In 1945 Edwards enrolled at the University of Manchester to read physics. After graduating in 1948 he became a research student working for
Frederic C. Williams in the Department of Electro-Technics on the
Small-Scale Electronic Machine (SSEM) computer, also known as "The Baby", the world's first stored-program digital computer. Edwards subsequently worked on the
Manchester Mark 1 computer, improving the
cathode-ray tube (CRT) memory, extending the machine's instruction set, and implementing programmable data transfers between the magnetic storage drum and the CRT. Edwards was awarded a
Master of Science degree in 1949, was appointed
Lecturer in 1950 and gained his
PhD in 1954. for his work on the "Megacycle Machine" (MEG) which was commercialised by
Ferranti in 1957 as the
Mercury computer. In 1959 he led the engineering team for the MUSE/
Atlas computer. This led to his co-invention, with
Tom Kilburn, Frank Sumner and M.J. Lanigan, of
virtual memory. In 1964 he joined the University's newly-created
Department of Computer Science as
Reader, and in 1965 he and Kilburn established the Department's undergraduate programme. He was appointed Professor of Computer Engineering in 1966. Edwards served as Head of the Department of Computer Science (1980–1987),
Dean of the
Faculty of Science (1982–1983) and retired from the University in 1988. Edwards' papers are held at the
University of Manchester Library.
Selected publications • • • • • Edwards, D.B.G., Lanigan, M.J. and Kinniment, D.J., 1964, September. High-speed ferrite-core storage system. In
Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (Vol. 111, No. 9, pp. 1501-1510). IEE. • Edwards, David BG, Alan E. Knowles, and J. V. Woods. "MU6-G. A new design to achieve mainframe performance from a mini-sized computer." In Proceedings of the 7th annual symposium on Computer Architecture, pp. 161-167. 1980. • == Personal life ==