Programmers Handbook for Manchester Electronic Computer Mark II [i.e., the Ferranti Mark I], [late 1950 or early 1951]. With errata sheets dated March 13, March 28, and July 9, 1951. [With:] Mimeographed letter from Turing stating that copies of library subroutines may be sent to holders of the Handbook. [And with:] Four examples of such subroutines

TURING, Alan Mathison

Published by Publication Date: 1951

ALAN TURING S HANDBOOK FOR THE FERRANTI MARK I THE WORLD S FIRST COMPUTER PROGRAMMING MANUAL. First edition, extremely rare, of "the world s first computer programming manual" (Jack Copeland & Jason Long, Alan Turing: How his Universal Machine became a Musical Instrument, IEEE Spectrum, 2017), written by Turing for the Ferranti Mark I, the first commercially available electronic digital computer. "In May 1948 Turing resigned from the [National Physical Laboratory]. Work on the ACE [Automatic Computing Engine] had drawn almost to a standstill. [M. H. A.] Newman lured a very fed up Turing to Manchester, where in May 1948 he was appointed Deputy Director of the Computing Machine Laboratory (there being no Director). Turing designed the input mechanism and programming system of, and wrote a programming manual for, the full-scale Manchester computer" (Copeland (ed.), p. 121). The Handbookinstructs users on the programming of the Ferranti Mark I, which was completed in February 1951 and which Turing referred to as the Manchester Electronic Computer Mark II. (The first US commercial machine, the Eckert-Mauchly UNIVAC, appeared a few months later.) The Handbook was written "presumably mostly in the half year gap between the dismantling of the Manchester Mark 1 and the delivery of the Ferranti Mark 1 in February 1951" (University of Manchester, Mark I Documents, online, 2005). Written "mainly for the benefit of those who will actually do programming for the Mark II machine", Turing notes in this introduction that "Electronic computers are intended to carry out any definite rule of thumb process which could have been done by a human operator working in a disciplined but unintelligent manner. The electronic computer should however obtain its results very much more quickly". From 6-15 July 1951 Manchester University hosted an international conference, attended by some 170 delegates, celebrating the installation of the Ferranti Mark 1, at which time the Handbook was probably distributed. The present document is the first of at least three editions of the Handbook, and was apparently written before the machine was fully installed and operating (the library input routines, for instance, are described in the future tense). Turing made little contribution to the later editions because by 1951 his interests had turned back to morphogenesis (in connection with which he used the Mark I for the solution of partial differential equations). This complimentary copy of the first edition is stamped "with the compliments / of A. M. Turing" (the former printed, the latter handwritten in ink, not in Turing's hand). It is accompanied by 9 mimeographed items relating to the Handbook, including a letter from Turing stating the Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester is willing to "send copies of our library sub-routines to holders of handbooks", and four such subroutines: Input. Purpose. To Read from Tape (1 July 1951); English. Purpose. To Print Any Fixed Material with Page Printing (1 July 1951); Roughwrite. Purpose. To Write from Rough Tapes (1 July 1951); Reciproot. Purpose. To Calculate Square Roots and Reciprocal Square Roots (9 July 1951). The extraordinary rarity of the Handbook might be explained by the fact that only two units of the Ferranti Mark I were actually built. It has been suggested that only "several tens of these manuals were printed" (in all editions) (Lavington). Not on OCLC or Library Hub. RBH lists only one other copy (without the Turing letter and added subroutines). Provenance: Donald Bayley (1921-2020), electronic engineer and collaborator of Alan Turing on Delilah, a functioning portable speech-encryption system, at the MI6 base at Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, in 1944. Andrew Hodges writes that Turing spoke to Bayley in 1944 of "building a brain" (uk/publications/); thence by descent to the previous owner. "It was in the Manchester lab, in June 1948, that the first electronic all-purpose, sto. Seller Inventory # 6191

Bibliographic Details

Title: Programmers Handbook for Manchester ...
Publication Date: 1951
Edition: First edition.