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This chapter details the history of the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) project. The story of the ACE begins with John Womersley's appointment as superintendent of the newly created Mathematics Division of the National Physical Laboratory. Womersley's proposed research programme for his new division included the goals ‘To explore the application of switching methods (mechanical, electrical and electronic) to computations of all kinds’, ‘Investigation of the possible adaptation of automatic telephone equipment to scientific computing’, and ‘ Development of electronic counting device suitable for rapid computing’. Womersley convinced Turing to join the ACE project.

This introductory chapter discusses the development of Alan Turing's ‘universal computing machine’, better known as the universal Turing Machine. The earliest large-scale electronic digital computers, the British Colossus (1943) and American ENIAC (1945), did not store programmes in memory. In 1936, Turing came up with an idea for a machine with limitless memory, in which both data and instructions were to be stored. By 1945, groups in Britain and the US began developing hardware for a universal Turing machine. Turing headed a group at the National Physical Laboratory in London that designed the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE), the first relatively complete specification of an electronic stored-programme digital computer.

This chapter discusses the pilot Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) project at the National Physical Laboratory. The Pilot ACE had been designed purely as an experimental machine to demonstrate the competence of the team as computer engineers. It was originally intended that when it was successfully completed a full-scale computer would be built. However, when it was successful, it was the only electronic computer in a government department and the engineers came under very heavy pressure to use the Pilot ACE for serious computing. They implemented a small set of modifications which included the addition of an automatic multiplier and improvements to the control unit which made programming a little less arduous. The computer was then put into general use and did yeoman service for a number of years.