Tools versus minds: two Manchester computing traditions

“The world’s first stored-program computer was born here, and the University has been at the forefront of computing ever since.” So stated the brochure for a lavish anniversary celebration in 1998 which identified Manchester with a unique computing research culture prioritising practical hardware design, building on the historically close links between the University and local industry. Absent from this picture was any mention of Alan Turing, today widely regarded as Manchester’s greatest computing hero. Turing followed a very different ethos, pursuing philosophical and interdisciplinary investigations of what computers might do, most notably in his 1950 article on the possibility of a machine learning to think for itself. This chapter considers the institutional tensions between the two worldviews to track the development and redefinition of Manchester computing.