Oral history of British science
Furber, Steve (Part 1 of 5)
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Type
sound
Duration
01:42:22
Shelf mark
C1379/78
Subjects
Computer Hardware
Recording date
2012-06-11
Recording locations
Interviewee's office, University of Manchester
Interviewees
Furber, Steve, 1953- (speaker, male)
Interviewers
Lean, Thomas (speaker, male)
Abstract
Part 1 [1:42:22] [Interview One: 11 June 2012] Remarks introducing self: currently Professor of Computer Science at University of Manchester; born in Manchester, grew up in Marple with parents; attended Rose Hill Primary and Manchester Grammar School; undergraduate, PhD, and research fellow at University of Cambridge; joined Acorn Computers in 1981; moved to Manchester in 1990. [01:25] Remarks on childhood: born March 21st 1953, Withington Hospital; parental home in Old Trafford; father, a heat transfer engineer at Manchester College of Science and Technology, later UMIST, before joining The Nuclear Power Group [TNPG] in late 1950s; mother, trained as physiotherapist, through which she met SF father, retrained as maths teacher. [03:20] Comments on father Benjamin Neil Furber: anecdote about uses of fist and second names by mother, colleagues and family; family background, SF grandfather a cheese factor; careful with money; physically similar to SF; hobbies maintaining cars, building furniture; worked long hours, strict but fun; tennis player; supportive of SF and his career choices; PhD from Manchester Tech; anecdote about SF temporary jobs with father's colleague Jim Davidson at TNPG. [10:50] Remarks on mother Margaret; from Yorkshire; family background in Hebden Bridge; met father in Derby, where father worked at Rolls Royce; educational aspirations frustrated by finances; sister Enid, brother who died in infancy; keen school hockey player; enjoyed walking in Peek district until 80s; dedicated and loving to children, in a Yorkshire way. [0:16:30] Remarks on parents: strong views, argued little; mother's Labour and father's Liberal political alignment; inherited traits from parents in SF; parents singing in church choir; parent's religious outlook, Congregational Church and United Reformed Church; SF church attendance as child and adult, Crusader Class in teens; SF inherited traits, father's approach on logical argument, interest in energy industry; SF sisters Anne and Mary. [23:40] Remarks on growing up on Clifton Drive in Marple: playing with go-carts on the hill; description of family home, designed by parents, shared with grandmother who had the only television in the house, 1950s legislation governing size of house. [27:50] Remarks on television: watched with grandmother; SF allowed to watch a limited amount of TV; anecdote about watching Gerry Anderson's 'Fireball XL5' in black and white but remembering it in colour; description of typical 'Fireball XL5' events and why SF enjoyed it. [33:00] Remarks on: little other technology around house; SF interest in model aircraft and radio controlled aircraft. [34:02] Discussion about Meccano: inherited from father, building vehicles and gear boxes, building Lythgeuse figure machine to help mother's maths teaching, limitations of Meccano, use of Meccano in 1930s Differential Analyser. [38:47] Remarks on early hobbies: interest in model aircraft, building balsa wood planes and a hovercraft; running aircraft engines; appeal of flying, gliding as a student, model aircraft flying after university at Impington Village College; limitations of early aircraft radio control; reading, 'Biggles'; enjoying making things, Airfix kits, model railway; anecdote about buying Scaletrix for daughter; tree climbing. [44:25] Remarks on: limited SF memory of early years; family holidays at Aberdaron in North Wales; cycling. [46:25] Remarks on Rose Hill County Primary School in Marple: walk to school; exams for grammar school; SF project on aeroplanes in last year at primary school and lecture on Joukowsky transformations at grammar school. [49:40] Comments on Manchester Grammar School [MGS]: SF going through school a year ahead of his age, winning scholarship to Cambridge at 16 but taking 18 months between end of school and starting university; anecdote about SF being a prefect and the smallest pupil in his year; struggling with Latin and History but excelling at Maths; description of MGS, most academic boys school in Manchester, class and stream arrangements. [54:25] Discussion about SF enjoying the power of maths: example of predicting aeroplane wing behaviour; current activities using computers to model brain activity; importance of understanding mathematics and underlying theory to development of engineering, such as in microchips; SF interest in applied maths, Cambridge mix of applied and theoretical maths. [1:01:40] Remarks on SF direction after school: MGS interest in getting pupils to Oxbridge; anecdote about physics teacher suggesting he do physics at university; SF mathematical bent; parental viewpoint on SF educational direction; anecdote about how MGS assigned pupils to Oxbridge colleges; SF taking time off after school to work for The Nuclear Power Group [TNPG] and tour of North America, with term at McGill University and working at a summer camp in Meadville, USA; SF meeting people in his year at Cambridge previously whilst on the British Mathematical Olympiad team.[1:07:25] Remarks on 1970 Mathematical Olympiad in Hungary: other team members all going to Cambridge; holiday with exams; SF winning bronze medal; drabness of Budapest; contest at Keszthely; meeting future Cambridge contemporaries, such as John Proctor, now a theologian. [1:11:15] Further remarks on school: enthusiastic head of maths 'Killer' Maugham; maths teacher 'Smiggy'; enthusiastic physics teacher Alec Robinson, whose demonstrations were explosively impressive; Mr Moffat who helped SF with electronics; anecdote about sixth form maths teachers, David 'Harpic' Coply's fascinating stories about developing the cavity magnetron during the war; anecdote about dozing during a maths class; limited interest in maths outside school, aerodynamics, Martin Gardner columns in 'Scientific American'; recently enjoying working on a research paper with a mathematician on a neural network memory. [1:18:55] Description of SF when he left school. [1:20:55] Comments on 9 months working at TPNG: father organising job in maths group; writing programs on IBM360 to compute confluent geometric functions; working with Jim Davidson and other professional mathematicians; later post-graduation work at Risley; work on thermal conductivity of fibrous insulation, anecdote about units being used for calculations; interesting seeing how maths was useful; good work experience for SF; [1:25:40] early electronic calculators compared to electro-mechanical calculators; using mainframe computer. [1:27:15] Story about SF recently meeting the teacher who introduced computing to MGS whilst SF was a pupil at Royal Society panel on computing in schools; details of MGS school computing classes, with programs sent down to Imperial College; SF playing with digital circuits at home. [1:28:40] Remarks on TPNG: limited guidance in how to use TPNG computer; SF summer jobs at IBM Sale, learning a different language each year; SF comparisons with teaching programming today and his early experiences; value of TNPG experiences to SF; TPNG offices at Radbrook Hall, later merger to form National Nuclear Corporation and moved to Risley; SF travelling to TPNG with father; enjoyments at TPNG; 1000 page volume on mathematical functions given to him when he finished. [1:34:00] Remarks on building electronics in his teens: modifying radio control for plane; circuit construction kit with valves; building electronic audio equipment at university, 741 Op-Amp. [1:35:45] Remarks on music: music when he was growing up, having a poor ear for music; father's purchase of guitar; sisters' musical skills; SF learning guitar; playing with 20th Century Group at Cambridge, where he met his wife; playing bass for church group; SF technically competent but without a good ear; being a member of the rock generation, Moody Blues, Justin Haywood, Dire Straits, Eric Clapton, Queen. [1:41:00] Remarks on physics teacher at school helping him with electronics, anecdote about Sinclair amplifiers of 1960s not working.
Description
Interview with computer scientist, Steve Furber
Related transcripts
Steve Furber interviewed by Thomas Lean: full transcript of the interview
Related links
Visit this interviewee's page on the 'Voices of Science' web resource
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