"bert" wrote in message ...

In article , Martin
writes
On Fri, 18 May 2018 11:20:01 +0100, Broadback

wrote:

On 17/05/2018 20:49, bert wrote:
In article , David
writes
On Wed, 16 May 2018 20:55:20 +0100, bert wrote:

End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

Umble.....

ICL System 4/70 with MultiJob.
Aka Multibodge
COBOL programmer.
ICL 2970, 2980, 2988.
George 3 under DME on ICL 2960/2966.
Then I turned to the dark side and got involved with IBM PCs.
Then Unix.
Then IBM PC compatibles.

Thankfully all behind me now. :-)

Ah, memories.


Dave R



With all that government interference is it any wonder that the UK
computer systems manufacturing has failed!

The govt. interference was bailing out failed companies.
Not quite. It was recognising the reality of the scale of the competition.
IBM UK had a bigger turnover than ICL yet ICL managed to produce an
operating system which BP rated better than IBMs - but they bought IBM
anyway. ICTs 1900 series whilst a good system was a dead end. The
individual companies stood no chance of surviving on their own. But like
IBM they filed to recognise the threat/opportunities from the PC and the
minis which followed.


The 1900 series was basically a Ferranti Argus 500 implemented in a
different physical form - the instruction set and word format were identical

Andrew Mawson