Computing at Newcastle has a long and prestigious history. The original Computing Laboratory (affectionately known as “The Lab”), founded in 1957, served a dual function, providing computing support as well as taking an academic role. In 1992 the University chose to separate the functions into what is now the School of Computing — serving the academic function, while computing services are the responsibility of the University IT Service (NUIT).
The illustrious history of computing at Newcastle has been very well-preserved and documented, through a series of efforts by various people over the years, and now by the Newcastle University Historical Computing Committee, a joint School of Computing/NUIT activity.
Pre-eminent among these efforts was the work of the late Roger Broughton, who joined the Computing Laboratory in 1967 and served for many years as Computing Service Operations Supervisor, until his retirement in 2002. Prior to and during his retirement he assembled and carefully curated a very extensive artefact collection, much of which he documented in exquisite detail in his “Virtual Museum of Computer Artefacts”. The catalogue that he prepared has since been transformed into this superb online illustrated catalogue by Lindsay Marshall.
Historical Accounts
An excellent account of numerous highlights of the history of computing — both its provision as a service to the University, and its teaching and research activities — is given in this Detailed Timeline (1957–2014).
This timeline starts at the initial creation of the Computing Laboratory and its first computer acquisition, a Ferranti Pegasus Computer, which was christened “Ferdinand”. This timeline was annually updated until 2014; it was used as the basis for the much less-detailed, but in fact continuing, Summary Timeline which is provided in the School web pages.
The first really detailed account of the early history of computing at Newcastle was the lecture NUMAC: Courtship, Conception, Culmination and Continuation given in 1991 by Professor Ewan Page at the 25th Anniversary of the creation of the NUMAC (Northumbrian Multiple Access Computer) co-operation set up by the Universities of Newcastle and Durham, and the acquisition of an IBM System/360 Model 67 mainframe computer.
Forty Years On: An Anniversary Volume is a very extensive set of well-illustrated pages that were prepared in 1997 by staff of the by then separated Department of Computing Science and University Computing Service which detail many aspects of their largely conjoined history. Here you will find accounts of computing service activities and of a number of large research projects, a large collection of photographs of people, systems and events, and also the collection of songs that had been written for performance at various memorable social occasions!
Events
Our “International Seminars on the Teaching of Computing Science at University Level” constituted a series of thirty-four annual four-day seminars (from 1968–2001) which brought together an invited audience of senior UK and European computing academics to hear a series of presentations from distinguished international speakers. Each seminar concentrated on a particular theme, usually a major computing science research domain. The reports of these seminars provide a remarkable series of glimpses into the growth and evolution of computing science as an academic discipline.
Over the years the University has, at the instigation of the School of Computing Science or its predecessors the Department of Computing Science and the Computing Laboratory, awarded Honorary Doctorates and Fellowships, to a number of eminent individuals , starting in 1972 with Professor Maurice Wilkes, of Cambridge EDSAC fame.
Brian Randell's 75th Birthday Seminar was held 7–8 April 2011. Each of its set of six speakers concentrated, in whole or in part, on some aspect of the history of computing, indeed in many cases on Newcastle's computing activities.
In 2012 our contribution to the AlanTuring Year was the Alan Turing Centenary Seminar a very successful afternoon when four speakers gave talks on various aspects of Alan Turing's contributions to computing, and the relationship of his work to that of other figures in the history of computing.
In June 2019 we celebrated “Fifty Years of Campus-Wide Computing” with six speakers giving lectures. A 58-page Souvenir Handout was prepared, the entire event was videoed, and an excellent detailed account of the lectures and of the unveiling of an initial set of display cabinets showing exhibits from our artefacts collection was prepared by John Law.
Documents
The Director's Reports 1957–1988 provide a unique series of glimpses into the growth of computing at Newcastle University - the struggle to keep up with the ever-growing demand for computing facilities, the provision of a growing variety of academic and service courses, and the achievements of an ever-expanding research programme. These documents were the main source of the information in the Detailed Timeline (1957–2014).
The Randell Archive is preserved in the Special Collections Department of Newcastle University's Robinson Library.