{"id":2673,"date":"2024-10-21T10:25:32","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2024-11-28T22:56:07","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:56:07","slug":"birminghams-berners-lee-family-credited-with-the-first-commercially-available-computer-and-the-idea-for-the-world-wide-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/eternal-2673-birminghams-berners-lee-family-credited-with-the-first-commercially-available-computer-and-the-idea-for-the-world-wide-web","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham\u2019s Berners-Lee family, credited with the first commercially available computer and the idea for the World Wide Web"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Birmingham mathematician and computer scientist Conway Berners-Lee was a member of the team that introduced the Ferranti Mark 1, the world\u2019s first commercially available electronic computer, in 1951. It is worth noting that the operating instructions for the machine were written by World War II codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing. In 1954, Berners-Lee married programmer Mary Lee Woods, who was also born in Birmingham. Woods got a degree in mathematics at the University of Birmingham and worked on the team that developed the software for the Manchester Mark 1, the Ferranti Mark 1 and the Mark 1 Star. In 1955, Conway and Mary gave birth to Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web and proposed such an idea in March 1989. Learn more about the Berners-Lee family and the first Ferranti Mark 1 at <a href=\"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\">birmingham-future.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_68_1 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-69ff6e63797eb\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-69ff6e63797eb\"  aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/eternal-2673-birminghams-berners-lee-family-credited-with-the-first-commercially-available-computer-and-the-idea-for-the-world-wide-web\/#Beginning_of_IT_in_Birmingham\" title=\"Beginning of IT in Birmingham\">Beginning of IT in Birmingham<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/eternal-2673-birminghams-berners-lee-family-credited-with-the-first-commercially-available-computer-and-the-idea-for-the-world-wide-web\/#The_first_commercially_available_computer\" title=\"The first commercially available computer\">The first commercially available computer<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/eternal-2673-birminghams-berners-lee-family-credited-with-the-first-commercially-available-computer-and-the-idea-for-the-world-wide-web\/#Text_editing_techniques\" title=\"Text editing techniques\">Text editing techniques<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/eternal-2673-birminghams-berners-lee-family-credited-with-the-first-commercially-available-computer-and-the-idea-for-the-world-wide-web\/#The_worlds_first_freelance_programmer\" title=\"The world\u2019s first freelance programmer\">The world\u2019s first freelance programmer<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Beginning_of_IT_in_Birmingham\"><\/span>Beginning of IT in Birmingham<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.birmingham-future.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2024\/10\/ad_4nxfnw6mhsvma4aiu-1hzxmvbhy7qs9bl9rrjp212nerrakjnhorl5fdgomoqtvkaioikaa-0ok9q3nvvnonr2oi8q92gq8q1ix1j1yf9sz1p2z46mypwxehzc5qf442eac4vbq8ja8wmemzzazd5ot_aqimkey632pylt8a6keouh1iyandq.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>At the beginning of its IT history, Birmingham experienced a technological transformation that laid the foundation for its development as a technology centre. The first mainframe computers were introduced at that time, revolutionising the management of data and operations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the introduction of mainframes in Birmingham was largely driven by large businesses and government organisations. Those massive machines, housed in dedicated data centres, were used to process and store vast amounts of information, allowing companies to optimise their operations and increase efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the key players in the introduction of mainframes in Birmingham was the manufacturing industry. As Birmingham was known for its strong manufacturing sector, the city\u2019s companies recognised the potential of mainframes in streamlining their production processes. It led to the creation of IT departments within manufacturing companies, paving the way for the integration of technology into day-to-day operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The advent of mainframes also created a demand for skilled IT professionals. Birmingham was quick to respond to it by offering specialist courses in computer science and IT at local universities and technical institutes. This influx of skilled professionals further fuelled the growth of Birmingham\u2019s IT industry, attracting more companies and investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At that time, Birmingham\u2019s IT sector focused primarily on data processing and storage. Mainframes served all computing needs and businesses relied on them for such tasks as payroll processing, inventory management and financial analysis. However, with the advancement of technology and the creation of smaller and more powerful computers, Birmingham\u2019s IT landscape began to evolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The development of PCs in the 1980s and 1990s marked a shift towards decentralised computing, with individuals and small businesses using computing technology for their own purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_first_commercially_available_computer\"><\/span>The first commercially available computer<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.birmingham-future.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2024\/10\/ad_4nxeewdop2e83b2m0i1m0qprszree0mklq8wjb2hi9vyixbauxbjwuef735nrhsexvslu8ka3ypnviowptybgvqepgs12r1pmccqcivdyaya21nhkndkhfbavqqljztobkkqupqzm-c6pdrfzsvnvvfkpauvhkey632pylt8a6keouh1iyandq.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It should be noted that the rapid growth of IT in the city would hardly have happened if a team of enthusiasts hadn\u2019t invented the Ferranti Mark 1, the world\u2019s first commercially available electronic computer, in 1951. So, we should tell you about the man who invented it. We are talking about Conway Maurice Berners-Lee. This English mathematician and computer scientist worked with like-minded people to develop the Ferranti Mark 1, the first commercial stored-programme computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conway Berners-Lee was born in Birmingham in 1921. He was the father of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and Professor Mike Berners-Lee, a climate change researcher. At the beginning of <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealyes.com\/uk\/eternal\/vijskovi-storinky-istoriyi-yak-monreal-zhyv-pid-chas-drugoyi-svitovoyi-vijny\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World War II<\/a>, Berners-Lee volunteered for the army but was redirected to university, as the government wanted people to study mathematics and electronics. Conway attended a series of related lectures. After university, he received further training in electronic engineering. He worked on weapon mounting and searchlight radar in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the war, Berners-Lee was sent to Egypt, where he read Maurice Kendall&#8217;s book <em>The Advanced Theory of Statistics<\/em>, which made a great impression on him. Later, he was hired to close down a very large installation of punched cards, involving about five million 65-column punched cards covering all types of vehicles and spares. It meant that the company would have to dismiss the 30 women who punched those cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conway Berners-Lee was demobilised with the rank of Major in 1947. After that, he worked on a punched card data processing system for the Plastics Division of Imperial Chemical Industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Text_editing_techniques\"><\/span>Text editing techniques<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.birmingham-future.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2024\/10\/ad_4nxfdpzojhimv1_frgfcmtwkbccntwlujm9buhyb1rqeyadvsdfrarrpxvzrhdcqgeu39wwlxpjgaxtohd3j4874lawef4_sdo7pgvh0fkx67vz0hcdhy0v3xjbmz0ctp1yc7wtx8mddsjjc2kdjn51q8e2ekey632pylt8a6keouh1iyandq.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Conway met his wife, Mary Lee Woods, at the Ferranti Christmas party in Manchester in 1952. She worked as a programmer on the Ferranti Mark 1 and Mark 1 Star computers from 1951. Then she worked at the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Malvern until 1946, when she returned to complete her studies. She also worked at Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, Australia, from 1947 to 1951. Conway and Mary were married on 10 July 1954 at St Saviour&#8217;s Church, Hampstead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1950s, nobody knew that computers could be used outside of mathematics. In addition to statistics, Berners-Lee proved that he could develop useful computer programmes. He led the creation of basic data processing methods for sorting and updating files. In 1956, he developed a programme for scheduling the production of goods consisting of various components, such as animal feed. In 1957, he published a paper on machine loading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1960, Conway Berners-Lee developed a technique for editing text, including hyphenation, for metal typesetting of printed material. Since memory space and backup storage were scarce and valuable at the time, he also developed a procedure for text compression, which was sent to Bob Bemer at Univac in 1963. In the late 1960s, Berners-Lee headed the Medical Development Team at ICT and later at ICL. He was involved in some of the earliest developments in the use of computers in medicine, and his ideas for text compression were used in early electronic patient record systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_worlds_first_freelance_programmer\"><\/span>The world\u2019s first freelance programmer<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.birmingham-future.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2024\/10\/ad_4nxdubeyivbzapafduu2t4rgiyczvhf8c506qjdpxgl-emxc_h7vzs_eef33ihmsgslfzxszjzfd2t1dgjlaum2mudwyx4d5w0rrsunbhe8vhzcwxawkufsedesakt_kfwypuknwgjdy2zffmvh5yo0fpnb8-key632pylt8a6keouh1iyandq.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Conway Berners-Lee\u2019s wife was no slouch either. Joining her husband\u2019s team, computer scientist Mary Lee Berners-Lee wrote programmes able to solve up to 40 equations simultaneously. That service was in demand in aeronautics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the mid-1950s, being a young mother, she worked independently as a home-based software consultant, which made her one of the world\u2019s first freelance programmers. Mary wrote programmes from home to track weather balloons for the RAF and solve problems with bus routes for London Transport. That was how a Birmingham family of computer nerds pioneered the IT industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Birmingham mathematician and computer scientist Conway Berners-Lee was a member of the team that introduced the Ferranti Mark 1, the world\u2019s first commercially available electronic computer, in 1951. It is worth noting that the operating instructions for the machine were written by World War II codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing. In 1954, Berners-Lee married [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":338,"featured_media":2589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1115],"tags":[],"motype":[1121],"moformat":[18],"moimportance":[30,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-2673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-it-sphere","8":"motype-eternal","9":"moformat-vlasna","10":"moimportance-golovna-novyna","11":"moimportance-retranslyacziya-v-agregatory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions\/2674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"motype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/motype?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"moformat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/moformat?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"moimportance","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birmingham-future.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/moimportance?post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}