Ishiguro Storm Surge Computer

In 1957 Shizuo Ishiguro, a Japanese oceanographer who had been developing analogue methods for predicting ocean surges joined the NIO to apply his work to the North Sea.

Ishiguro continued to develop and apply his analogue model until the early 1980s, when improvements in digital computers led many oceanographers to favour numerical simulations.

Ishiguro's storm surge computer was then acquired by the Science Museum, London where it is part of a display in the Mathematics Gallery about modelling the seas.

A film made by the NIO showing Ishiguro's explanation of the computer is in the archives of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton.

Inputs were made using a Commodore CBM 8032 Computer with 5¼" floppy disk drives; the output was displayed on an Advance Instruments OS-240 oscilloscope and recorded photographically.