In the Steps of Alan Turing: Working in the Digital Age

Computing has developed at an astonishing pace over the last 40 years and Professor Alty has been involved in most aspects from working at the bits/bytes level to higher level management. As a member of the Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils between 1976 and 1981, he chaired a very influential working party on microtechnology which had a major impact both in universities and in industry. One commentator wrote, “This report should be tattooed on the DTI’s backside”! In 1976, he and his team were the first to recognise that the postcode was much more important than assisting the posting of letters, and they pioneered its commercial use. He spent a great deal of effort making computers easier to use for the average person. Between 1984 and 1990, he was Executive Director of the Turing Institute for Artificial Intelligence and became very involved with artificial intelligence research around the world. Between 1990 and 2000, his research team made significant improvements to critical computer interfaces in power stations and aircraft. In the 1990s, Professor Alty examined the techniques of musical composition and showed that they could be used in computer interfaces. In 1996, he pioneered the commercial use of digital radio, producing with Roberts Radio the first successful DAB radio, one of which is on display in the British Science Museum. Finally, in 2000 he and his team performed some important research into dyslexia, which is still highly quoted even today. This book provides an interesting insight into working in the digital age.

James Lenton Alty was born in 1939 three years after Turing’s famous 1936 paper. After obtaining a First-Class Honours in Physics at the University of Liverpool, he obtained a PhD in Nuclear Physics which depended heavily on computer development and guided him, in 1968, to work in commercial computing with IBM (initially as a systems engineer and later as a salesman). In 1972 he was appointed Director and Professor of Computing Services at Liverpool University. It was there that he became interested in the study of the Human-Computer Interface.

Whilst at Liverpool, he was a member of the Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils and chaired an important Working Party on Microtechnology whose report – the “Alty Report” had a considerable influence on the take-up of the new technology. His team also brought the post code into common use in 1975.

In 1982 he was appointed Professor of Computer Science at Strathclyde University and was concurrently appointed the Executive Director of the Turing Institute for Artificial Intelligence based in Glasgow (1984–1989). There, he became closely involved with people who had worked with Turing. He also set up, with Heriot-Watt University, the Scottish Human Computer Interaction Centre.

Between 1990 and 2012, he was appointed Prof of Computer Science at Loughborough University. He and his research team worked with many colleagues across Europe improving the computer interfaces to large industrial plants. The team also introduced the first portable DAB radio with Roberts Radio. There is an example of their radio in the UK Science Museum.

He has been involved in many different aspects of digital computing – artificial intelligence, digital audio broadcasting, computer aided learning and interface design. In 2000, he and his research team investigated how different combinations of output media affected student learning and in 2003 produced a key paper on dyslexia.

Prof Alty is a musician and composes music. He used his musical knowledge to introduce music into the computer interface. In one well-known example, he created a Bubble Sort algorithm which output music and listeners could clearly follow what was happening by just listening to the music output!

He has experienced university life both as a researcher, and in management as a Head of Department and later as Dean of the Science Faculty. He continued to work at Loughborough University until he fully retired in 2012.