Part of one floor of the Atlas installation (courtesy Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)) We are all so used to CGI that it's not even a surprise these days when the effects on Dr Who are passable. But 50 years ago, things were very different. Usually the only computer animation you could expect was watching the punched tape or cards fly through the reader. But where was the first seed planted for the future wonders of CGI that would make practically any modern science fiction or action film possible? Was it MIT? Hollywood? No, it was Oxfordshire. In the wonderful Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Let me hand you over to Marion at the Science & Technology Facilities Council (based in sunny Swindon): UK computing is today celebrating fifty years since the launch of what was at that time the largest supercomputer in the world, the Atlas 1. When built it was the size of a large detached house.  Now that same compu...