Titan (1963 computer)
Atlas 2 computer
Titan was the prototype of the Atlas 2 computer developed by Ferranti and the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in Cambridge, England. It was designed starting in 1963, and in operation from 1964 to 1973.
History
In 1961, the University of Cambridge found itself unable to fund a suitably powerful computer for its needs at the time, so the university purchased from Ferranti the main Atlas processing units and then jointly designed the memory and peripheral equipment. The joint effort led to a cheaper and simpler version of the Atlas that Ferranti could market, leaving Cambridge with the prototype version, named Titan.
The Atlas hardware arrived in Cambridge in 1963, although software design was already underway. David Wheeler was in charge of the joint effort between the university and Ferranti.
In 1965 the Cambridge side of the team decided to add a time-sharing facility for Titan, necessitating the acquisition of additional hardware. When Titan came into full service in 1966, time sharing was available for all staff. Titan was finally switched off in October 1973.
Ferranti, by then a division of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), marketed the Titan as the Atlas 2.
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This entry incorporates text from “Titan (1963 computer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.