Between 1937 and 1970, computers were difficult to make, difficult to keep running and difficult to use. Since 1970, everything has become progressively easier. Today every academic has at least one computer on his/her desk, and the Computing Service has changed greatly as a result. <p>In 1937 the remit of the Mathematical Laboratory at Cambridge included the requirement "to provide a computing service for general use, and to be a centre for the development of computational techniques in the University." But computers as we now know them did not exist at that time. The EDSAC, developed by the Computing Service at Cambridge, was the world's first stored-program computer which successfully executed its first program in May 1949. <p>Dr David Hartley read Mathematics at Clare College (1956) followed by a Diploma in Computer Science. After his PhD he was appointed University Lecturer in 1967, and then Director of the University Computing Service from 1970. He became Chief Executive of UKERNA in 1994, then Executive Director of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre in 1997 and Steward of Clare College from 2002. Now more or less retired, he has been a Fellow of Clare since 1986, and was President of the British Computer Society in 1999-2000.

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(Image courtesy of Bletchley Park Trust.)