EDSAC 2 was an early

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

(operational in 1958), the successor to the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). It was the first computer to have a microprogrammed control unit and a

bit-slice Bit slicing is a technique for constructing a processor from modules of processors of smaller bit width, for the purpose of increasing the word length; in theory to make an arbitrary ''n''-bit central processing unit (CPU). Each of these com ...

hardware architecture. EDSAC II chassis construction

First calculations were performed on incomplete machine in 1957. Calculations about elliptic curves performed on EDSAC-2 in the early 1960s led to the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, a

Millennium Prize Problem The Millennium Prize Problems are seven well-known complex mathematical problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. The Clay Institute has pledged a US$1 million prize for the first correct solution to each problem. According ...

, unsolved as of 2022. And in 1963,

Frederick Vine Frederick John Vine FRS (born 17 June 1939) is an English marine geologist and geophysicist. He made key contributions to the theory of plate tectonics, helping to show that the seafloor spreads from mid-ocean ridges with a symmetrical pattern ...

and Drummond Matthews used EDSAC 2 to generate a seafloor magnetic anomaly map from data collected in the Indian Ocean by H.M.S. Owen, key evidence that helped support Plate Tectonic theory.

References

Early British computers One-of-a-kind computers 40-bit computers University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory History of Cambridge {{computer-stub