EDSAC: Recollections on early days in the Cambridge Computing Laboratory

Abstract

Economists were among the earliest users of the programmable electronic computer, when it was made available for general use in the early 1950s. The first operating programmable electronic computer was the EDSAC, developed at Cambridge University. This memoir describes the context of the development of the first econometric software package, a regression program developed by the author, working together with M.J. Farrell, as well as a number of other aspects of the early computing environment at the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge.