University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory

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The William Gates Building, which currently houses the Computer Laboratory.

The Computer Laboratory at Cambridge is the computer science department of University of Cambridge. It was founded as the Mathematical Laboratory under the leadership of John Lennard-Jones on 14 May 1937, though it did not get properly established until after World War II. Upon its foundation, it was intended to provide a computing service for general use, and to be a centre for the development of computational techniques in the University. The Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science was the world’s first taught course in computing, starting in 1953.

In October 1946, work began under Maurice Wilkes on EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), which subsequently became the world’s first fully operational and practical stored program computer when it ran its first program on 6 May 1949. It was replaced by EDSAC 2 in 1958.

In 1961, D. F. Hartley developed Autocode, one of the first high-level programming languages, for EDSAC 2. Also in that year, proposals for Titan, based on the Ferranti Atlas machine, were developed. Titan became fully operational in 1964 and EDSAC 2 was retired the following year. In 1967, a full (‘24/7’) multi-user time-shared service for up to 64 users was inaugurated on Titan.

In 1970, the Mathematical Laboratory was renamed the Computer Laboratory, with separate departments for Teaching and Research and the Computing Service, providing computing services to the university and its colleges. The two did not fully separate until 2001, when the Computer Laboratory moved out to the new William Gates building in West Cambridge, leaving behind an independent Computing Service.

In 2002 the Computer Laboratory launched the Cambridge Computer Lab Ring, a graduate society named after the Cambridge Ring network.