George E. Felton
| George E. Felton | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
3 February 1921 Paris, France |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Magdalene College, Cambridge |
| Employer | Elliot Brothers, Ferranti, ICT, ICL |
| Known for | Ferranti Pegasus and Orion system software, the GEORGE Operating System |
| Spouse(s) | Ruth Felton |
| Relatives | Paul Grice |
George E. Felton (born 3 February 1921) is a British computer scientist. He undertook pioneering work in the field of operating systems and programming software and is the father of the GEORGE Operating System. He held the world record for the computation of π.
George Felton was born in Paris in 1921 to English parents - his mother, Muriel Felton, worked at Bletchley Park during the war. He was brought up in Paris and Menton but moved to England following the early death of his father. Felton attended Bedford School and Magdalene College, Cambridge where he read the Mathematical Tripos. His university studies were interrupted by World War II during which Felton joined the RAF with a commission. Exploiting his interest in electronics he served as a Radar engineer and instructor. He was demobilised and returned to Cambridge in 1946. At Cambridge he met his wife Ruth Felton at meetings of The Round Country Dance society.
After commencing research in theoretical physics he switched his attention to Numeral Analysis and Programming, spurred on by his close contact with the construction of the EDSAC prototype computer in the Mathematical Laboratory, under Maurice Wilkes.
In 1951 Felton joined Elliott Brothers in Borehamwood where he designed the programming systems and wrote software for the Nicholas and Elliott 402 computers. From mid-1954 at Ferranti's London Computer Centre Felton led the team developing innovative and comprehensive operating system and programming software for the Ferranti Pegasus and Orion computers. Hugh McGregor Ross records that "George Felton tells how, when Pegasus was new, he would borrow a front door key on Friday evenings so he could get in during the weekends. Then, alone in the building, he would start up the computer to sum a series to calculate the value of π to a then record 10,024 decimal places. This was a good test of the reliability of Pegasus". His computations of π were records in their day 1957. The team at Ferranti included Bill Elliott, Conway Berners-Lee, Christopher Strachey, Charles Owen, Hugh Devonald, Henry Goodman and Derek Milledge.
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