UTEC - Background

Background

Immediately after the ending of World War II several members of the UofT staff met informally as the Committee on Computing Machines to discuss their computation needs over the next few years. In 1946 a small $1,000 grant was used to send one of the group's members to tour several US research labs to see their progress on computers and try to see what was possible given UofT's likely funding. Due to UofT's preeminent position in the Canadian research world, the tour was also followed by members of the Canadian Research Council.

In January 1947 the committee delivered a report suggesting the creation of a formal Computing Center, primarily as a service bureau to provide computing services both to the university and commercial interests, as well as the nucleus of a research group into computing machinery. Specifically they recommended the immediate renting of an IBM mechanical punched card-based calculator, building a simple differential analyzer, and the eventual purchase or construction of an electronic computer. The report noted that funding should be expected from both the National Research Council (NRC) and the Defense Research Board (DRB).

The DRB soon provided a grant of $6,500 to set up the Computation Center, with the Committee eventually selecting Kelly Gotlieb to run it. Additional funding followed in February 1948 with a $20,000 a year grant from a combined pool set up by the DRB and NRC. Although this was less than was hoped for, the IBM machinery was soon in place and being used to calculate several tables for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Additionally a small version of the differential analyzer was completed by September 1948, although it appears to have seen little use.

Preliminary work on an electronic computer also started about the same time with some experimental work in various circuit designs. However they also felt that in order to get a machine working quickly, a fully electronic design was simply too state of the art and had significant risk. Instead they considered building a copy of Bell Labs' Model 6 relay-based machine, which they had seen earlier. However when they finally decided to go ahead with the project in August 1948, Northern Electric (Bell's arm in Canada) informed them they would charge a $25,000 license.

At a meeting with the NRC in March 1949, the NRC turned down their request for additional funding for the license, and instead suggested that the Center invest in a fully electronic computer, upping the yearly grants to $50,000 to that end. This turned out to be a major "win" - relay based computers quickly disappeared, and electronic systems proved themselves quickly.