The decision to purchase a 1906A/1908A to replace the Atlas Computer required a new
computing building to house the new system and allow parallel running for a period.
The photograph below shows the Atlas Building in August 1971. The new computer block is in place
with a glass-sided emergency staircase which was removed when the next phase of building took place.
The non-appearance of the 1908A reduced the original size of the new Computer Block which
was initially going to extend considerably more.
August 1971: 1906A Computer Block and emergency staircase added
Soon after, the third side of the Office Block was added
and a new Lecture theatre called the Atlas Colloquium.
In a further phase of expansion, the Office Block along the main road
was extended backwards and housed the Joint Network Team.
By the time this photograph was taken, the Office space was exhausted
and the laboratory
was beginning to resort to adding portakabins to try and alleviate the
pressure on space.
