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Christopher Strachey

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Christopher Strachey
Early computer printout of Christopher Strachey in theBodleian Library,Oxford
Born(1916-11-16)16 November 1916
Hampstead,England
Died18 May 1975(1975-05-18)(aged 58)
Oxford,England
CitizenshipBritish
EducationGresham's School
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge(BA)
Known forCPL,denotational semantics,Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages,time-sharing
Parent(s)Oliver Strachey
Ray Costelloe
Scientific career
FieldsComputer Science
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge,
University of Oxford
St Edmund's School, Canterbury
Harrow School
Doctoral studentsPeter Mosses
David Turner

Christopher S. Strachey(/ˈstreɪtʃi/;16 November 1916 – 18 May 1975) was a Britishcomputer scientist.[1][2][3]He was one of the founders ofdenotational semantics,and a pioneer inprogramming languagedesign and computertime-sharing.[4]He has also been credited as possibly being the first developer of avideo game[5]and for coining terms such aspolymorphismandreferential transparencythat are still widely used by developers today.[6]He was a member of theStracheyfamily, prominent in government, arts, administration, and academia.

Early life and education[edit]

Christopher Strachey was born on 16 November 1916 toOliver StracheyandRachel (Ray) CostelloeinHampstead,England. Oliver Strachey was the son ofRichard Stracheyand the great-grandson ofSir Henry Strachey, 1st Baronet.His elder sister was the writerBarbara Strachey.In 1919, the family moved to 51Gordon Square.The Stracheys belonged to theBloomsbury Groupwhose members includedVirginia Woolf,John Maynard Keynesand Christopher's uncleLytton Strachey.At 13, Christopher went toGresham's School,Holtwhere he showed signs of brilliance but in general performed poorly. He was admitted toKing's College, Cambridge(the same college asAlan Turing) in 1935 where he continued to neglect his studies. Strachey studiedmathematicsand then transferred tophysics.At the end of his third year atCambridge,Strachey suffered a nervous breakdown, possibly related to coming to terms with his homosexuality. He returned to Cambridge but managed only a "lower second" in theNatural Sciences Tripos.[7]

Career[edit]

Unable to continue his education, Christopher joinedStandard Telephones and Cables(STC) as a research physicist. His first job was providing mathematical analysis for the design ofelectron tubesused inradar.The complexity of the calculations required the use of adifferential analyser.This initial experience with a computing machine sparked Strachey's interest and he began to research the topic. An application for a research degree at the University of Cambridge was rejected and Strachey continued to work at STC throughout theSecond World War.After the war he fulfilled a long-standing ambition by becoming a schoolmaster atSt Edmund's School, Canterbury,teaching mathematics and physics. Three years later he was able to move to the more prestigiousHarrow Schoolin 1949, where he stayed for three years.

Christopher Strachey's Draughts 1952 photo evidence of the first video game
Draughts on a storage CRT, 1952

In January 1951, a friend introduced him toMike Woodgerof theNational Physical Laboratory(NPL). The lab had successfully built a reduced version of Alan Turing'sAutomatic Computing Engine(ACE) the concept of which dated from 1945: thePilot ACE.In his spare time, Strachey developed a preliminary version of a program for the game ofdraughts( "checkers" in American English) in May 1951. This may have been the first video game. The game completely exhausted the Pilot ACE's memory. The draughts program failed due to program errors when it first ran at NPL on 30 July 1951.[8]When Strachey heard about theManchester Mark 1,which had a much bigger memory, he asked his former fellow-student Alan Turing for the manual and transcribed his program into theoperation codesof that machine by around October 1951. By the summer of 1952, the program could "play a complete game of Draughts at a reasonable speed".[9][10]While he did not give this game a name,Noah Wardrip-Fruinnamed it "M. U. C. Draughts."[11]

Strachey programmed the firstComputer musicin England – the earliest recording of music played by a computer: a rendition of the British National Anthem "God Save the King"on the University of Manchester'sFerranti Mark 1computer, in 1951. Later that year, short extracts of three pieces were recorded there by aBBCoutside broadcasting unit: "God Save the King", "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep",and"In the Mood".Researchers at theUniversity of Canterbury,Christchurch restored the acetate master disc in 2016 and the results may be heard onSoundCloud.[12][13]

During the summer of 1952, Strachey programmed alove letter generatorfor theFerranti Mark 1that is known as the first example ofcomputer-generated literature.[14]

In May 1952, Strachey gave a two-part talk on "the study of control in animals and machines" ( "cybernetics") for theBBC Home Service'sScience Surveyprogramme.[15][16]

Strachey worked for theNational Research Development Corporation(NRDC) from 1952 to 1959. While working on the St. Lawrence Seaway project, he was able to visit several computer centres in the United States and catalogue theirinstruction sets.Later, he worked on programming both theElliott 401computer and theFerranti Pegasuscomputer. Together withDonald B. Gillies,he filed three patents in computing design including the design of base registers for program relocation. He also worked on the analysis of vibration in aircraft, working briefly withRoger Penrose.

In 1959, Strachey left NRDC to become a computer consultant working for NRDC,EMI,Ferrantiand other organisations on several wide-ranging projects. This work included logical design for computers, providingautocodeand later the design ofhigh-level programming languages.For a contract to produce the autocode for theFerranti Orioncomputer, Strachey hiredPeter Landinwho became his one assistant for the duration of Strachey's consulting period.

Strachey developed the concept oftime-sharingin 1959.[17][18]He filed a patent application in February that year and gave a paper "Time Sharing in Large Fast Computers" at the inauguralUNESCO Information Processing Conferencein Paris where he passed the concept on toJ. C. R. Licklider.[19][20]This paper is credited by theMIT Computation Centerin 1963 as "the first paper on time-shared computers".[4]

In 1962, while remaining a consultant, he accepted a position at theUniversity of Cambridge.

In 1965, Strachey accepted a position at theUniversity of Oxfordas the first director of theProgramming Research Groupand later the university's first professor of computer science and fellow ofWolfson College, Oxford.He collaborated withDana Scott.

Strachey was elected as a distinguished fellow of theBritish Computer Societyin 1971 for his pioneering work in computer science.

In 1973, Strachey (along withRobert Milne) began to write an essay submitted to theAdams Prizecompetition, after which they continued work to revising it into book form. Strachey can be seen and heard in the recorded Lighthill debate on AI[21](seeLighthill report).

He developed theCombined Programming Language(CPL). His influential set of lecture notesFundamental Concepts in Programming Languagesformalised the distinction betweenL- and R- values(as seen in theC programming language). Strachey also coined the termcurrying,[citation needed]although he did not invent the underlying concept.

He was instrumental in the design of theFerranti Pegasuscomputer.

The macro languagem4derives much from Strachey's GPM (General Purpose Macrogenerator), one of the earliestmacro expansion languages.[22]

Strachey contracted an illness diagnosed asjaundicewhich, after a period of seeming recovery, returned and he died of infectious hepatitis on 18 May 1975.[23]After his death, Strachey was succeeded by SirTony Hoareas Head of the Programming Research Group at Oxford, starting in 1977.

Legacy[edit]

TheDepartment of Computer Scienceat theUniversity of Oxfordhas aChristopher Strachey Professorship of Computing,[24][25]which has been held by the following:

In November 2016, aStrachey 100event was held at Oxford University to celebrate the centenary of Strachey's birth,[28]including a viewing at theWeston Libraryin Oxford of the Christopher Strachey archive held in theBodleian Librarycollection.[29]

Publications[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Christopher Strachey: British computer scientist,Encyclopædia Britannica.
  2. ^Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Christopher Strachey (1916–1975),The National Archives,United Kingdom.
  3. ^Gordon, M.J.C.,Christopher Strachey: Recollections of His Influence,Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation,13(1–2):65–67, April 2000.ISSN1388-3690.(PostScript versionArchived13 March 2017 at theWayback Machine.)
  4. ^abF. J. Corbató, et al.,The Compatible Time-Sharing System A Programmer's Guide(MIT Press, 1963)ISBN978-0-262-03008-3."the first paper on time-shared computers by C. Strachey at the June 1959 UNESCO Information Processing conference"
  5. ^Brown, Stuart (4 October 2019)."The First Video Game".YouTube.Archivedfrom the original on 4 October 2019.Retrieved19 January2022.
  6. ^Strachey, Christopher (1967).Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages(Technical report). Lecture notes for the International Summer School in Computer Programming at Copenhagen.
  7. ^Campbell-Kelly, M. (January 1985). "Christopher Strachey, 1916–1975: A Biographical Note".IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.7(1): 21.doi:10.1109/mahc.1985.10001.S2CID17188378.
  8. ^"The Priesthood at Play: Computer Games in the 1950s".They Create Worlds.22 January 2014.Retrieved28 August2017.
  9. ^"What is Artificial Intelligence".AlanTuring.net.May 2000.Retrieved28 August2017.
  10. ^Strachey, C. S. (September 1952).Logical or non-mathematical programmes.ACM '52: Proceedings of the 1952 ACM National Meeting (Toronto). p. 47.doi:10.1145/800259.808992.
  11. ^Wardrip-Fruin, Noah (December 2020).How Pac-Man Eats(1 ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. p. 121.ISBN9780262044653.
  12. ^"First recording of computer-generated music – created by Alan Turing – restored".The Guardian.26 September 2016.Retrieved28 August2017.
  13. ^"Restoring the first recording of computer music – Sound and vision blog".British Library.13 September 2016.Retrieved28 August2017.
  14. ^Rettberg, Jill Walker (3 October 2021)."Speculative Interfaces: How Electronic Literature Uses the Interface to Make Us Think about Technology".Electronic Book Review.doi:10.7273/1XSG-NV26.
  15. ^"Science Survey – BBC Home Service Basic – 1 May 1952 – BBC Genome".BBC. May 1952.Retrieved28 August2017.
  16. ^"Science Survey – BBC Home Service Basic – 8 May 1952 – BBC Genome".BBC. 8 May 1952.Retrieved28 August2017.
  17. ^"Computer Pioneers – Christopher Strachey".history.computer.org.Retrieved23 January2020.What Strachey proposed in his concept of time-sharing was an arrangement that would preserve the direct contact between programmer and machine, while still achieving the economy of multiprogramming.
  18. ^"Computer – Time-sharing and minicomputers".Encyclopedia Britannica.Retrieved23 January2020.In 1959 Christopher Strachey in the United Kingdom and John McCarthy in the United States independently described something they called time-sharing.
  19. ^Gillies, James M.; Gillies, James; Gillies, James and Cailliau Robert; Cailliau, R. (2000).How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web.Oxford University Press. pp.13.ISBN978-0-19-286207-5.
  20. ^"Reminiscences on the Theory of Time-Sharing".jmc.stanford.edu.Retrieved23 January2020.in 1960 'time-sharing' as a phrase was much in the air. It was, however, generally used in my sense rather than in John McCarthy's sense of a CTSS-like object.
  21. ^bilkable (12 September 2010),The Lighthill Debate (1973) – part 6 of 6,retrieved27 October2017
  22. ^C. Strachey: "A General Purpose Macrogenerator",The Computer Journal,8(3):225–241, 1965.
  23. ^"Computer Pioneers – Christopher Strachey".
  24. ^ab"Christopher Strachey Professorship of Computing".Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford.5 November 2021.Retrieved18 January2024.
  25. ^"Christopher Strachey Professor of Computing".University of Oxford.28 October 2021.Retrieved18 January2024.
  26. ^"Samson Abramsky".UK:Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford.Retrieved18 January2017.
  27. ^"Welcome to our new Strachey Chair, Professor Nobuko Yoshida".Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford.29 June 2022.Retrieved18 January2024.
  28. ^"Strachey 100: Celebrating the life and research of Christopher Strachey".UK:Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford.2016.Retrieved18 January2017.
  29. ^Bowen, Jonathan P.(2016)."Strachey 100 Centenary Conference: Photographs of Strachey 100"(PDF).FACS FACTS.2.UK:BCS-FACS:44–52.Retrieved18 January2017.(Alsohere.)

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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