In a 2014 paper, David Nofre, Gerard Alberts and I argued that during the 1950s programming notations became conceptualized as formal languages. This process was driven by the desire to write programs that could run on different types of computer, a pressing issue in particular for university computing centres. Researchers dreamed of “universal” programming languages… Continue reading Synthetic Machines
Author: Mark
John Womersley
Here’s the abstract of my recent article about John Womersley’s early career: John Womersley (1907–1958) is best known for appointing Alan Turing to the postwar project to design and build an electronic computer at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Using unexplored archival material, this article focuses on Womersley’s early career and describes how, from… Continue reading John Womersley