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The Drawing Office - Pen and Ink to Computer Aided Design

From Drawing Board to Computer Screen

John Hahn talks about the coming of the first Computer to Bristol aerospace in 1955

Make sure your volume is on: "...we installed our first computer and, that was the start..."

Show transcript

‘Yes, in May 1955 we installed our first computer and, that was the start of building up from scratch what became a major computing and simulation facility, which supported the operations of both aircraft and guided missile engineering organisations.’
‘One of the things that happened eventually, was the elimination of the drawing board. When I first worked in the structures department, there were scores and scores of drawing boards. Eventually there were computer systems developed where the designer, instead of using a drawing board, used a computer terminal and the actual drawing part was done by the computer not by the draftsman, so eventually when I retired there were virtually no drawing boards left, and in their place were computer terminals with a screen which displayed the structure as it was gradually built up.’

Credit: Filton Community History
If you would like to hear more Filton Community History oral recordings please contact Gloucestershire Archives.

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