Since his laboratory had its own funding, he was immediately able to start work on a small practical machine, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), once back at Cambridge.
He decided that his mandate was not to invent a better computer, but simply to make one available to the university.
Therefore, his approach was relentlessly practical.
He used only proven methods for constructing each part of the computer.
The resulting computer was slower and smaller than other planned contemporary computers.
However, his laboratory's computer was the second practical stored program computer to be completed, and operated successfully from May 1949, well over a year before the much larger and more complex EDVAC.
In 1950, along with David Wheeler, Wilkes used EDSAC to solve a differential equation relating to gene frequencies in a paper by Ronald Fisher.
This represents the first use of a computer for a problem in the field of biology.
Since his laboratory had its own funding, he was immediately able to start work on a small practical machine, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), once back at Cambridge. He decided that his mandate was not to invent a better computer, but simply to make one available to the university. Therefore, his approach was relentlessly practical. He used only proven methods for constructing each part of the computer. The resulting computer was slower and smaller than other planned contemporary computers. However, his laboratory's computer was the second practical stored program computer to be completed, and operated successfully from May 1949, well over a year before the much larger and more complex EDVAC. In 1950, along with David Wheeler, Wilkes used EDSAC to solve a differential equation relating to gene frequencies in a paper by Ronald Fisher. This represents the first use of a computer for a problem in the field of biology.
Maurice Wilkes