1913-

English physicist and computer scientist who developed the first stored-program computer—the EDSAC—and later assisted in the creation of the first computer network, called the "Cambridge Ring," in the mid-1970s. Wilkes headed the computing laboratory at Cambridge, where, after meeting computer pioneers Howard Aiken and Sam Caldwell on a trip to America in 1946, he set out to build his own computer, one that could store programs. The EDSAC (electronic delay storage automatic calculator) was completed in June 1949, followed by EDSAC 2 in 1958. The EDSAC 2 was the first computer to have a microprogrammed control unit.