{"id":56227,"date":"2016-11-12T13:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T18:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=56227"},"modified":"2017-07-13T12:17:53","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T16:17:53","slug":"first-computer-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2016\/11\/12\/first-computer-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind the first computer in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

In\u00a01949, a team of professors and graduate students\u00a0at the University of Toronto began\u00a0building a machine no-one in Canada, and few in the world, had ever seen before.<\/p>\n

The University of Toronto Electronic Computer Mark I\u2014UTEC for short\u2014was to become the first and only functional computer in the country, but first it had to be constructed\u00a0entirely from scratch and many of its core\u00a0components invented.<\/p>\n

“It will be able to read figures, write them down, and come up with the correct answer to a poser in calculus,” the Globe and Mail<\/em> told its readers of\u00a0the fantastic machine being planned by the university.<\/p>\n

“It will be able to compute income taxes; to tell the trend of business at an electrified glance; to play a passable game of chess, and\u00a0maybe even to forecast weather months in advance. Any of these operations will be done in less than a second.”<\/p>\n

In the late 1940s, practically all major scientific and mathematical number crunching\u00a0was conducted by the human mind with assistance from\u00a0mechanical calculators.<\/p>\n

The invention of even the most basic electronic computer (by today’s standards) promised to\u00a0open the door to a new world of discovery and innovation. Calculations that would previously have taken years could be done in hours or minutes.<\/p>\n

“The computer is actually an aid to, not a substitute for, the human brain,” the Globe and Mail<\/em> reassured. “It will only be as good as the men who operate it, and will be able to do only what it is told to do.”<\/p>\n

\"toronto
The Globe and Mail announced the University of Toronto’s plan to build a computer in May, 1959. It would be several years before the plan was realized. Image: Globe and Mail, May 18, 1949.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UTEC project was the brainchild of the University of Toronto’s Committee on Computing Machines, which was formed in 1945 by professors Sam Beatty, Bernard Griffith, and V. G. Smith.<\/p>\n

That year and in 1946 members of the\u00a0committee used a $1,000 grant from Canada’s\u00a0National Research Council to visit universities the United States, including Princeton, to view and learn from\u00a0early computer projects underway south of the border.<\/p>\n

The architecture and systems of those early U.S. computers\u00a0widely: some used Bell telephone components to make calculations, others fragile vacuum tubes. Off-the-shelf parts were few in number\u00a0and difficult to acquire. Components were often built entirely from scratch with wire and solder.<\/p>\n

In January 1947, based on the findings from the tour, the committee formed Canada’s first Computation Centre in a room inside the\u00a0University of Toronto’s physics building.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a substantial grant in September 1947 from the NRC, the centre was able to purchase several IBM mechanical calculators and hire a small staff: Beatrice “Trixie” Worsley and J. Perham Stanley, two U of T graduate students.<\/p>\n

The National Research Council agreed to fund the\u00a0Computation Centre on the condition it and other universities and government agencies would be allowed to harness the power of any computer\u00a0it developed. Canada’s Defence Research Board and Chalk River atomic energy laboratories were keenly interested for the same reason.<\/p>\n

In February 1948, the NRC and DRB committed $20,000 each to the Computation Centre.\u00a0With that money, the centre was able to hire\u00a0physicist Josef Katz and electrical engineer Alfred Ratz, two graduate students who began\u00a0experimenting and developing components\u00a0for the UTEC machine.<\/p>\n

At the same, the committee also\u00a0hired 21-year-old Calvin Gotlieb\u00a0as director. (Actually, because of Gotlieb’s young age, his official title was “chief computer,” much to the merriment of his colleagues.)<\/p>\n

Katz, who later\u00a0changed his last name to Kates because he hated\u00a0the “Katz and Ratz” jokes, was a pioneer in the field of vacuum tubes\u2014devices used in the 1940s for storing computer data in memory. Born in Vienna in 1921, Kates arrived in Canada via\u00a0wartime internment camps in Quebec and New Brunswick.<\/p>\n

During the war, he worked on precision instruments such as gun sights for\u00a0Imperial Optical in Toronto, and after graduating from U of T he worked in the radio tube division of Rogers Majestic, a precursor to today’s Rogers organization.<\/p>\n

Although Kates and Ratz were developing\u00a0parts for the computer, the centre hadn’t yet decided whether it would attempt to build its own computer from scratch or copy\u00a0the design of an existing system.<\/p>\n

In August 1948, Gotlieb visited Bell Laboratories in the United States and returned with a complete set of gigantic blueprints for the company’s latest machine, the Model 6.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toronto
The first electronic computers in the 1940s and 50s weighed several tons and filled entire rooms. Despite their unwieldy size and often unreliable components, these machines promised to answer questions physicists and mathematicians had puzzled over for decades. Image: University of Toronto Archives, digital image number: 2005-57-1MS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite Gotlieb’s best efforts, the\u00a0plan to build a replica\u00a0of the Model 6 was scuppered in December when Bell demanded\u00a0a $25,000 license fee. On the advice of the National Research Council, the centre changed direction and committed to building its own computer.<\/p>\n

The Computing Centre\u00a0would henceforth be split in two parts: the hardware division, headed by Katz and Ratz, and the mathematical division, consisting of\u00a0Worsley and Stanley.<\/p>\n

(During this time, Worsley distinguished herself by building a\u00a0mechanical computer called a differential analyzer out of Meccano\u2014a model construction system similar to K’Nex. Unlike today’s computers, differential analyzers performed calculations and plotted charts with moving parts, like an advanced clock mechanism.)<\/p>\n

Both Worsley and Stanley went to\u00a0the University of Cambridge to participate in the development of\u00a0EDSAC, one of the first computers ever constructed in Britain. EDSAC was almost complete when the pair\u00a0arrived, so Stanley was able to have the machine make a calculation for Chalk River as a test.<\/p>\n

The resulting output, tables of complex gamma function, was likely\u00a0the first data produced\u00a0by a computer that had never been previously computed\u00a0by a human mind.<\/p>\n

Worsley completed her\u00a0PhD at Cambridge under the supervision of computer science pioneer Alan Turing and returned to Toronto in 1949 with Stanley.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, development of UTEC continued under Kates\u00a0and Ratz with their\u00a0new assistants, Len Casciato and Harald Stein.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toronto
Josef Kates demonstrated his Additron tube for the Globe and Mail in March, 1950. Unfamiliar with the term computer, the newspaper called the UTEC machine a “brain.” Image: Globe and Mail, March 16, 1950.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During development of the computer, the hardware division pioneered ever smaller and more powerful vacuum tubes. A\u00a0particularly critical\u00a0insight came to Katz\u00a0as he lay in bed thinking about the computer one night, he told the Globe and Mail.<\/em><\/p>\n

His tiny\u00a0Binary Addition or Additron tube, which was about the size of a pencil, was manufactured by the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company. “12 of the tubes will do the work formerly done by a square yard of wires, large tubes, and connections,”\u00a0wrote reporter William French.<\/p>\n

Although the Additron tube wasn’t\u00a0ultimately used in the UTEC, it\u00a0was successfully demonstrated at the 1950 Ex as part of\u00a0Bertie the Brain, one of the world’s first arcade machines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“On the UTEC we were actually playing games,\u00a0so I said, ‘Look, we can build a game playing machine,’ said Kates, who is now in his 90s. “Practically everybody knows tic-tac-toe. I thought it would make a nice exhibit.”<\/p>\n

Though the Computation Centre was making progress, it was rapidly becoming clear to Gotlieb and the steering committee that a full-scale, reliable computer was still several years away. Under pressure to star making\u00a0mathematical calculations\u00a0soon, the centre decided to build a smaller-scale machine for interim use.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toronto
University of Toronto Computation Centre director Dr. Calvin Gotlieb at the controls of the Ferranti Mark I\u00a0machine that ultimately replaced the UTEC in 1952. Image: University of Toronto Archives, digital image number 2005-42-2MS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UTEC Jr., as it was called by\u00a0the Globe and Mail<\/em>, was functional\u00a0by the fall of 1950, making about 5,000 calculations a second and running for periods of up to eight hours without hardware fault. Input was handled via a\u00a0Teletype machine<\/a> and information storage was handled by several extremely delicate Williams vacuum tubes.<\/p>\n

“You comb your hair and that would be enough to destroy the contents of the electrostatic storage tubes if you weren’t careful,” said Len Casciato in 1992. “That is where my practicality came in, because I was able to shield, protect, and otherwise reinforce the electrics to make them function well.”<\/p>\n

Despite being quite powerful compared to other computers of the day, UTEC Jr. was prone to faults. Finding the cause and correcting the problem\u2014a bad solder joint, tube failure, or faulty circuit\u2014could sometimes take days. The machine was also moved around this time from the physics building to the mining building, further delaying its development.<\/p>\n

In 1952,\u00a0events across the Atlantic in the UK further hampered\u00a0the UTEC project. Newly-elected to office, the Conservative party led by Winston Churchill cancelled all government procurements\u00a0over $100,000 as an austerity measure.<\/p>\n

That meant the British Atomic Energy Authority, which had ordered a $300,000 computer from Manchester\u00a0electrical engineering firm Ferranti, suddenly found itself\u00a0unable to pay for its new device.<\/p>\n

The atomic energy authority’s machine was no ordinary computer. In fact, it was just the second\u00a0commercially manufactured computer ever made. It sat without a buyer until January 1952, when the University of Toronto Computation Centre stepped in and purchased\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

The Ferranti Mark I wasn’t as powerful as the UTEC, but in the interest of getting\u00a0the centre up and running quickly, the National Research Council\u00a0and Defence Research Board agreed to buy the machine\u00a0and\u00a0continue to fund development of a full-scale UTEC.<\/p>\n

The six-ton Ferranti Mark I was delivered to Toronto on April 30, 1952 and named\u00a0Ferut (a portmanteu of “Ferranti” and “U of T” pronounced “ferret”) by Trixie Worsley. It was semi-functional\u00a0by August 1952 when the Toronto Star<\/em>\u00a0pitted the machine against a human in a word game.<\/p>\n

Ferut lost, “because Ferut’s inability to reject the obvious as quickly as the human eye. He has to spend as much time analyzing a bad guess as a good one,” said Calvin Gotlieb.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toronto
The Ferut machine was one of the first computers to be programmed remotely. Here in 1955, a CN telegraph typist Audrey Bates enters information that will be sent to the computer from the University of Saskatchewan. Left to right: Dr. Calvin Gotlieb, C. Jenner, and an official from CN. Image: University of Toronto Archives, digital image number 2005-58-1MS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though Ferut wasn’t intended to replace\u00a0the unfinished UTEC, circumstances once again intervened. In 1952, Ontario Hydro urgently needed calculations that would determine\u00a0the planned route\u00a0of the St. Lawrence Seaway along the US\/Canada border.<\/p>\n

The Ferut program that provided the answers in the spring of 1953 was\u00a0so long and complicated the paper tape it was printed on was 1.5 miles long and consisted of roughly 2,000 instructions.\u00a0The results took hours to come through, but it was considerably less than the 20 years it\u00a0would have taken using regular calculators.<\/p>\n

Because the Americans didn’t have the computing power to challenge the result, the course of the seaway was based on the Canadian plans verified\u00a0by Ferut.<\/p>\n

As computer science professor Michael R. Williams noted in 1994, the Ferut machine was also one of the first computers to offer remote access. Using a Teletype machine, University of Saskatchewan graduate student Bob Bruce was able to send code directly to Toronto for use in the computer.<\/p>\n

On several occasions, the paper tape fed directly out of the Teletype and into the input of Ferut.<\/p>\n

Trixie Worsley and physicist J. N. Patterson Hume wrote software that allowed those\u00a0at U of T not familiar with code to operate the computer.<\/p>\n

With Ferut performing roughly as desired (it still suffered outages and errors,) the UTEC machine was gradually abandoned. Today, only a handful of pictures of it survive.<\/p>\n

Ferut lasted in Toronto until\u00a0it was replaced in 1958 by an IBM 650 computer and\u00a0shipped to\u00a0the Structures Lab of the National Research Council in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

Throughout the development of UTEC and\u00a0Ferut, those employed at the Computation Centre were\u00a0acutely aware of the philosophical implications of designing and building machines that would\u00a0ultimately put humans out of work.<\/p>\n

“The computer’s great advantage is that it saves drudgery and that it can do in an instant what would take a trained mathematician days or even years,” said Dr. Calvin Gotlieb.<\/p>\n

“If the computer means the burden of work will be distributed better and results in a higher standard of living, it will be a real contribution,” said Kates in 1950.<\/p>\n

“If it places increased profit in the hands of one man and created unemployment, we will have accomplished nothing.”<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Thank you to Dr. Scott M. Campbell at the University of Waterloo for kindly sharing his 2006 doctoral dissertation, <\/em>The Premise Of Computer Science: Establishing Modern Computing At The University Of Toronto (1945-1964).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a01949, a team of professors and graduate students\u00a0at the University of Toronto began\u00a0building a machine no-one in Canada, and few in the world, had ever seen before. The University of Toronto Electronic Computer Mark I\u2014UTEC for short\u2014was to become the first and only functional computer in the country, but first it had to be constructed\u00a0entirelyContinue reading “The story behind the first computer in Canada”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8234,"featured_media":56252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,69,24,14],"tags":[22034,22228,19,22226,22227],"class_list":["post-56227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-curiosities","category-history","category-spacing","tag-computer","tag-ferut","tag-toronto","tag-university","tag-utec"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe story behind the first computer in Canada - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2016\/11\/12\/first-computer-canada\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The story behind the first computer in Canada - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In\u00a01949, a team of professors and graduate students\u00a0at the University of Toronto began\u00a0building a machine no-one in Canada, and few in the world, had ever seen before. 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