About the seminar

The Basic Language Machine, constructed in the ICL research department in 1964-68, was the first general-purpose system to break completely with the concept of a linear address space, thereby offering automatic storage management and precise security environments. The machine was also unusual in being defined in symbolic terms, thus leaving the details of instruction and address formats open to choice. The talk will address its origin at Rice University, the results of the evaluation process, and work following its rejection by ICL.

About the speaker

John Iliffe attended the EDSAC programming course in Cambridge in 1952. He eventually learned about computing by running the IBM(UK) service bureau in London. In 1958 he was invited to join the team building the R1 computer at Rice University, Houston, in which he took responsibility for operating system and language design and implementation. In the next 30 years he put into operation four computers demonstrating and evaluating new concepts in design. He was appointed Professor of Information Systems in London University in 1980. He also held visiting academic appointments at Rice, Syracuse, Stanford, UC Davis and Imperial College, London. In 2000 he was awarded the Harry Goode Memorial medal by the IEEE Computer Society in recognition of his work.