Andrew Donald Booth (11 February 1918 – 29 November 2009)Andrew Booth: scientist who invented the magnetic storage device
''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 12 January 2010. was a British electrical engineer, physicist and computer scientist, who was an early developer of the magnetic drum memory for

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

s. He is known for Booth's multiplication algorithm. In his later career in Canada he became president of Lakehead University.

Early life

Andrew Donald Booth was born on February 11, 1918, in East Molesy, Surrey, UK. He was the son of Sidney Booth (died 1955) and a cousin of Sir Felix Booth. He was raised in

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, and educated at

Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School Haberdashers' Boys' School (formerly Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School) is a 4–18 boys Independent school (United Kingdom) in Elstree, Hertfordshire, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school was ...

. In 1937, he won a scholarship to read mathematics at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

. Booth left

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

without taking a degree, having become disaffected with

pure mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications ...

as a subject. He chose an external degree from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

instead, which he obtained with a first.

Career

From 1943 to 1945, Booth worked as a mathematical physicist in the X-ray team at the British Rubber Producers' Research Association (BRPRA),

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second Garden city movement, garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first New towns in the United Kingdom, new towns (designated 1948). It is ...

, Hertfordshire, gaining his PhD in

crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...

from the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

in 1944. In 1945, he moved to Birkbeck College,

, where his work in the crystallography group led him to build some of the first electronic computers in the United Kingdom including the All Purpose Electronic Computer, first installed at the British Rayon Research Association. Booth founded Birkbeck's department of numerical automation and was named a fellow at the university in 2004. He also did early pioneering work in machine translation. After World War II, he worked on crystallographic problems research at Birkbeck College and constructed a fourier synthesis device. He was then introduced to the work of

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer ...

and

John von Neumann John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...

on logical automata by Douglas Hartree. The first assembly code in which a language is used to represent machine code instructions is found in Kathleen and Andrew Donald Booth's 1947 work, ''Coding for A.R.C.''. Assembly code is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an '' assembler''. The term "assembler" is generally attributed to Wilkes, Wheeler and

Gill A gill () is a respiration organ, respiratory organ that many aquatic ecosystem, aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow r ...

in their 1951 book ''

The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer ''The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer'' (sometimes called ''WWG'', after its authors' initials) was the first book on computer programming. Published in 1951, it was written by Maurice Wilkes, David Wheeler, and Stanl ...

'', who, however, used the term to mean "a program that assembles another program consisting of several sections into a single program". The conversion process is referred to as ''assembly'', as in ''assembling'' the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

. The computational step when an assembler is processing a program is called ''assembly time''. Dr. Booth served as President of Lakehead University from 1972 to 1978.

Personal life

Booth married mathematician and computer engineer Kathleen Britten in 1950, and had two children, Amanda and Ian; between 1947 and 1953, together they produced three computing machines.

Bibliography

* * . * Booth, A.D. and Britten, K.H.V. (1947)
Coding for A.R.C.
', Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton * Booth, A.D. and Britten, K.H.V. (1947)
General considerations in the design of an all-purpose electronic digital computer
', Institute for Advance Study, Princeton * Booth, A.D. and Britten, K.H.V. (1948) ''The accuracy of atomic co-ordinates derived from Fourier series in X-ray crystallography Part V'', ''Proc. Roy. Soc.'' Vol A 193 pp305–310 * The Electronic Principles of Digital Computers, Electronics Forum (1948); * . * Booth, A.D (1949) ''A Magnetic Digital Storage System'', Electronic Engineering * Booth, A.D. (1950) ''The Physical Realization of An Electronic Digital Computer'', Electronic Engineering * Booth, A.D. (1952) ''On Optimum Relations Between Circuit Elements and Logical Symbols in the Design of Electronic Calculators'', Journal of British Institution of Radio Engineers * Booth, A.D. and Booth K.H.V. (1953) ''Automatic Digital Calculators'', Butterworth-Heinmann (Academic Press) London

References

External links