2024
• (12 April) Terry Mawby passed away peacefully with his son at his side. Thank you everyone for sharing your memories with him via a card; he was very touched and amused reading it. It sparked lots of stories and happy memories for him -- and we all know how Terry liked a story! He even attempted to teach someone about transputers using Easter eggs as props after reading one of the tales. His son Drew was also very touched by the messages, and how much his Dad meant to people.
2023
• (27 June) RAL and Harwell sections of the web added, together with a page about the Harwell Heritage Project.
• (26 May) Pat Athawes has had a phone call from Susan Hilton's daughter to let her know that Susan passed away Tuesday evening. She had been in hospital briefly and it happened very quickly.
Susan ran the Information Dissemination and Education And Awareness Groups in Informatics and CISD, supporting courses and the conferences programme for, amongst others, the World Transputer Centre and W3C-UK. She was also editor of the ECN, Graphics and Atlas newsletters. Everyone in Informatics' Design Division remembers the fascinating talk Susan gave at Coseners' House one Christmas about her research into the memory capabilities of garden birds.
Keith Jeffery said: "Susan was a great strength in organising presentations and events for Informatics."
2022
• (22 December) New-look website launched in time for Christmas with better handling of printing and mobile devices... we hope.
• (5 August) We have just heard that Mike Elwood has died from Covid. Keith Jeffery said: "It is very sad to hear of Mike's death, especially since the major initial waves of COVID have passed already (although I guess we all fear the coming winter months). As well as a systems programmer, I recall him assisting in many areas of the work of the department." Neil Calton said: "I worked with Mike on a number of projects. The last main role he had at RAL was running the FAMIS hardware and software on Sun Microsystems hardware."
• (28 June) English Electric Deuce website.
• (16 June) Ken Knowlton has died; there's an obituary in the
Texarkana Gazette.
Bob Hopgood said: "I first met Ken in 1965. Bart, Bob Churchhouse and I visited Bell Labs partly to see what Brian Cooper was doing
(he was on sabbatical there) and partly to see their software developments. Compilers, data structures, information retrieval etc.
Among the things we saw was the SC4020 and we were shown their use of it for operator's looking up telephone numbers for their customers.
They produced a roll of 35 mm film regularly that was sent out by post to their operators in the USA and the operator had a frame
of the 35mm displayed over her desk as she answered the enquiry and a keyboard that allowed her to control which frame was displayed
so could quickly find the up-to-date phone number. The only problem with the system was that the hardware characters on the SC4020
were quite small even when projected which is how they got into generating larger fonts.
I think it was soon after lunch that we met Ken who showed us the various animation projects they were working on including his own,
and the Sinden and Zajac films.
After that we used to chat at UAIDE events etc and he certainly visited the Lab and gave a talk at least once and maybe twice.
I also visited him again at Bell Labs later on. The open fonts I used in GROATS were the Bell Lab ones not the SCORS ones that
Paul Nelson used in SCFOR. [Ken] was always friendly and a bit shy."
Ken had his own website, built and maintained by his son Rick:
https://www.kenknowlton.com/.
• (23 March) John Baldwin (Rev'd Dr John C Baldwin) has died. The Llandaff and Monmouth DACBR said: "We are sorry to advise of the passing of John Baldwin of Llandaff Cathedral. He died peacefully at home during the evening of 23rd March 2022. Further information will follow in due course. In the meantime we offer our prayers and best wishes to his wife, Beryl, and their family." Keith Jeffery said: "I remember him from the early days at Atlas when I also used (from Exeter) the ICL System 4 network and thus was in contact with both Bristol and Cardiff. My subsequent work (early eighties) with the database team at Cardiff meant I met him and Bob Churchhouse. In fact, I still do some work with Cardiff -- particularly Omer Rana on the cloud computing continuum and the board of the IEEE Cloud Computing magazine -- and retain an honorary visiting professorship there." Bob Hopgood said: "I knew John pretty well via the Sigma 2 front end to Atlas with Eric and later with X-RAY63 etc. He was one of the bell ringers with other colleagues."
• (12 January) Margaret Curtis has died. The Wantage Herald published this obituary: "CURTIS Dr. Margaret May Born an only child in Norwich in 1942, a voracious reader from an early age, her brilliant mind and photographic memory took her to Queen Mary College, London to study theoretical physics. At a time when women were seldom seriously considered for positions in scientific academia, she defied convention and expectation by attaining one of the best, first class honours, degrees in the University of London. In 1963, her ground-breaking work in early computer modelling brought her to the attention of many and after attaining her PhD she was invited by Professor Sir Rudolf Peierls, Britain's most eminent Physicist and grandfather of the atom bomb, to join his group at Oxford University. Despite a bright future in solid state physics, her true love lay in the new frontier of computer science. This led her to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory where she continued her trailblazing work as a woman in science. From working with the first Cray super computers, through the early days of the internet, to the Diamond Light Source synchrotron, her career at RAL spanned more than 30 years and a quantum leap in computer science. She will be remembered by those who worked with her as an insightful and caring manager as well as a brilliant computer analyst. The world of women in Science was substantially nourished by her example. If you were to meet her you might never have known that she was always the smartest person in the room, the only thing that exceeded her intelligence was her kind, humble and loving heart. With never a bad word for anyone and always quick to laugh, she will live in the hearts of those who knew her as a shining example of how to be a brilliant scientist, a loving and devoted wife, a patient and inspiring mother and good and kind human being. She will be greatly missed but proudly remembered forever. A private family service will take place followed by a Memorial Service in mid-2022. All enquiries c/o J Godfrey & Son Funeral Services."
2021
• (November) Margaret (Maggie) Bell has died. Maggie was born in Bridgnorth on 24 November 24 1939, and was the wife of Atlas alumni Alex Bell.
• (25 October) The University of Buckingham has announced that Professor Emeritus Christopher (Chris) Adams has died.
Professor Chris Adams was born 1944 in Byfield, Northamptonshire, where his mother was staying with a distant relative, having been evacuated from Coventry because of the bombing. After the war he went back to Coventry and attended Bishop Ullathorne grammar school. He gained his first degree in Physics in the mid-1960s. After which he joined the Oxford Physics lab as a computing technical assistant and then joined CERN, Switzerland, as a young computer scientist researching network technologies (part of the team that pioneered the development of the Internet connectivity protocol). In the early 1970s, Chris returned to UK to join the former Information (sic) Department at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) of the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in Oxfordshire. While at RAL, Chris maintained his collaboration with the CERN labs, and rose through the ranks to become a renowned scientist in the field of high-speed computer networking research. In the early 1980s Chris became one of the founders of the Advanced Communication Unit at RAL.
• (14 May) Eric Thomas died peacefully in his sleep this morning. He was diagnosed with cancer of the jaw last year. Keith Jeffery wrote: Eric was "Atlas" through and through, both personally (his marriage) and professionally, of which a few instances were his early work on the front-end Sigma2, his work in user support, onto work on office automation, being in the team rescuing the finance system (which sadly coincided with his heart attack) and, finally, as my "right hand man" managing all the finances for the department. Whenever one of the management team suggested anything somewhat adventurous, Eric would suck through his teeth (like builders or plumbers do) indicating that it was not advisable! His abilities in mathematics and logic were well-balanced by his interests including music and other cultural pursuits. I am very sorry to hear of his sufferings with cancer; hopefully he now has found peace. Ken Byrd wrote: I am so sad to here that dear Eric has passed on. I had the great privilege of working with him for some time and actually he taught me a great deal for which I was truly grateful. RIP dear Eric and may God Bless you. Stevie Woodward wrote: Such sad news re Eric... At least he was home and with family. I remember he had a wicked sense of humour and he was interesting to chat to. Condolences to his family on their loss. Victoria Marshall wrote: Eric's legacy lives on in the Atlas photos. At so many celebratory events, Eric can be seen with a big smile on his face and a wineglass in his hand. You know it must have been a good party if Eric was there!
• (1 January onwards) Beginning of an incremental refresh of the website; pages now managed using a database.
• (16 January) Bill Trowbridge has died.
2019
• (26 July) Many updates from documents donated by Rob Witty.
• (1 January) Revamped the ACL/Associates/Permanent page to include on-site as well as off-site memorials pages.
2018
• (18 November) Ann Jaroslawska has died.
• (10 October) Mike Jane has died.
• (10 September) Prof RF (Bob) Churchhouse CBE KSG died peacefully on 27th August 2018, after a short illness.
• (29 June) Added PDP15, information about users of Atlas, proceedings of Computer Chess (May 1973), W3C Offices 10th anniversary, papers from Iain Duff.
• (23 February) Added High Performance Computing at the Atlas Centre, a biography of Leslie Fox, and the 1000th issue of Computer Weekly from 13 February 1986 containing photos from the Atlas Lab.
2017
• (18 December) Revamped structure of site admin pages and photos on top page; added Bob Hopgood bio and UAIDE contents pages.
• (14 November) Updated Susan Hockey page to include "Computing in the Humanities" from the ICL Technical Journal, November 1979.
• (11 November) Doug House has died after a long illness.
• (10 October) They Took a Chance: Susan Hockey and Julianne Nyhan Skype interview published by Springer.
• (18 September) Catalogue and ACL/Literature/Other sections updated to include newly scanned documents.
• (17 September) FRAH updated the /ACL/Applications/COCOA chess graphics to accommodate new web standards.
• (28 August) Tony Pritchett (creator of The Flexipede) has died very suddenly, at home.
• (End of August) Sue Ward has died after a long illness.
• (End of August) John Lewis, one of the "Sussex Chemists" has died after a long illness; this was a few weeks after celebrating his 72nd birthday and golden wedding anniversary.
• (14 April) Added image license terms, 1906A Reference Manual, Chris Eilbeck animations.
• (28 January) PLAYSD manual updated (with thanks to John Buckle); TASK manual added.
• (14 January) Added PLAYSD manual to ALC/Literature/Manuals.
2016
• (25 November) Updated ACL graphics and animation sections to include newly-digitised cine films.
• (3 October) Updated SC4020 section to include UAIDE 1970 conference proceedings.
• (8 September) Updated ACD/Literature: Contouring, 3D Histograms, Starlink SGS.
• (8 September) Updated Inf/Eng: Electromagnetics/TOSCA article, GVN issue 50.
• (8 September) Updated CCD: GKS User Guide, PLUTO78 manual, Network News.
• (13 August) Created https://www.facebook.com/chiltoncomputing.
• (25 July) Alex Bell has died; he had been suffering from heart problems. He had returned from Australia to live near Telford.
• (20 May) Added Baylis/Control Data proposal for a STAR Computer System to ACL/Literature/Minutes/SRC ACC.
• (20 May) Added Hopgood/Bell paper on library facilities of the Atlas Algol Compiler to ACL/Applications/Algol.
• (20 May) Added Hailstone/Athawes paper about Opscan/Optical Mark Readers to ACL/Literature/Reports.
• (20 May) Hollerith Type 555 section enhanced in ACL/Literature/Early history.
• (20 May) Added copy of Expressing it in Numbers: A Personal Memoir -- Part 2 by Bill Trowbridge.
• (20 May) Added papers on history of magnet design to ACD/ICF/SIGS.
• (14 April) Added Alan Kay's 1970 PhD thesis 'The Reactive Engine' to Inf/Literature/Books/Window Management/Bibliography.
• (8 March) Added visit by Tony Pritchett photos.
• (4 March) Added Transputer Initiative photos.
2015
• (25 November) Rewired Hartran section; added Paul Bryant/ICF photos.
• (30 October) Various updates to Atlas applications, literature and technology.
• (29 September) Added RSA 1997 and 1998 to CISD/Literature.
• (15 September) Added Bart Fossey obituary and "Science Now" recording about DataGlove.
• (1 August) Bart Fossey has died after a short illness.
• (25 July) Gill Keats/Beckwith has died after a long illness. After leaving Atlas, she and her husband Ted moved to Australia, then to Spain to be near her daughter. Many people will remember Gill as the 'front desk' face of Atlas for many years.
• (26 June) Cooke-Yarborough paper, including Dekatron.
• (26 June) Letter re acceptance tests.
• (26 June) Further details on 1962 seminar.
• (25 June) Conference "Application of Computers" Nottingham 15-19 September 1958.
• (25 June) Proceedings "Automatic Digital Computation," NPL 25-28 March 1953.
• (19 June) Conference "High Speed Automatic Calculating-Machines" Cambridge 22-25 June 1949.
• (26 May) W3C UK Office newsletters 1998-2006
