This book illustrates important ways in which new parallel hardware is being used to improve the speed and usefulness of a variety of information systems. It contains thirteen original papers that survey the latest trends in performance enhancing architectures for smart information systems.

The machines featured in the text have been designed to support information systems ranging from relational databases to semantic networks and other artificial intelligence paradigms. In addition, many of the projects illustrated in the book contain generic architectural ideas that support...

This book charts the take-up of IT in Britain, as seen through the eyes of one company. It examines how the dawn of the digital computer age in Britain took place for different applications, from early government-sponsored work on secret defence projects, to the growth of the market for Elliott computers for civil applications. Features: charts the establishment of Elliott's Borehamwood Research Laboratories, and the roles played by John Coales and Leon Bagrit; examines early Elliott digital computers designed for classified military applications and for GCHQ; describes the analogue computers...