– 18 –
We must be ready to make a change over from one kind of storage to another, or to use two kinds at once. The possibility of developing a new and better type of storage is a very real one, but is too uncertain, especially as regards time, for us to wait for it; we must make a start with delay lines.
(3) Work on valve element design might occupy four months or more. In view of the fact that some more work needs to be done on schematic circuits such a delay will be tolerable, but it would be as well to start at the earliest possible moment.
(4) Although complete and workable circuits for LC and CA have been described in this report these represent only one of a considerable number of alternatives. It would be advisable to investigate some of these before making a final decision on the circuits. Too much time should not however be spent on this. We shall learn much more quickly how we want to modify the circuits by actually using the machine. Moreover if the electronic part is made of standard units our decisions will not be irrevocable. We should merely have to connect the units up differently if we wanted to try out a new type of LC and CA.
(5) In view of the comparatively small number of valves involved the actual production of LC and CA would not take long; six months would be a generous estimate.
(6) Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability. There will probably be a great deal of work of this kind to be done, for every known process has got to be translated into instruction table form at some stage. This work will go on whilst the machine is being built, in order to avoid some of the delay between the delivery of the machine and the production of results. Delay there must be, due to the virtually inevitable snags, for up to a point it is better to let the snags be there than to spend such time in design that there are none (how many decades would this course take?). This process of constructing instruction tables should be very fascinating. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself.
The earlier stages of the making of instruction tables will have serious repercussions on the design of LC and CA. Work on instruction tables will therefore start almost immediately.
(7) Very little need be done about the external organs. They will be essentially standard Hollerith equipment with special mounting.
(8) It is difficult to make suggestions about buildings owing to the great likelihood of the whole scheme expanding greatly in scope. There have been many possibilities that could helpfully have been incorporated, but which have been omitted owing to the necessity of drawing a line somewhere. In a few years time however, when the machine has proved its worth, we shall certainly want to expand and include these other facilities, or more probably to include better ideas which will have been suggested in the working of the first model. This suggests that whatever size of building is decided on we should leave room for building-on to it. The immediate requirements are:
Room for 200 delay lines. These each require about 6 inches of wall space if they are to be individually accessible, and if this is partly provided by cubicle construction 300 square feet is probably a minimum. To this we might add another 100 square feet for the temperature correction arrangements.
