TheAPE(X)C, orAll Purpose Electronic (X) Computer series was designed byAndrew Donald Booth and built byKathleen Booth atBirkbeck College,London in the early 1950s. Their work on the APE(X)C series was sponsored by theBritish Rayon Research Association.[1][2] Although the naming conventions are slightly unclear, it seems the first model belonged to the BRRA.[3] According to Booth, the X stood for X-company.[4]
One of the series was also known as the APE(X)C orAll Purpose Electronic X-Ray Computer and was sited at Birkbeck.
From 1943 on, the Booths started working on the determination ofcrystal structures usingX-ray diffraction data. The computations involved were extremely tedious and there was ample incentive for automating the process. Andrew Booth developed an analogue computer to compute the reciprocal spacings of the diffraction pattern.[5]
Later on, they built an experimental electronic computer named SEC (Simple Electronic Computer, designed around 1948-1949).
Booth designs the All-Purpose Electronic Computer (APEC) in 1950.
Booth builds the first full-scale prototype in his father's barn 1950–1951.
Early 1951,BRRA commissions Booth for a version of the APEC, named APE(R)C.
BTM (free of IBM affiliation since 1949) sends engineers to visit the barn where the APE(R)C is being assembled, to copy the circuitry of the computer—which they then use to build theHEC 1.
and finally, the Booth team markets the APE(X)C (All-Purpose Electronic Computer) series.[7][8][9]
TheHEC (Hollerith Electronic Computer), built by the British Tabulating Machine Company (later to becomeInternational Computers and Tabulators (ICT), thenInternational Computers Limited (ICL)), a commercial machine sold in several models and later known as the ICT200 series. There were likely the derivativesHEC 1,HEC 2,HEC 2M - M for 'marketable' denoting the machine's orientation toward commercial rather than scientific customers, andHEC 4 (before 1955)
Only one of each of these machines was built, with the exception of HEC (and possibly MAC) which were commercial machines produced in quite large numbers for the time, around 150. They were similar in design, with various small differences, mostly in I/O equipment. The APEHC was apunched card machine while the APEXC, APERC and APENC wereteletypers (keyboard andprinter, pluspaper tape reader and puncher). Also, the UCC had 8k words of storage, instead of 1k word for other machines, and the MAC used germanium diodes in replacement of many valves.
In March 1951, the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) sent a team to Andrew Booth's workshop. They then used his design to create the Hollerith Electronic Computer 1 (HEC 1) before the end of 1951. The computer was a direct copy of Andrew Booth's circuits with extra Input/output interfaces. The HEC 2 was the HEC 1 with smarter metal casings and was built for theBusiness Efficiency Exhibition in 1953. A slightly modified version of the HEC 2 was then marketed as HEC2M and 8 were sold. The HEC2M was succeeded by the HEC4. Around 100 HEC4s were sold in the late 1950s.[12]
Andrew D. Booth Technical Developments: The Development of A.P.E.(X).C. (inAutomatic Computing Machinery), Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation (MTAC) Volume 8, Number 46, April, 1954
^The British computer industry: crisis and development By Tim Kelly, page 41
^abEarly British computers, Simon Hugh Lavington 1980
^History of Computing:Learning from the Past, Arthur Tatnall Springer, 2010
^Book 495 in Origins of cyberspace: a library on the history of computing, Diana H. Hook,Jeremy M. Norman, Michael R. Williams. Norman Publishing, 2002
^Andrew Brown (2005).J.D. Bernal, The Sage of Science. Oxford U.P. p. 276.
