Richard Grimsdale, Computer Pioneer, Is Dead at 76

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Matt Murray <mattm () optonline net>
Date: December 29, 2005 2:04:34 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Richard Grimsdale, Computer Pioneer, Is Dead at 76

Dear Prof. Farber,

I cannot remember if you posted this already.

I hope you will have a wonderful New Year!

Matt Murray


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/business/29grimsdale.html



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December 29, 2005
Richard Grimsdale, Computer Pioneer, Is Dead at 76
By JOHN MARKOFF
Richard L. Grimsdale, an electrical engineer who colleagues said  
built the first transistorized computer, died Dec. 6 at his home in  
Brighton, England. He was 76.

The cause was a heart infection, according to his wife, Shirley  
Roberts Grimsdale.

The transistor, which was invented in 1948 by researchers at Bell  
Laboratories was in its infancy when Mr. Grimsdale, who had received  
a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Manchester  
University, began experimenting with the tiny switches, which were  
then built by hand.

He worked at the university, where he would later earn a Ph.D., as a  
research student and had heard about early tube-based computers. He  
did not have direct experience with the first machines until he was  
sent to Cambridge to take a summer school course in programming an  
early machine known as the EDSAC 1.

He returned to Manchester and was asked to write test programs by a  
professor. Frequently, he recalled in a memoir, he found errors, both  
in his programs and in the underlying logic of the early computers he  
was experimenting with.

He obtained samples of transistors in 1953 and began experimenting.  
These were difficult devices because of their spotty quality, and his  
wife said that he would occasionally complain about the value of  
systems that were made "during teatime."

He was able to acquire a magnetic drum for storing data that had been  
made by Ferranti, an early computer maker. He ran the first program  
on his experimental computer in November 1953. The machine comprised  
92 transistors. He noted that the transistor machine was  
"comparatively small," and that he was able to build it on a post  
office rack, in contrast to the tube-based Mark I machine, which  
occupied a large room.

Later two engineers from Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical collaborated  
with Mr. Grimsdale on what is thought to have been the first  
commercial transistor computer, known as the MV950. A later version,  
the 1010, was one of the first machines to be used for what was to  
become data processing.

In the 1970's, Mr. Grimsdale joined Associated Electrical Industries,  
a successor company to Metropolitan-Vickers, and there he developed  
computer-based automation systems.

In 1967 he became an electrical engineering professor at Sussex  
University, where he worked on computer communications and  
distributed computing.

In September 1973, working with a group of American university  
researchers in organizing a technical conference, he sent one of the  
first trans-Atlantic messages by electronic mail.

Mr. Grimsdale was an inveterate fiddler who was always building some  
kind of electronic equipment, according to his wife. Early in their  
relationship he made her a transistor radio, and he later built a  
television for his parents.

He was born in 1929 in Australia, where his father had been sent by  
Metropolitan Vickers to supervise the construction of a suburban  
railway system; he returned to England with his parents at a young age.

He is survived by his wife; two daughters, Susan and Kathryn; and  
four grandchildren.



 a.. Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

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