ADP, EDP and Computers

In preparing this section I am relying on my own memory, recent discussions with Gerry O'Mahony and a bundle of copies of references collected during my time in the Bureau relating to the general question of the use of computers for NWP.

Among these papers I came across a covering note written by Ross Maine on 25 August 1983 which reads as follows "Bill, I thought you might be interested in some of the early data and some of the personalities involved. The chronology is particularly relevant as I prepared it for my own records at that time because I was unhappy with Dr (Brian) Tucker's representation of the situation". The title of this three page unpublished chronology is listed in Appendix 2.

Following my appointment as Director of Meteorology I had recruited Brian Tucker to succeed me as the Bureau's Assistant Director (Research). There was some friction between Brian and Ross regarding the development of the Bureau's numerical prediction system. Without wishing to discuss this difference of opinion I believe that Ross' summary of the early days of NWP development is important and have used it in this and the following chapter.

The Bureau had an obvious need to employ some ADP machines to avoid the laborious entry and processing of climatological data described by Hogan (1986), Cornish (1996), Nelson (1937) and others. The obsessive boredom of the clerical work involved in compiling daily and monthly summaries of rainfall and temperature records and calculating mean and extreme monthly and annual values must have been extremely tedious for the clerks employed in the Climate Section of the Bureau's Central Office. Much of the data, such as that contained on sunshine cards and pluviograph charts, remained unanalysed.

Some of the first mechanical devices were the Marchant calculating machines, some of which are preserved in the Bureau's collection of museum pieces. Such mechanical devices had been developed earlier in this century and in May 1959, when the electronic computer was in its earlier stage of development, the Bureau's Statistical Section acquired a Marchant Decimagic calculator.

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