
The work Alan Turing did on the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) while based at NPL placed us as one of the world leaders in computing development in the 1940s and 1950s.
Videos
Piloting Computing
A film exploring Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine, with interviews from his past colleagues.
The Pilot Ace
Recollections of the early development work...
Profiles
Alan Turing
After the war he moved to NPL in 1945, and produced his plans for the ACE computer in 1946...
Other notable figures who worked with Turing at NPL:
Although short, Turing’s time at NPL was instrumental to the design and eventual construction of the ACE computer, the first universal computer of its kind. His knowledge of his own abstract machines, the plans for the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) and likely also Colossus (the computer used at Bletchley Park) was enough to convince him that his machine could be built and would work, despite there being no functional computers based on a similar model at the time.
Despite the setbacks, from lack of staff, technical expertise and funding, and despite Turing himself leaving NPL for good in 1948, the Pilot ACE was eventually built and demonstrated to the public and press in late 1950. This led to the development of DEUCE (the commercial version of the Pilot ACE) and finally ACE, the full-scale Automatic Computing Engine, in 1958.
Find out more...
Turing's time at NPL
The Pilot ACE computer
Turing's legacy
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
Alan Turing
1912-1954
Image gallery
Resources
'Intelligent Machinery'
A report by Turing on the possibility of a machine possessing the intelligence of man.
Turing Note
A note written by Turing to Woodger.
Progress Report on the ACE
A report from April 1948, which gives an introduction to some of the work carried out by Alan Turing and his collaborators at NPL.
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