Geoff
Tootill
The Chadderton
Historical Society is arranging for a
Blue
Plaque
for this remarkable
Chadderton born scientist.
Without the help
of Tom Kilburn, Freddie Williams, Geoff Tootill
and his fellow
professors, working at Manchester University
over
50 years ago, it
is unlikely you would be reading
this page today
in its present
form. They were completely unaware that the
project
they were
working on, The Manchester Small
Scale
Experimental
Machine, affectionately known as 'the Baby',
would
become so
significant an achievement.
Before the
electronic computer, information technology used
to be a very
slow process using cables and plug
boards.
The research was
made possible after the Ministry of
Aviation
awarded the team
a contract to see if the idea of an
electronic
computer was
feasible.
"At
11.am Monday 21st June, 1948
Geoff
and Tom Kilburn
knew they'd made
history having just witnessed their small
experimental
machine, affectionately known as Baby,
execute a stored
computer program to calculate the highest
factor of a
number successfully."
Between 1948 and
1949 they produced the Manchester
Mark 1 and so
created the world's first wholly
electronic
fully
programmable computer.
The
Meteoroligical Office in Bracknell lost no time
in taking up
this new
invention so enabling its staff to forecast the
weather
more
accurately
Geoff Tootill
subsequently left to join Ferranti to add his
expertise to
eventually produce the Ferranti Mark
1.
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