Richard Grimsdale

Richard Lawrence Grimsdale (18 September 1929 – 6 December 2005) was a British electrical engineer and computer pioneer who helped to design the world's first transistorised computer.

Early life

Richard Lawrence Grimsdale was born on 18 September 1929 in Australia, where his father, an English engineer, was working on construction of the suburban railway system for the Metropolitan-Vickers company. The family returned to England, where he was educated at Manchester Grammar, and then studied electrical engineering at Manchester University, where he earned his Bachelor of Science,^[1] his Master of Science in 1951, writing a thesis on "Computing Machines - Design of Test Programmes",^[2] and ultimately his Doctor of Philosophy, writing his thesis on the "Transistor Digital Computer" under the supervision of Frederic Calland Williams.^[3]

Career

In 1953, whilst still a post-graduate research student at Manchester University, Grimsdale achieved one of the first major landmarks in his career with his design and development work on the Metrovick 950, the world's first computer made from transistors rather than valves or electromechanical devices. The computer used early point-contact transistors which were the first generation of transistors, however later developments of the machine used more advanced junction transistors which offered better performance.

Grimsdale also worked on the Ferranti Mark I computer, a commercial development of the Manchester Mark 1 computer. He also designed the 100-nanosecond read-only memory for the Atlas computer.^[4] He remained at Manchester University until 1960, then began to work at Associated Electrical Industries as a research engineer. In 1967 he left AEI and joined the Sussex University's electrical engineering faculty as a lecturer. His research at Sussex University included work on computer graphics, computer networking systems and VLSI accelerator chips for generating three-dimensional images.

Grimsdale died from a heart infection at his home in Brighton on 6 December 2005. He was survived by his wife Shirley Roberts Grimsdale and daughters Susan and Kathryn.^[5]

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