Kilburn, Tom
Geoffrey Tweedale · Encyclopedia of Computer Science · 2003
Tom Kilburn was born on 11 August 1921 in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England. Along with F. C. Williams and M. V. Wilkes, Kilburn dominated the field of British computer engineering in its formative years. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he graduated in 1942 with a B.A. degree in mathematics. During the war in 1942-1945, he joined the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Great Malvern, where he was engaged in radar work. In 1946, he was seconded from the TRE to the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Manchester to work under F. C. Williams on research into cathode ray tube (i.e. electrostatic) storage. The result of their work was the Williams tube-the first random access digital storage device-which formed the basis for the Manchester Mark I computer. A prototype of this machine ran the world's first stored program on 21 June 1948. Collaboration with Ferranti Ltd followed both for the Mark I and other machines such as the Mercury and Atlas computers, with Kilburn assuming direction of the projects after about 1952. Although Kilburn was involved with other important Manchester University computers such as the MU5, the Atlas project, begun in 1956, represented perhaps his finest achievement. Atlas pioneered many modern concepts, such as paging, virtual memory (q.v.), and multiprogramming (q.v.), and on its official inauguration in 1962 was considered to be the most powerful computer in the world.