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High-resolution audio: everything you need to know

High-resolution audio (HRA) has emerged as arguably the ultimate sonic selection for digital music fans, but what’s it all about, what do you need and how can you get it?

In the last couple of years, high-resolution audio (HRA) has hit the mainstream sound recording and distribution, due to the release of more devices and services that support the new format.

From dedicated devices like Neil Young’s PonoPlayer and the latest Sony Walkmans, to games consoles like the Play Station 4, smartphones like the Sony Xperia Z5 it seems everyone’s is joining this movement towards taking of the sound recording industry to the next level of quality.

So how does high-res differ from standard digital music formats? Downloads from sites such as Amazon and iTunes, and streaming services such as Spotify, use compressed file formats with relatively low bitrates, such as 256kbps AAC files on iTunes and 320kbps MP3 streams on Spotify.

The use of AAC or MP3 compression leads to partial data loss in the encoding process, which means resolution is sacrificed for the sake of convenience and smaller file sizes. With regards to sound quality, then, these formats aren’t telling the full story of our favourite songs. This might be fine on the bus when you’re listening to your smartphone, but serious music fans should want better. This is where high-resolution audio – or HRA, the term coined by the Consumer Electronics Association – steps in.

Astell & Kern, LG, Samsung, Sony and Pioneer are just some of the companies to have launched hi-res audio compatible products, while several download sites now offer. HRA also has the support of major labels and musicians.

It’s worth pointing out that the definition of high-resolution audio isn’t set in stone. Unlike high-definition video, which has to meet certain criteria to earn the name, there’s no universal standard for hi-res audio.

But the term tends to refer to audio that has a higher sampling frequency. High-resolution audio files usually use a sampling frequency of 96kHz or 192kHz at 24-bit, but you can also have 88.2kHz and 176.4kHz files too.

Sampling frequency refers to the number of times samples are taken per second when the analogue sound waves are converted into digital. The more bits there are, the more accurately the signal can be measured in the first place, so 16-bit to 24-bit can reveal a noticeable leap in quality.

There are several high-resolution audio file formats to choose from, all of which support the above sampling rates and bit-depths. They include FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), both of which are compressed but in a way where (in theory) no information is lost.

Other formats include WAV, AIFF and DSD, the format used for Super Audio CDs. The relative merits of the formats can be argued, but most crucial will be compatibility with your particular products and system.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has issued a logo that will show up on every track and album that can be classed as hi-res audio.

Obviously the main claimed benefit of high-resolution audio files is superior sound quality over compressed audio formats. To illustrate why they should sound better than MP3s, for example, let’s compare the relative bitrates. The highest quality MP3 has a bitrate of 320kbps, whereas a 24-bit/192kHz file is transferred at a rate of 9216kbps.

24-bit/96k or 24-bit/192kHz files should therefore more closely replicate the sound quality that the musicians and engineers were working with in the studio.

With more information to play with, high-resolution audio tends to boast greater detail and texture, bringing listeners closer to the original performance.

Manufacturers including Bowers & Wilkins, Naim and Linn have been pushing for and producing high-resolution audio products for some time. We’ve now seen mass-market heavyweights such as LG, Samsung and Sony adopt the format to bring it to a larger audience.

With this wider availability, more people are able to learn and understand exactly what high-resolution audio is, and the benefits it can bring to music. There’s plenty of content out there, and there’s plenty of hardware to go with it. The future for the format looks – and sounds – very bright indeed.

At Falcon Technologies International we firmly believe in the core brand values that our brand is build on, and one of them is Quality. High resolution audio format development is very important step for overall music industry, that is currently taking the entire market to the next level.

As a company that have been continuously making efforts to improve the quality of our products, we understand the importance and praise development of such initiatives as high resolution audio standardization and introduction to the mass market.

Falcon Technologies International has specially designed product line to provide quality media storage for professional duplication and replication – DUPLI Line.

It performs to good quality level with benchmark and quality control tests proving that Dupli Line products have one of the lowest variability rates throughout the industry, which makes them a perfect solution for media duplication. Also, DUPLI Line comes with a no failure guarantee, so that media distributors can be sure that the end consumer will be able to enjoy the high quality media from a high quality storage medium.

Source: WhatHiFi

The shiny, plastic memory of the compact disc: when the new format was introduced.

Many people still remember the time when we had to listen to the favorite music from the cassette tapes, or, if you are old enough, even the vinyl records. The least ones seem to gradually come back into our houses, with the introduction of the latest re-invented record players, and there are even some signs of the cassette tape revival that are periodically observed here and there.

But what about the CDs? We kind of heard that they recently migrated from the consumer market to some niche industries like data archiving and medical IT, however there are still some implications of that media on the mass market as well (gaming consoles are still mostly operate on optical discs, as well as offline media distribution).

Anyway, when observing the revival of the media storage formats that preceded CDs and DVDs, one may logically presume that same phase will come one day and for the optical discs. Many people still use optical media for things like music playback, as many claim that sound quality of the studio recorded disc can’t be beaten by anything else.

Saskatoon based writer, editor and columnist with the StarPhoenix and related publications, Cam Fuller still remembers the days when the optical disc started its small industrial revolution, that eventually changed the way we listen to the music and watch the movies. Here are his memories, that reflect those days:

The miracle of the compact disc is not forgotten by me.

I remember when they first came out. They were impossibly cool. There was no hiss and pop when you put one on, unlike vinyl records. I remember an audiophile magazine article from way back then. The writer was caught off guard after pressing play — with no background noise before the music started, it was like nothing was working at all. You had to trust the song would start eventually and avoid cranking your speakers to full volume on speculation. Many woofers were melted by impatient audio fools, I suspect.

CDs were small and shiny and oh-so modern. Amazingly, they could hold 75 minutes of music, way more than an LP. And you could play them in a car. If you listened to Tom Cochrane’s Life is a Highway on CD when you were literally on the highway, life was just about as good as it could possibly get.

Because of my job, it felt like I had an even closer relationship with CDs than most people. Working in the Entertainment Department put me on the publicity list of every major record label. Since they wanted attention for their bands, they’d send CDs. Lots of CDs. CDs for bands I was doing stories on. CDs for bands I wasn’t. Compilations, movie soundtracks, you name it.

In fact, the three main labels had representatives who’d phone and pop by with boxes of them.

Was I spoiled? Was I ever. Unless it was for somebody else’s Christmas present, I rarely bought a CD, and when I did it was a jolt of reality. “Twenty-three bucks? What a rip.”

This was free music before free music, a golden age before downloading changed everything. My entire music collection consisted of 50 LPs and 25 cassettes. We’re talking 600 songs. Then one day I was drowning in music. “What is Third Eye Blind? I’ll have to give it a whirl. Ooh, the new Aerosmith album!” Having access to all that music was like being able to make it rain when you needed rain. A god-like power.

And then something happened. Twenty-five years went by. The novelty wore off, to say the least. Digital music took over. And I’m left, on my shelves, with a gallery of the obscure. Kashtin, the soundtrack from the movie The Perez Family, The String Cheese Incident, Woman and Songs 6, The World’s Very Best Opera for Kids. It’s nothing if not diverse.

None of these, by the way, have I listened to in the past 20 years. It wouldn’t feel right selling them but I doubt there’s a market anyway. I can’t in good conscience take them to the landfill. They’re no good for floor tile. I suppose I could wait until they’re cool again — it happened for LPs. And I just read that The String Cheese Incident has a new album. I’m so out of it, I’m cutting-edge.

Source: Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Falcon Technologies International hosts International Customer Seminar on April 4th and 5th

Falcon Technologies International recently hosted its international customer seminar in the stunning Ritz Carlton Al Wadi Hotel, which is located in a unique desert environment within our home Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. We were delighted to welcome approximately 50 delegates who travelled from diverse locations such as France, Germany, Japan, USA and the UK, to discuss the latest developments, opportunities and innovations that make optical media the exciting and progressive industry that it is today.

The entire FTI extended a very warm welcome to all the guests, who enjoyed the superb hospitality of the Al Wadi Hotel, complete activities including a traditional Arabian Falcon show, archery, sailing, go-karting and golf. The presentation session included an overview of the economic growth Ras Al Khaimah has been experiencing in recent years from Mr. Shahram Hashemi, Group Director of Strategy and Investments at RAK Free Trade Zone, along with presentations from the FTI management team with demonstrations of new product development initiatives.

Speaking about the event our CEO Mr. Michael Gutowski said, “We are delighted to host the global optical media community here in our home of Ras Al Khaimah. Having the opportunity to assemble so many of our partners in Ras Al Khaimah was a very positive experience for us at FTI, the optical media industry in general, and for Ras Al Khaimah as a global business hub. We very much hope that all the attendees enjoyed their stay in Ras Al Khaimah, and hope to welcome them back in 2018”.

Here are some photo and video highlights from the event:

Cartridges Mean Nintendo Switch Games Will Always Cost More

If you’re old enough to remember the original PlayStation launching, then you’ll know how big of a deal switching to optical media was. Rather than shipping an expensive cartridge full of chips, games were burnt on to less expensive compact discs. It didn’t take long for other home consoles to follow and discs have been the preferred media for home consoles ever since.

With the launch of the new Switch console, Nintendo is reverting back to cartridge media for a home console. Nintendo handhelds have stuck with cartridges ever since the Game Boy launched, but there wasn’t really any alternative. For a home console, though, it poses a big problem in the form of pricing.

Inevitably, cross platform games will be released targeting the Xbox One, PS4, and Switch. You only have to look at listings for several popular cross-platform games to see the challenge Switch developers (and Nintendo) face. If the price for some titles is $29.99 for PS4, on Switch it’s $39.99 (33% higher).

The reason is the manufacturing cost. Optical media products are relatively cheap to mass produce, and regardless of whether you burn 5GB or 40GB to a disc the media costs the same. Cartridges, however, are relatively-speaking much more expensive and Switch cartridges can escalate in price depending on whether you need 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of storage. They also get more expensive per cartridge the smaller the batch ordered.

If you only own a Switch, then the price difference doesn’t really matter as you are stuck paying $39.99. However, many gamers will own, or plan to own, a PS4 and a Switch, much like many have owned a home console and a 3DS. In that case, Nintendo will lose out on cross-platform game sales to the PS4 or Xbox One due to the price differential. The PS4 / Xbox One are significantly more powerful than Switch meaning the same game will inevitably look better and run faster while also being cheaper.

The pricing issue is compounded by the fact Nintendo insists that digital versions of a game offered through the eShop must be priced the same as physical versions. So opting to invest in a large SD card and only downloading games won’t save you any cash.

With time and the continued success of the Switch, economies of scale should see manufacturing costs fall. But for the foreseeable future, Switch games are going to be more expensive than the same game on another platform. In fact, manufacturing costs will mean they are always more expensive to produce than the optical disc equivalent.

Will this impact a publisher’s decision to release games on Switch. Potentially, yes. But Switch sales will be key. If Nintendo continues to sell millions of units then the market exists to make releasing on the platform viable. And the more Switch sells, the bigger the cartridge orders can be, and therefore the cheaper they become.

FTI’s Falcon Media Dupli Line is designed to meet the professional media duplicators needs and a suitable product for the gaming industry. Benchmark and quality control tests prove that Dupli Line products have one of the lowest variability rates throughout the industry, which makes them a perfect solution for media duplication.

SOURCE: PCMag

20 Years Later: DVD format today and where will it go?

It was 20 years ago this month that consumer electronics companies Sony and Toshiba launched a new home video format called Digital Video Disc, or DVD. The format promised a four-fold increase in resolution over VHS and the permanence of music CDs, in that the video would not degrade as you played it.

The DVD had a lot of promise. It would be a new optical format for PCs, since the CD-ROM format had reached its capacity rather quickly, and it would also be used as a new format for music, called DVD-Audio. But the launch in the U.S. on March 19 was centered around home video.

It’s hard to overstate how different and primitive things were back then. We all had CRT televisions that used a 4:3 aspect ratio and watched movies using the TV’s built-in speakers. DVD used a format called Dolby Digital 5.1, a 6-speaker surround methodology that virtually no one knew anything about, and none of the stereo receivers had it built-in.

DVD rolled out in seven major US cities before its nation-wide launch. If one decided to become an early adopter, this meant a $600 investment in a Dolby Digital amp that connected to the receiver, $800 for a shiny new DVD player, and a few hundred to increase the speaker count.

The choice of movies available on the new format, however, was very limited. Fox, Paramount, Disney and Universal did not support the format at launch, so many movies were unavailable and would not be for years. The studios feared theft of the content and people stealing perfect copies of their work. Bootleg VHS was one thing, since they degraded, but a DVD copy would never degrade.

Then came a second threat to DVD: retailer Circuit City took the format and created a variant called Divx. Divx was different in that you had to connect a phone line to the player and basically get approval to watch it. You could buy the movie for $4.50 and watch it once, then pay $3.25 to watch it again, or pay $12.49 for unlimited viewing.

The introduction of Divx rubbed everyone up the wrong way. It was viewed as Circuit City and the studios trying to control viewing habits and get more money out of us for each viewing. The reaction among internet fans of DVD was incredible, with sites like The Digital Bits leading an unrelenting anti-Divx charge.

Divx came out in 1998 and crashed and burned spectacularly. In the process it also took down Circuit City. At the time of DVD’s launch, Best Buy was a modest chain, but it threw its support behind DVD fully. On every DVD board people swore they would never set foot in Circuit City again for the Divx effort. They all supported Best Buy and gave it their business. This resulted in Best Buy becoming a retail giant, while Circuit City is dead. No doubt there were many more variables, but Circuit City’s ill-fated Divx project had at least something to do with its fall.

In 1999, the holdouts were starting to come on board. Stephen Spielberg was among the last to do so, not even allowing movies he executive produced to be released on DVD, until that year.

And then it happened. A kid in Norway named Jon Johansen produced a small utility called DeCSS, which copied the video file off a DVD, removed the encryption, and wrote the video back out without the encryption. Thus perfect copies were made, realizing the fear of every studio.

Later on the investigation journalist Andy Patrizio of Wired News tracked down Jon on IRC and spoke with him. Johansen said that a PC DVD player made by a company called Xing failed to encrypt their deprotection key, so he was able to make DeCSS from that. He agreed to be interviewed and didn’t mind using his name. He was only 15 and lived in Norway.

LB Jon Lech Johansen, DVD-Jon

The interview ran on Wired News and drew 400,000 views. In 1999, that was a lot.

There was a hope that since DVD was still in its early days they could do some kind of firmware upgrade to fix the security and render DeCSS useless, but they never did, and now DVD ISOs clog BitTorrent.

Nonetheless the Divx and DeCSS issues, DVD survived studio boycotts and by 2003, sales surpassed VHS. It created a collector culture that didn’t exist in VHS, since the discs didn’t degrade in quality. Also, with DVD extras, studios started adding director’s cuts, deleted scenes, behind the scenes interviews, and other interesting qualities. People built libraries in the hundreds and even thousands.

In 2006 came another problem: a format split. DVD’s resolution is 720×480, while high definition TV is 1920×1080. That’s actually six times the resolution. HDTV was coming into play and suddenly DVDs looked like VHS by comparison.

Two competing factions came out with HD-versions of DVD. Sony had Blu-ray, a completely new design with higher capacity, while Toshiba led the way with HD DVD, a derivative of DVD with a lower capacity. After a two-year fight (2006-2008), Blu-ray gained momentum and Toshiba threw in the towel. It was in some ways a Pyrrhic victory. Blu-ray won the physical media war only to have its lunch eaten by on-demand and streaming.

And so here we are 20 years later. Video stores have all but vanished from the retail landscape. Sony is no longer an electronics company beyond the PlayStation, and Toshiba is in such dire financial straits it may not survive. DVD-Audio never went anywhere despite being a massive improvement over Compact Disc audio. Circuit City and Divx are dead. DVD as a format is fading and the studios have all sharply reduced their home video efforts.

Despite this, we have a history of discarding technologies and then realizing what we’ve lost. Print books are coming back into favor, as is vinyl for music. Maybe DVD will get a boost from 4K video.

At the same time there is a number of industries out there where DVD not only maintained its positions, but also improved them over the last two decades. One of them is digital data archiving and preservation. Long term data storage becomes only possible when a storage media is able to resist the external environment challenges, such as temperature and humidity contrasts.

Falcon Technologies International continuously conducts quality assurance tests to make sure that optical media archival solutions are able to store and preserve data for at least 500 yeas. There is no other data storage solution that can guarantee such a long minimum lifespan at the moment. The closest possible technology is 5D quartz disc, but it is still in the stage of concept.

One thing’s for sure, no one could have predicted what the first 20 years of DVD would be like, so don’t even try to guess then next 20.

SOURCE: Computerworld

Exploring the History of Archiving: Exhibit Examines the Evolution of Technology Used to Record Memories

Before we typed on PCs, touched smartphone screens and wrote on paper, people in the past carved into rocks and clay or wrote on trees and even animal bones.

It’s the instinct to record that perhaps set us apart from other species.

It also is through documentation that our memories can expand beyond what our brains can remember and that we can pass down memories to the next generations.

The newly-opened Memory Museum within the National Library of Korea in Seoul, South Korea, sheds light on how documentation evolved throughout history. From pre-historic rock art to Egyptian papyrus; from woodblock to modern printing; from a typewriter to a PC, humans have managed to find a better way to record and store memories and data.

Upon entering the exhibition hall, located within the institution’s digital library building, visitors see a media art piece featuring a human face and a book.

Renowned media artist Lee Lee Nam created the piece to celebrate the opening of the museum. Titled “Face Within a Book,” it features LED lights on metal slates and the lights create five different imageries that represent humans’ creativity and imaginativeness.

It represents that humans are destined to archive, and that books and libraries are important for that reason.

About 200 items are on display.

One of the highlights from the first section of the exhibition, titled “Archival Media, Awakening Civilization,” is the Great Dharani Sutra of Immaculate and Pure Light (Mugujeonggwang Daedaranigyeong), printed in the 8th century during the Unified Silla period (668-935) period. The publication is considered the world’s oldest woodblock print, although what is on display at the museum is a copy.

While this section is more about text, the second section expands to scope into how humans archived pictures and sounds. Naturally, items like cameras and films are displayed here. One of the interesting artifacts in this section is the stereoscopic viewer from the 1900. When people gaze at two photos through the viewer, they get a 3-D effect. Lee Kwi-bok, the chief conservator at the library’s preservation and research center said, “the basic logic is the same as the 3-D equipment today,” adding that such devices were brought to Korea by American missionaries.

The last part focuses on digital archiving, showing how PCs and their components have developed. Korea’s first ever personal computer, SE-8001, developed in 1981, is on display, as well as Korea’s first hard disk drive (HDD), donated by Yonsei University, which can store up to 20 megabytes, as well as Korea’s first semiconductor, donated by Samsung Electronics.

There are some interesting programs that visitors can take part in at the end of the exhibition.

They can write a letter using ancient printing tools, like woodblocks and metal movable types, as well as a typewriter. Also if you have any data on older media formats, like VHS, reel-to-reel tape, cassette tapes or LP records, you can take them to the museum, which can convert the data into a more modern format, like digital files, CDs or DVDs.

“Civilization and the culture today exist because of archiving and media,” director Park Joo-hwan said. “Archiving is what transcends time and space and connects the past with the present. And libraries have been part of this process throughout the history.”

Source: Korea JoongAng Daily

Falcon Technologies International LLC shares these universal values of cultural heritage preservation and puts them as a base for the development of archival media production. We firmly believe that without knowing where we come from, there would be no vision of where are we heading to, therefore data preservation for the future generations is essential.

FalconMEDIA Century Archival is a professional grade optical media, that is able to store and preserve data of any kind for hundreds of years, literally meaning that many things around us may change forever, but the information that is stored under the Century Archival’s Gold Protective Layer will be still accessible.

Stop Worrying And Love The Compact Disc, the format that refuses to lie down…

When the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) released its final figures for 2016, commentators immediately seized upon certain tropes, a few recurring patterns. Vinyl was back, they said – accounting for some 3.2 million album sales. Downloading was over, it followed, with streaming becoming the de facto means of listening to music in the digital environment.

Yet despite 47 million album sales the compact disc was rarely – if ever – mentioned. Sure, the humble CD may have recorded an 11% year on year drop, but let’s put it this way: despite virtually no media attention, despite technology overtaking it, despite record shops remaining out-of-the-way places, the compact disc ratcheted up 47 million sales. That’s almost one per person across the whole of England. That’s a lot of music that nobody talks about.

Of course, there are very good reasons for both sides of this. Firstly, the compact disc itself is an inherently great format.

Launched in 1982, it became the warhorse of the music industry as labels reached their commercial zenith. Vinyl was phased out, cassette never really became the format it promised it would, and the era of the compact disc heralded undreamed of profits – in 1998 the label system reached its titanic bulk, its absolute zenith. It scaled an absolute mountaintop of compact discs.

This flood of money also enabled artists to try new things with the format. Pearl Jam’s 1994 release ‘Vitalogy’ echoed a medical textbook from 1899, fusing imagery and text with outmoded treatises on the nature of life. Eddie Vedder, in fact, was so committed to the idea that an extra 50 cents from the album deal was removed from the band’s end to make it happen.

On the other side of the Atlantic, too, great minds were at work. Spiritualized’s behemoth work of space-rock gospel ‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’ – 20 years old this year – was presented in lavish packaging that echoed the addictions that plagued creative force J Spaceman. Featuring 12 blistered discs, one for each song, the presentation even included faux medicinal advice on their use, and proscribed dosage.

But that’s not all. The CD could be used to ‘hide’ certain tracks, creating wonderful hidden treats for fans. Nirvana smuggled ‘Endless, Nameless’ onto ‘Nevermind’, while even The Stone Roses vastly overblown and absurdly over-hyped ‘Second Coming’ found room for a hidden cut (as if that album needed even more ballast to weigh it down…)

It couldn’t last. With profits flooding in, the music industry channelled its attention to ratcheting up those figures, with the price of CDs going through the roof – searching through charity shop racks now almost feels like peering into an alien world, with long-vanished retailers such as Our Price demanding £14.99 or more for Kula Shaker albums. No wonder the roof fell in.

Napster launched in 1999, ending the music industry’s easy-living 90s in one fell swoop. Profits dropped, panic set in, and a whole series of entertainment companies struggled, and often failed entirely, to adapt. The CD, though, sat through it all – before streaming became viable, before iTunes became the norm, it was sometimes the only thing that kept the music industry afloat, like water wings on a particularly nervous toddler that has somehow made its way to the deep end of the pool.

Perhaps that’s why the compact disc is so unloved. A totemic item of music industry manipulation, it’s also had the misfortune to stand firm, to hold its ground. Vinyl almost disappeared entirely, becoming the occupation of hoarders and record nerds before its resurgence took hold in 2007. The cassette, too, has fallen drastically, with Sony halting production of its iconic Walkman player back in 2010.

The compact disc, though, is still there, still bringing in results. Sold everywhere from niche record shops to Sainsbury’s, it’s ringing in cash registers across the land – even with an 11% drop, 47 million units in 12 months is an imposing figure.

And it’s also a key element of the underground. CD-Rs are easy to smash out, meaning that certain facets of the electronic, noise, and DIY indie scenes are based around the compact disc. It doesn’t take much to make the presentation special, and it’s almost always worth your while – just check out this foldable cardboard sleeve from Scottish group PAWS:

So maybe it’s time to stop worrying and love the compact disc. The CD is the old friend who’s always been there, but you never get around to calling. It’s the solid 7/10 player who never quite gets the match ball. It’s small, it makes pretty rainbow shapes in the sunshine, and if you press pause and then rewind for 30 seconds it might spew out a previously hidden cut.

Of course, they won’t play if you smear jam on them… but then, why would you want to? Compact discs are perfect the way they are.

Source: Clash Music

At the Dawn of the Computer Age: Memories of the “Informational Revolution” Pioneers.

Do you remember your very first computer? Pretty much everyone does; most of the people in their mid-30s, early-40s can still remember these noisy big white boxes with huge square screens and clicking dial-up modems that took ages to download a plain-text news article or even a basic e-mail with no attachments. Well, it took almost 40 years for the technology to get to that point, and there are still alive today witnesses to how it all started in the basements of the world famous universities and colleges.

Joyce Wheeler is someone who saw it all in those early days. She also can still remember her very first computer, and one of the reasons for that is because it was one of the first computers anyone used.

Dr. Joyce Wheeler was among the pioneers of programming

It was EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), a “proto-computer” that was assembled and served scientists at the University of Cambridge back in 1949. Joyce Wheeler was a member of the scientists group who were working on their PhD degree under the supervision of famous astronomer Fred Hoyle. They were researching the reactions inside stars, in particular the star lifecycle stages and their length.

In order to perform the research, Joyce needed some powerful calculating equipment, since the inner workings of the nuclear furnace that keep stars shining is a very complicated problem to solve with use of a human brain, pencil and a piece of paper. Mathematics capable of describing this level of nuclear energy processes is pretty formidable: Joyce remembers that she had to solve a nasty set of differential equations that describe their behavior and composition.

A copy of Edsac is being built at the National Museum of Computing

Completing these calculations manually would almost certainly result in errors, inaccurate data and ultimately could – and probably would – affect the research outcomes. And here is where she met EDSAC – a machine built by Professor Maurice Wilkes, a technical device the size of several average size bedrooms, that was there to do the kind of calculations that Ms. Wheeler needed to be done to complete her advanced degree.

The first challenge for young astrophysics student was to learn the sophisticated language that machine could understand. She was quite familiar with the machine itself, since it was showcased to her prior the start of her degree course in 1954. Being keen to get her research done accurately, Joyce sat down with an instructions booklet and worked her way through dozens of the programming exercises from that pioneering programming manual. That little book was called WWG (after the names of the authors: Maurice Wilkes, David Wheeler and Stanley Gill).

The foundations of programming were laid down by Edsac's creators — The foundations of programming were laid down by Edsac’s creators

While learning the programming, Joyce (whose family name was Blacker at that time) got talking to David Wheeler, since one of her programs was helping to ensure that EDSAC was working well. They eventually got to know each other, fell in love and married in 1957.

Joyce remembers that exciting time in detail: she could not stop wondering what the machine could do for her work. She was able to study the programming quite fast due to her strong mathematical background: she became very quickly able to master the syntax into which she had to translate the endless complex equations.

At certain point of time she realized that programming is very similar to Maths in the sense that one can’t do it for too long.

“I found I could not work at a certain programming job for more than a certain number of hours per day,” Joyce Wheeler remembers. “After that you would not make much progress.”

Research students like Joyce Wheeler had to use Edsac at night

Sometimes the solution to some programming problems that worried her from time to time would come into her mind while she was doing some other things outside of the computer lab: like doing the laundry or having lunch.

“Sometimes it’s better to leave something alone, to pause, and that’s very true of programming.”

When the programming bit was finally done, Joyce Wheeler was allocated a timeslot to run her programs on the EDSAC: it was Friday night. She remembers that this period was perfect for her: there were no lectures the next day she had to attend.

As an operator she was granted the right to run the EDSAC alone, but she had to make sure that everything she did was recorded. A quite common occurence for all the early computers (and EDSAC was no exception) was unexpected crashes. Joyce remembers that only occasionally she was lucky enough to keep machine running all night, and if it did crash, there was little she was allowed to do to try to fix it. Even the cleaners were not allowed to get near EDSAC.

Dr. Wheeler showed Joyce one procedure, that allowed the recalibration of the EDSAC’s two kilobyte memory, but if that did not help, Joyce had no other choice but to stop her work for the night. But despite the regular crashes, she made steady progress on finding out how long different stars would last before they collapsed.

“I got some estimates of a star’s age, how long it was going to last,” she said. “One of the nice things was that with programming you could repeat it. Iterate. You could not do that with a hand calculation. We could add in sample numbers on programs and it could easily check them. I could check my results on the machine very rapidly, which was very useful.”

Now, you should understand that “rapidly” back in the 1950’s meant “not more than 30 minutes”. This is the time that EDSAC required to run a program. After that the results were printed out for the researcher to analyze them. After that you had to re-program and wait another couple of days to run another round of complex calculations. Despite all these delays, Ms. Wheeler felt that she was a part of something that would change the world.

“We were doing work that could not done in any other way,” she said. And even though EDSAC was crude and painfully slow by modern standards, she saw that a revolution had begun.

We at FTI never fail to get inspired by pioneering scientists like Dr. Wheeler, with their single-minded dedication and commitment to innovating new solutions to existing problems, often in lonely circumstances and running against the tide of conventional thinking, driving them to expand the frontiers of discovery and learning in ways that eventually become implemented into normal life for the entire global population. Innovation, research and patience are some of the core values we cherish at FTI, and no-one demonstrated these better than Dr Joyce Wheeler.