Maurice Wilkes

Maurice Wilkes
File:Maurice Wilkes.jpg Sir Maurice Wilkes
Born	Template:Birth date Dudley, Worcestershire, England
Died	November 29, 2010(2010-11-29) (aged 97)
Occupation(s)	Computer scientist, physicist, academic
Known for	Designing the EDSAC computer, inventing microprogramming, pioneering time-sharing systems
Notable work	EDSAC, microprogramming concept, Titan computer, Cambridge CAP system

Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (26 June 1913 – 29 November 2010) was a British computer scientist renowned for designing and assisting in the construction of the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), among the pioneering stored-program computers. He is also credited with inventing microprogramming, a technique that uses stored-program logic to manage the circuits within a central processing unit. At the time of his passing, Wilkes held the position of Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge.

Early life, education, and military service

Born in Dudley, Worcestershire, England, Wilkes was the sole child of Ellen (Helen), née Malone, and Vincent Joseph Wilkes, who worked as an accounts clerk for the estate of the Earl of Dudley. His upbringing took place in Stourbridge, West Midlands, where he attended King Edward VI College, Stourbridge. It was during his school years that his chemistry teacher introduced him to the world of amateur radio.

Wilkes pursued studies in the Mathematical Tripos at St John's College, Cambridge from 1931 until 1934 and earned a PhD in physics in 1936, focusing on radio wave propagation in the ionosphere. He accepted a junior academic role at the University of Cambridge, contributing to the foundation of a computing laboratory. During World War II, he engaged in military research involving radar technology at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and participated in operational research.

Research and career

In 1945, Wilkes was appointed as the second director of the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, later known as the Computer Laboratory.

The laboratory contained various computational devices, including a differential analyser. Leslie Comrie provided Wilkes with a copy of John von Neumann’s pre-publication report on the EDVAC, which was designed as a successor to the ENIAC. Recognizing this document as a foundational model for future computers, Wilkes committed himself to their design and development. In August 1946, he traveled to the United States to attend the concluding two weeks of the Moore School Lectures. During his five-day return trip to England, Wilkes drafted the logical framework that would become EDSAC.

EDSAC

Supported by independent funding, Wilkes initiated work on EDSAC ("Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator") at Cambridge. His objective was not to create novel innovations but rather to deliver a reliable computing machine for university use by employing established construction techniques. Although it was smaller and slower than some contemporaries, EDSAC became operational in May 1949 as the second practical stored-program computer, preceding the larger EDVAC by more than a year. In 1950, Wilkes and David Wheeler utilized EDSAC to solve a differential equation related to gene frequencies from Ronald Fisher’s research, marking the earliest known application of computing in biology.

Other computing developments

Wilkes introduced the concept of microprogramming in 1951, identifying that a CPU could be governed by a dedicated program stored within high-speed ROM. This breakthrough streamlined CPU architecture and was initially presented at the inaugural University of Manchester Computer Conference in 1951 before being published in IEEE Spectrum in 1955. The microprogramming technique was implemented on EDSAC 2, which also incorporated multiple identical "bit slices" and interchangeable vacuum tube assemblies for processing bits.

The next significant endeavor for his laboratory was the development of the Titan computer, begun in collaboration with Ferranti Ltd in 1963. Titan introduced Britain's first time-sharing system, inspired by MIT’s CTSS, broadening university access to computing resources and enabling time-shared graphics capabilities for mechanical CAD applications.

Titan’s operating system included controlled access mechanisms based on both program and user identities and featured password encryption techniques that were later adopted by Unix. It also integrated an early form of version control.

Wilkes was instrumental in pioneering symbolic labels, macros, and subroutine libraries—innovations that significantly simplified programming tasks and laid groundwork for high-level programming languages. His later contributions encompassed early multi-user operating systems and advancements in distributed computing. By the late 1960s, Wilkes concentrated on capability-based computing, culminating in the development of the distinctive Cambridge CAP system.

In 1974, after encountering a Swiss ring topology data network at Hasler AG, Wilkes’ laboratory embarked on prototyping peripheral sharing technology. This initiative led to commercial collaborations and widespread adoption throughout the UK via the Cambridge Ring (computer network).

Awards, honours and leadership

Wilkes was the recipient of a wide array of prestigious accolades, including being named a Knight Bachelor, a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He played a pivotal role in establishing the British Computer Society (BCS), serving as its inaugural president from 1957 to 1960. In recognition of his groundbreaking work on the EDSAC—the first computer to utilize an internally stored program—and for co-authoring Preparation of Programs for Electronic Digital Computers (1951), which pioneered program libraries, he was honored with the Turing Award in 1967.

In 1968, Wilkes was awarded the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award for his innovative contributions to engineering and software, as well as his efforts in advancing professional organizations and fostering international collaboration. Newcastle University conferred upon him an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1972.

Following his retirement from Cambridge in 1980, Wilkes joined the central engineering team at Digital Equipment Corporation in Massachusetts. The Faraday Medal was bestowed upon him in 1981. The annual Maurice Wilkes Award was established to recognize exceptional young talent in computer architecture. Upon returning to England in 1986, he became a member of Olivetti’s Research Strategy Board. He also received honorary doctorates from the University of Bath in 1987 and Cambridge University in 1993, was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1994, and earned the Mountbatten Medal in 1997.

Wilkes was knighted during the 2000 New Year Honours and was inducted into the Computer History Museum Hall of Fellows in 2001, acknowledging his seminal contributions to early machine design, microprogramming, and networking technologies. He resumed his affiliation with Cambridge as an emeritus professor in 2002.

In his autobiography, Wilkes recounted his enduring commitment to programming and error correction throughout his pioneering work on EDSAC.

Publications

• Oscillations of the Earth's Atmosphere (1949), Cambridge University Press
• Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer (1951), co-authored with D. J. Wheeler and S. Gill, Addison Wesley Press
• Automatic Digital Computers (1956), Methuen Publishing
• A Short Introduction to Numerical Analysis (1966), Cambridge University Press
• Time-sharing Computer Systems (1968), Macdonald
• The Cambridge CAP Computer and its Operating System (1979), co-written with R. M. Needham, Elsevier
• Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer (1985), MIT Press
• Computing Perspectives (1995), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers

Personal life

In 1947, Wilkes married Nina Twyman, a scholar of classical studies. She passed away in 2008; Wilkes died two years later in 2010, survived by their son and two daughters.

External links

• Oral history interview with David J. Wheeler, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Wheeler discusses the EDSAC project and its impact on early computing systems such as the ILLIAC and IBM 701.
• Oral history interview with Maurice Wilkes, recorded June 2010 for An Oral History of British Science, British Library
• Maurice Wilkes on Alan Turing, after-dinner lecture at King's College, Cambridge, filmed in 1997