David "Dai" Beverley George Edwards (14 March 1928 – 11 November 2020) was a Welsh computer engineer. He is notable for his pioneering work on the series of digital computers developed at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

from the 1940s to the 1980s, and as co-inventor of

virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage, is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a ver ...

Early life

Edwards was born in

Tonteg Tonteg is a village in Rhondda Cynon Taf in South Wales. It is from Pontypridd, north west of Cardiff and north east of Llantrisant. The village is within the community of Llantwit Fardre. Tonteg is to the north west of the Garth Mountain, on ...

South Wales South Wales ( ) is a Regions of Wales, loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the Historic counties of Wales, historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire ( ...

, the only child of Cecilia (née George) and William Edwards.

Career

In 1945 Edwards enrolled at the University of Manchester to read physics. After graduating in 1948 he became a research student working for Professor F.C. Williams in the Department of Electro-Technics on the Small-Scale Electronic Machine (SSEM) computer, also known as "The Baby", the world's first stored-program computer. Edwards subsequently worked on the

Manchester Mark 1 The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest stored-program computers, developed at the Victoria University of Manchester, England from the Manchester Baby (operational in June 1948). Work began in August 1948, and the first version was operat ...

computer, improving the

cathode-ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a ...

(CRT) memory, extending the machine's instruction set, and implementing programmable data transfers between the magnetic storage drum and the CRT. He was awarded his M.Sc. in 1949, was appointed

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in 1950 and gained his Ph.D. for his work on the "Megacycle Machine" (MEG) which was commercialised by

Ferranti Ferranti International PLC or simply Ferranti was a UK-based electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century, from 1885 until its bankruptcy in 1993. At its peak, Ferranti was a significant player in power grid system ...

in 1957 as the Mercury computer. In 1959 he led the engineering team for the MUSE/

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computer. This led to his co-invention, with

Tom Kilburn Tom Kilburn (11 August 1921 – 17 January 2001) was an English mathematician and computer scientist. Over his 30-year career, he was involved in the development of five computers of great historical significance. With Freddie Williams he wor ...

, Frank Sumner and M.J. Lanigan, of

. In 1964 he joined the University's newly-created

Department of Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to applied disciplines (including the design and ...

as Reader, and in 1965 he and Kilburn established the Department's undergraduate programme. He was appointed Professor of Computer Engineering in 1966. He worked on the design of the experimental

MU5 The Manchester computers were an innovative series of stored-program electronic computers developed during the 30-year period between 1947 and 1977 by a small team at the University of Manchester, under the leadership of Tom Kilburn. They inclu ...

computer (1968–1982), which led to the ICL2900 series, and also worked on MU6 (1982–1987). He served as Head of the Department of Computer Science (1980–1987),

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean * Dean Sw ...

of the Faculty of Science (1982–1983) and retired from the University in 1988.

Personal life

In 1953 Edwards married Betty Duckworth, who died in 1977. In 1979 Edwards married Jane Ellis.

Selected publications

* * * * * Edwards, D.B.G., Lanigan, M.J. and Kinniment, D.J., 1964, September. High-speed ferrite-core storage system. In ''Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers'' (Vol. 111, No. 9, pp. 1501-1510). IEE. * Edwards, David BG, Alan E. Knowles, and J. V. Woods. "MU6-G. A new design to achieve mainframe performance from a mini-sized computer." In Proceedings of the 7th annual symposium on Computer Architecture, pp. 161-167. 1980. *

References

External links

Dai Edwards
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Dai British computer scientists Academics of the University of Manchester People associated with the University of Manchester 1928 births 2020 deaths Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester Welsh engineers History of computing in the United Kingdom People associated with the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester Computer engineers