What did south Wales ever do for Computing?

South Wales has long been a major industrial region so it should not be surprising that computing has a long history in south Wales, certainly greater than most people are aware of. For example:

• The first computer in Wales was a Ferranti Pegasus, bought to design the new Abbey Steel Works at Port Talbot.
• When built, these same steelworks used computers within the manufacturing automation in new and often world leading ways.
• Computers have been manufactured in Newport since the 1950s, such as the Stantec Zebra, Inmos Transputer, and Apple iMac.

• One of the earliest ‘Big Data’ centres in the UK was the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Centre in Swansea.
• Major early developments of the Linux operating system were undertaken in Swansea University.

• The web’s Internet Movie Database began life in Cardiff University.