs.
Wilkes married classicist Nina Twyman in 1947.[39] She died in 2008, he in 2010. Wilkes was survived by one son and two daughters.
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. We had to discover debugging. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.
Sir Maurice, as he is known today, had been inspired by CTSS to create a time-sharing system
Maurice Wilkes discovered CTSS on a visit to MIT in about 1965, and returned to Cambridge to convince the rest of us that time-sharing was the way forward
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| First | President of the British Computer Society 1957–1960 | Succeeded by |
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