The Mark I* at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston

Abstract

It took some time to convert a former RAF aerodrome at Aldermaston, Berkshire, into a top-secret research establishment, so that Aldermaston did not get its own Mark I* computer until early 1955. Providing more of the latest computing equipment at Aldermaston had, by 1957, become a high priority so that, of all the UK’s sites, Aldermaston led the way with the early installation of top-of-the-range IBM computers whose performance out-classed the Ferranti Mark I* and anything that other British suppliers could match. We describe the successive upgrades, placing them in the context of available British computers, up to the installation of Ferranti’s own supercomputer, Atlas, towards the end of 1964. It was in the provision of software, particularly high-performance Fortran compilers, that Alick Glenny and colleagues at Aldermaston made significant advances in the decade 1957–67. Alick was also the ‘father’ of Autocodes, as we describe in Chap. 13.