UK government (EPSRC) funding was withdrawn in 2001 and student numbers dropped dramatically.
The introduction of this one-year graduate course was motivated by a University of Cambridge Mathematics Faculty Board Report on the "demand for postgraduate instruction in numerical analysis and automatic computing … [which] if not met, there is a danger that the application to scientific research of the machines now being built will be hampered".
The University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory "was one of the pioneers in the development and use of electronic computing-machines (sic)".
The Diploma "would include theoretical and practical work … [and also] instruction about the various types of computing-machine … and the principles of design on which they are based."
In its final incarnation, the Diploma was a 10-month course, evaluated two-thirds on examination and one-third on a project dissertation.