Sir Maurice Wilkes: The Man and His Machine

Sir Maurice Wilkes, without doubt one of the foremost pioneers of computing, died in November last year aged 97. In a remarkably long and distinguished career, he built the EDSAC the world's first electronic stored-program computer to go into regular service, and went on to pioneer concepts such a microprogramming, bit-sliced architectures, local area networks and many many other things. He served the international computing community with distinction and gained many honours.

David Hartley has spent almost the whole of his career in Cambridge University much of it in close association with Sir Maurice. In conversation with CHM’s John Hollar, David will describe Sir Maurice's more important achievements, including the EDSAC computer, as well as giving a personal view of a man that he knew and with whom he worked over such a long period of time.


This event is part of our 2011 lecture series celebrating Revolutionaries, featuring conversations with and about some of the most distinguished thinkers in the computing field. The Revolutionaries lecture series complements the launch of the Computer History Museum’s permanent exhibition, Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing.