About Alan Turing and His Contributions

The mathematical genius Alan Turing, now well known for his crucial wartime role in breaking the ENIGMA code, was the first to conceive of the fundamental principle of the modern computer—the idea of controlling a computing machine's operations by means of a program of coded instructions, stored in the machine's memory.

In 1945 Turing drew up his revolutionary design for an electronic computing machine—his Automatic Computing Engine (ACE). A pilot model of the ACE ran its first program in 1950 and the production version, the DEUCE, went on to become a cornerstone of the fledgling British computer industry. The first personal computer was based on Turing's ACE.

About the Book

Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine describes Turing's struggle to build the modern computer. It is the first detailed history of Turing's contributions to computer science, and this text is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the computer and the history of mathematics.

The book contains first-hand accounts by Turing and by the pioneers of computing who worked with him. It relates the story of the invention of the computer and clearly describes the hardware and software of the ACE—including the very first computer programs.

The book is accessible to everyone with an interest in computing and contains numerous diagrams, illustrations, and original photographs. It also includes chapters on Turing's path-breaking research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (A-Life).

Additionally, the book features an extensive system of hyperlinks to The Turing Archive for the History of Computing, an online library of digital facsimiles of typewritten documents by Turing and other pioneering scientists.