Title:

Andrew Booth - Britain´s other Fourth Man
Speaker: Roger Johnson
Date: Tue 15th January 2013 Thu 21st May 2015
Time: 17:30 Room open in advance (from 17:00) - meet up with society members.   &   14:30
Location:

The Conference Centre, Manchester Museum of Science and Industry Liverpool Road, Manchester M3 4FP

Fellows Library of the Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD

 


Andrew Booth in 1946

About the seminar

Andrew Booth was one of the UK's early computing pioneers but who has been widely neglected in histories of UK computers. Working at Birkbeck College in London he built relay and electronic computers from 1946 onwards. He pioneered the use of rotating storage devices, building what is claimed to be the world's first computer to use a drum. He devised the Booth multiplier which is widely used in modern chips to this day. His hardware design was used by the UK's best selling computer in the late 1950s, the ICT 1200 series.

About the speaker

Roger Johnson obtained a PhD in Computer Science from Birkbeck College London. After working in commercial software development for CAP Ltd he began his academic career at what is now the University of Greenwich, returning to Birkbeck in 1983. He has written a number of papers on the history of computing mainly on the work at Birkbeck College. He retired in 2010 and was made a Fellow of Birkbeck College. He is currently CCS secretary, has also been programme secretary for the London meetings of the CCS and is a past chairman. He has held a wide range of other offices in the BCS and was President in 1992/3.