Editing Christopher Strachey (section)

==Career==
Unable to continue his education, Strachey joined [[Standard Telephones and Cables]] (STC) as a research physicist. His first job was providing mathematical analysis for the design of [[Vacuum tube|electron tubes]] used in [[radar]]. The complexity of the calculations required the use of a [[differential analyzer|differential analyser]]. This initial experience with a computing machine sparked Strachey's interest and he began to research the topic. An application for a research degree at the University of Cambridge was rejected and Strachey continued to work at STC throughout the [[Second World War]]. After the war he fulfilled a long-standing ambition by becoming a schoolmaster at [[St Edmund's School, Canterbury]], teaching mathematics and physics. Three years later he was able to move to the more prestigious [[Harrow School]] in 1949, where he stayed for three years.
[[File:Christopher Strachey's Draughts Program.png|alt=Christopher Strachey's Draughts 1952 photo evidence of the first video game|thumb|Draughts on a storage CRT, 1952]]
In January 1951, a friend introduced him to [[Mike Woodger]] of the [[National Physical Laboratory, UK|National Physical Laboratory]] (NPL). The lab had successfully built a reduced version of Alan Turing's [[Automatic Computing Engine]] (ACE) the concept of which dated from 1945: the [[Pilot ACE]]. In his spare time, Strachey developed a [[Christopher Strachey's Checkers Program|preliminary version]] of a program for the game of [[English draughts|draughts]] ("checkers" in American English) in May 1951. This may have been the first video game. The game completely exhausted the Pilot ACE's memory. The draughts program failed due to program errors when it first ran at NPL on 30 July 1951.<ref name="PRIESTHOOD">{{cite web|title=The Priesthood at Play: Computer Games in the 1950s|url=https://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/the-priesthood-at-play-computer-games-in-the-1950s/|work=They Create Worlds |access-date=28 August 2017 |date=22 January 2014}}</ref> When Strachey heard about the [[Manchester Mark 1]], which had a much bigger memory, he asked his former fellow-student Alan Turing for the manual and transcribed his program into the [[operation code]]s of that machine by around October 1951. By the summer of 1952, the program could "play a complete game of Draughts at a reasonable speed".<ref name="AlanTuring ">{{cite web|title=What is Artificial Intelligence|url=http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/pages/Reference%20Articles/what_is_AI/What%20is%20AI04.html|work=AlanTuring.net|access-date=28 August 2017 |date=May 2000}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference | first=C. S. | last=Strachey | title=Logical or non-mathematical programmes | conference=ACM '52: Proceedings of the 1952 ACM National Meeting (Toronto) | page=47 | date=September 1952 | doi=10.1145/800259.808992 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfgUAQAAMAAJ&q=%22play+a+complete+game+of+draughts+at+a+reasonable+speed%22| url-access=subscription }}</ref> While he did not give this game  a name, [[Noah Wardrip-Fruin]] named it "M. U. C. Draughts."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wardrip-Fruin |first1=Noah |title=How Pac-Man Eats |date=December 2020 |publisher=The MIT Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=9780262044653 |page=121 |edition=1 |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/how-pac-man-eats}}</ref>

Strachey programmed the first [[Computer music]] in England – the earliest recording of music played by a computer: a rendition of the British National Anthem "[[God Save the King]]" on the University of Manchester's [[Ferranti Mark 1]] computer, in 1951. Later that year, short extracts of three pieces were recorded there by a [[BBC]] outside broadcasting unit: "God Save the King", "[[Baa, Baa, Black Sheep]]", and "[[In the Mood]]". Researchers at the [[University of Canterbury]], Christchurch restored the acetate master disc in 2016 and the results may be heard on [[SoundCloud]].<ref name="Turing">{{cite web|title=First recording of computer-generated music – created by Alan Turing – restored |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/26/first-recording-computer-generated-music-created-alan-turing-restored-enigma-code |work=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=28 August 2017 |date=26 September 2016}}</ref><ref name="BL-2016-09">{{cite web|title=Restoring the first recording of computer music – Sound and vision blog|url=http://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2016/09/restoring-the-first-recording-of-computer-music.html|publisher=[[British Library]]|access-date=28 August 2017|date=13 September 2016}}</ref>

During the summer of 1952, Strachey programmed a [[Strachey love letter algorithm|love letter generator]] for the [[Ferranti Mark 1]] that is known as the first example of [[Electronic literature|computer-generated literature]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rettberg |first=Jill Walker |date=October 3, 2021 |title=Speculative Interfaces: How Electronic Literature Uses the Interface to Make Us Think about Technology |url=https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/speculative-interfaces-how-electronic-literature-uses-the-interface-to-make-us-think-about-technology/ |journal=Electronic Book Review |language=en |doi=10.7273/1XSG-NV26}}</ref>

In May 1952, Strachey gave a two-part talk on "the study of control in animals and machines" ("[[cybernetics]]") for the [[BBC Home Service]]'s ''Science Survey'' programme.<ref name="ScienceSurvey-1">{{cite web|title=Science Survey – BBC Home Service Basic – 1 May 1952 | work=BBC Genome|date=May 1952 |url=http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/f6aaf5636e1645fdbd6aec1d09457dd2|publisher=[[BBC]]|access-date=28 August 2017}}</ref><ref name="ScienceSurvey-2">{{cite web|title=Science Survey – BBC Home Service Basic – 8 May 1952 | work=BBC Genome|date=8 May 1952 |url=http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/fc726824fbdb45aeaca5173a18211e31|publisher=BBC|access-date=28 August 2017}}</ref>

Strachey worked for the [[National Research Development Corporation]] (NRDC) from 1952 to 1959. While working on the St. Lawrence Seaway project, he was able to visit several computer centres in the United States and catalogue their [[instruction set]]s. Later, he worked on programming both the [[Elliott Brothers (computer company)|Elliott 401]] computer and the [[Pegasus (computer)|Ferranti Pegasus]] computer.  Together with [[Donald B. Gillies]], he filed three patents in computing design, including the design of base registers for program relocation.  He also worked on the analysis of vibration in aircraft, working briefly with [[Roger Penrose]].

In 1959, Strachey left NRDC to become a computer consultant working for NRDC, [[EMI]], [[Ferranti]], and other organisations on several wide-ranging projects. This work included logical design for computers, providing [[autocode]] and, later, the design of [[high-level programming languages]]. For a contract to produce the autocode for the [[Ferranti Orion]] computer, Strachey hired [[Peter Landin]] who became his one assistant for the duration of Strachey's consulting period.

Strachey developed the concept of [[time-sharing]] in 1959.<ref name="computer">{{Cite web |title=Computer Pioneers – Christopher Strachey |url=https://history.computer.org/pioneers/strachey.html |access-date=2020-01-23 |website=history.computer.org |quote=What Strachey proposed in his concept of time-sharing was an arrangement that would preserve the direct contact between programmer and machine, while still achieving the economy of multiprogramming.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Computer – Time-sharing and minicomputers |url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/computer/Time-sharing-and-minicomputers |access-date=2020-01-23 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en |quote=In 1959 Christopher Strachey in the United Kingdom and John McCarthy in the United States independently described something they called time-sharing.}}</ref> He filed a patent application in February that year and gave a paper entitled "Time Sharing in Large Fast Computers" at the inaugural [[International Federation for Information Processing#History|UNESCO Information Processing Conference]] in Paris where he passed the concept on to [[J. C. R. Licklider]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gillies |first1=James M. |url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/12/mode/2up?q=strachey |title=How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web |last2=Gillies |first2=James |last3=Gillies |first3=James and Cailliau Robert |last4=Cailliau |first4=R. |date=2000 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-286207-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/13 13] |language=en |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Reminiscences on the Theory of Time-Sharing |url=http://jmc.stanford.edu/computing-science/timesharing.html |access-date=2020-01-23 |website=jmc.stanford.edu |quote=in 1960 'time-sharing' as a phrase was much in the air.  It was, however, generally used in my sense rather than in John McCarthy's sense of a CTSS-like object.}}</ref> This paper is credited by the [[MIT Computation Center]] in 1963 as "the first paper on time-shared computers".<ref name="ctsspg" />

In 1962, while remaining a consultant, he accepted a position at the [[University of Cambridge]].

In 1965, Strachey accepted a position at the [[University of Oxford]] as the first director of the [[Programming Research Group]] and later the university's first professor of computer science and fellow of [[Wolfson College, Oxford]]. He collaborated with [[Dana Scott]].

Strachey was elected as a distinguished fellow of the [[British Computer Society]] in 1971 for his pioneering work in computer science.

In 1973, Strachey (along with [[Robert Milne (telecommunications consultant)|Robert Milne]]) began to write an essay submitted to the [[Adams Prize]] competition, after which they continued work to revising it into book form.  Strachey can be seen and heard in the recorded Lighthill debate on AI<ref>{{Citation|last=bilkable|title=The Lighthill Debate (1973) – part 6 of 6|date=12 September 2010|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GZWFnWOqkA|access-date=27 October 2017}}</ref> (see [[Lighthill report]]).

He developed the [[Combined Programming Language]] (CPL). His influential set of lecture notes ''[[Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages]]'' formalised the distinction between [[value (computer science)|L- and R- values]] (as seen in the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]]). Strachey also coined the term ''[[currying]]'',{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}} although he did not invent the underlying concept.

He was instrumental in the design of the [[Ferranti Pegasus]] computer.

The macro language [[m4 (computer language)|m4]] derives much from Strachey's GPM ([[General Purpose Macrogenerator]]), one of the earliest [[General Purpose Macro Processor|macro expansion languages]].<ref>C. Strachey: "A General Purpose Macrogenerator", ''[[The Computer Journal]]'', '''8'''(3):225–241, 1965.</ref>

Strachey contracted an illness diagnosed as [[jaundice]], which after a period of seeming recovery returned, and he died of infectious [[hepatitis]] on 18 May 1975.<ref name="computer" /> After his death, Strachey was succeeded by Sir [[Tony Hoare]] as Head of the Programming Research Group at Oxford, starting in 1977.