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

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

On Wed, 16 May 2018 21:19:58 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

I worked in an ICL/Elliott 4130 for some years, and then an ICL 2960.

ICL was an amalgamation (nationalisation) of several companies, and had
an excess of (not very good) middle managers - rather like BT now. We had
to deal with them, at least indirectly - not a good experience except in
rare cases.

There's an apocryphal story about one such manager, which indicates their
general reputation:

"He went to a meeting at West Gorton. At the end of the day he met a
colleague in reception, and they agreed to share a taxi back to
Piccadilly Station. On the train home, he was perplexed that he couldn't
find the return half of his ticket, and didn't have enough money to pay
the guard. He had to leave his name and address. The colleague offered
him a lift home from Watford Station, which was gratefully accepted. On
arrival, he invited the driver in for a sherry, telling his wife how
grateful he was for the lift from the station. 'Oh, whatever's
happened?', she replied. 'Where on earth is the car?'. Actually, it was
in Manchester, because he had gone there by road."



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Well, is not ICL now part of Fujitsu?
There are still a lot of old mainframes etc floating about in museums,
though whether any work or can be used to demonstrate anything is debatable.
Brian

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"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

On 17/05/2018 09:02, Brian Gaff wrote:
Well, is not ICL now part of Fujitsu?
There are still a lot of old mainframes etc floating about in museums,
though whether any work or can be used to demonstrate anything is debatable.
Brian

ICL Kidsgrove died quite some time ago. Incidentally there is a van
parked outside a small computer company next to the A34 near Trentham
gardens, it seems the company have an agreement with Fujitsu to use the
ICL logo. so not quite dead yet.

On Thu, 17 May 2018 09:02:19 +0100, Brian Gaff wrote:

Well, is not ICL now part of Fujitsu?
There are still a lot of old mainframes etc floating about in museums,
though whether any work or can be used to demonstrate anything is
debatable.
Brian

There's a working Elliott 803 at NMoC, and they have a 2966 almost
working - won't be long now.

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On 17/05/2018 10:33, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 17 May 2018 09:02:19 +0100, Brian Gaff wrote:

Well, is not ICL now part of Fujitsu?
There are still a lot of old mainframes etc floating about in museums,
though whether any work or can be used to demonstrate anything is
debatable.
Brian

There's a working Elliott 803 at NMoC, and they have a 2966 almost
working - won't be long now.

First flow diagram I ever wrote was coded up to run on an 803. To do,
potentially, a brute force attack on Fermat's last theorem. A guy from
Distillers in Burgh Heath gave a talk at our 6th form science club (mid
60's) and got us to do flow diagrams which he coded up, and brought back
the results a month later. Mine was one of the few that ran (sort of)
correctly. Except that it found 5, 12, 13 *and* 12, 5, 13. My coding
improved somewhat after that.

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On Thu, 17 May 2018 13:53:54 +0200, Martin wrote:

On Wed, 16 May 2018 21:19:58 +0100, Tim Watts
wrote:

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

HP didn't grab them, they bought what was left after DEC went bust.

Well, not quite. Compaq bought what was left. Then HP bought what was
left of Compaq.

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On 16/05/2018 21:19, Tim Watts wrote:
On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

Actually Compaq grabbed them first before HP took over.

Tim Watts wrote:

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

It was Compaq who bought DEC. Then a few years later HP bought Compaq.

--
Geoff Clare

On 17/05/2018 10:33, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 17 May 2018 09:02:19 +0100, Brian Gaff wrote:

Well, is not ICL now part of Fujitsu?
There are still a lot of old mainframes etc floating about in museums,
though whether any work or can be used to demonstrate anything is
debatable.
Brian

There's a working Elliott 803 at NMoC, and they have a 2966 almost
working - won't be long now.


The LOndon Hospital computer centre had an Elliot 803. Apparently
it had tape drives where the tape was like a 35 mm film, with sprocket
holes.

That was then replaced by a Univac 418-III in the late 60's, with a
massive horizontal drum called a FastRand, where the read write heads
were a long bar that was moved from side to side across the drum,
which was about 6 feet wide. It also had 4 'spin dryer' drums that
allowed an access time of 4.25 millseconds which was fast for that
era. These could never be powered off because they developed a
vibration at a particular speed which wrecked the bearings. The card
reader was the size of car. Needed a 400 Mhz power supply which occupied
a room all on its own.

It was an 18 bit one's complement machine, so Octal 777776 was -1 and
777777 was minus zero which generated an error stop. Also, no stack.
Calling a subroutine meant using an assembler instruction SLJ (sludge)
- store location and jump, so you could go to any depth you liked,
except that it only had 128 *K* words of 18-bit memory so the London
Hospital real-time system was an RTOS batch job that ran all day and
within that the 16 available files were logically mapped to provide
multiple inhouse database files, with transaction processing and full
before and after journalling and logical transactions. 128 Uniscope
VDUs and printers around the hospital provided 24/7 services to all
the wards and clinics in the 1970's when few commercial programmers
had even heard of the concept of a logical transaction.

All written in Univac assembler and developed using punched cards by
hospital staff programmers. :-)

On Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:09:55 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:

Here's our first one being installed.



https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/...-mary-college/

I wasn't there at the time.

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. 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


--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64

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On 17/05/2018 18:16, David wrote:

...
Then I turned to the dark side and got involved with IBM PCs.


25 years at IBM for me, 16 of those in the PC Co.
By 2000 there were six large office blocks overflowing with IBMers here
in Basingstoke. Today - nothing.

--
Reentrant

On Thu, 17 May 2018 17:16:51 +0000, David wrote:

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. 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.

Incomplete as yet, but:

http://www.bobeager.uk/ihaveused.html


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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



--
bert

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:09:55 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:

Here's our first one being installed.



https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/...-mary-college/

I wasn't there at the time.

Hilarious how the fool 'supervising' the film gets a Mr title but the serfs
dont.

On 17/05/2018 18:40, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 17 May 2018 17:16:51 +0000, David wrote:

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. 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.

Incomplete as yet, but:

http://www.bobeager.uk/ihaveused.html

My first job was on VME/K development. It should have been canned years
before. We'd just about got it working and reliable (SV18) when ICL
finally did pull the plug. On a system with a larger order book than
installed base... I never went to West Gorton, though Kidsgrove was a
frequent trip, all the way from Bracknell.

I'm still developing S/W now. The machines have a thousand times more
RAM, and run a thousand times faster. But now they fit in my pocket!


Andy

On Thu, 17 May 2018 21:43:27 +0100, Vir Campestris wrote:

On 17/05/2018 18:40, Bob Eager wrote:
Incomplete as yet, but:

http://www.bobeager.uk/ihaveused.html


My first job was on VME/K development. It should have been canned years
before. We'd just about got it working and reliable (SV18) when ICL
finally did pull the plug. On a system with a larger order book than
installed base... I never went to West Gorton, though Kidsgrove was a
frequent trip, all the way from Bracknell.

VME/K was a mess. The last version we used was SV12. SV13 was a big
change and it was wholly unsuitable for us. So we moved to the homebrew
operating system, which increased the MTBF from 20 hours to about 2000!
And was more functional.

You might like to read my anecdotes:

http://www.bobeager.uk/anecdotes.html

some of which are VME/K (or 2900) related.

Also, have you read the 'ICL Anthology' books (which are the source of
the story of the middle manager and his car)?



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"Martin" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 16 May 2018 21:19:58 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

HP didn't grab them, they bought what was left after DEC went bust.

--


ICL West Gorton was originally Ferranti West Gorton. ICL was formed from ICT
and bits of Ferranti and government money. I can remember the ICY sign
coming down on their office at Putney Bridge and the ICL sign going up. Late
1960's I think

Andrew

In article ,
"Andrew Mawson" writes:
"Martin" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 16 May 2018 21:19:58 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

HP didn't grab them, they bought what was left after DEC went bust.

ICL West Gorton was originally Ferranti West Gorton. ICL was formed from ICT
and bits of Ferranti and government money. I can remember the ICY sign
coming down on their office at Putney Bridge and the ICL sign going up. Late
1960's I think

ICT also got the data processing parts of English Electric and
Elliot Automation and Marconi, as the government tried to merge all
the data processing expertise into one British company in the hope
it would create a company which could compete in the world.

Likewise, all the process control and military computing from
English Electric and Marconi was merged into Elliott Automation,
which became Marconi Elliott Computer Systems briefly, and then
GEC Computers a year later. GEC later also absorbed the process
control and military computing from Ferranti (I think that's all
that was left of Ferranti by then).

The agreements around these government driven mergers forbid
ICT (ICL) from building process control systems, and forbid
Elliott Automation (GEC) from building data processing systems
for some years afterwards, so they would both concentrate on
their areas of expertise and not try to compete with each other.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

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!

On Thu, 17 May 2018 14:09:50 +0100, Andrew
wrote:

The card reader was the size of car. Needed a 400 Mhz power supply which occupied
a room all on its own.

400Hz I could possibly believe, 400kHz you might find in a modern switch mode
power supply, but 400Mhz for a power supply is a load of ********.

--

On Fri, 18 May 2018 12:23:39 +0200, Martin wrote:

On 17 May 2018 17:40:25 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 17 May 2018 17:16:51 +0000, David wrote:

On Wed, 16 May 2018 20:55:20 +0100, bert wrote:

End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...%20Gorton.jpg?
dl=0

Umble.....

ICL System 4/70 with MultiJob. 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.

Incomplete as yet, but:

http://www.bobeager.uk/ihaveused.html

Did you also discover that Honeywell DDP 516 interface hardware had both
design and construction faults?

I did more on hacking the CPU than anything else.



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On Fri, 18 May 2018 10:09:12 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Andrew Mawson
wrote:

ICL West Gorton was originally Ferranti West Gorton. ICL was formed from
ICT and bits of Ferranti and government money.

Don't forget Elliott Automation and English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM)
which were also force-merged into ICL.

And, going back a bit, The British Tabulating Machine Co. and Powers
Samas!



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On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 11:20:04 AM UTC+1, Broadback wrote:
With all that government interference is it any wonder that the UK
computer systems manufacturing has failed!

It was already failing as far back as the mid-60s. There was a
fragmented collection of companies who were each failing to produce
competitive systems. The government response was two-fold - try and
consolidate the industry in an effort to catch up with the Americans,
and meanwhile allow the top universities and essential government
departments to buy American. I.e. even by the mid-60s it was
recognised that a buy-British policy meant the UK's industrial and
scientific progress was being held back by substandard equipment.

I've never used an Elliot 803 although I did once win a programming
contest on the one at TNMoC. But I do have a manual for it and it's
an appalling mess. Absolutely no comparison with IBM manuals of the
same vintage or even earlier, for clarity and usability.

On Fri, 18 May 2018 14:58:52 +0200, Martin wrote:

On 18 May 2018 11:47:41 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Fri, 18 May 2018 10:09:12 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Andrew Mawson
wrote:

ICL West Gorton was originally Ferranti West Gorton. ICL was formed
from ICT and bits of Ferranti and government money.

Don't forget Elliott Automation and English Electric Leo Marconi
(EELM)
which were also force-merged into ICL.

And, going back a bit, The British Tabulating Machine Co. and Powers
Samas!
+1

Nobody ever mentions one of the last computer makers in UK CTL/ITL

I remember them. A friend of mine used to work for them. Must add the
Modular One to a list of machines I've used.



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On Fri, 18 May 2018 05:24:16 -0700, algrant109 wrote:

On Friday, May 18, 2018 at 11:20:04 AM UTC+1, Broadback wrote:
With all that government interference is it any wonder that the UK
computer systems manufacturing has failed!

It was already failing as far back as the mid-60s. There was a
fragmented collection of companies who were each failing to produce
competitive systems. The government response was two-fold - try and
consolidate the industry in an effort to catch up with the Americans,
and meanwhile allow the top universities and essential government
departments to buy American. I.e. even by the mid-60s it was recognised
that a buy-British policy meant the UK's industrial and scientific
progress was being held back by substandard equipment.

I've never used an Elliot 803 although I did once win a programming
contest on the one at TNMoC. But I do have a manual for it and it's an
appalling mess. Absolutely no comparison with IBM manuals of the same
vintage or even earlier, for clarity and usability.

The Elliott 4130, which I started using in 1970, was very clean and
simple.

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
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On Fri, 18 May 2018 14:50:20 +0200, Martin wrote:

On 18 May 2018 11:45:26 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Fri, 18 May 2018 12:23:39 +0200, Martin wrote:

On 17 May 2018 17:40:25 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 17 May 2018 17:16:51 +0000, David wrote:

On Wed, 16 May 2018 20:55:20 +0100, bert wrote:

End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...%20Gorton.jpg?
dl=0

Umble.....

ICL System 4/70 with MultiJob. 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.

Incomplete as yet, but:

http://www.bobeager.uk/ihaveused.html

Did you also discover that Honeywell DDP 516 interface hardware had
both design and construction faults?

I did more on hacking the CPU than anything else.

I started with a bootstrap loader an assembler and Honeywell diagnostic
programmes that in many cases did nothing. Most of the diagnostics
didn't use interrupts. In most cases the hardware was wrong and either
didn't trigger interrupts or triggered them at the wrong time. I wrote a
simple OS and drivers for most devices before getting on with what I
really wanted to do

This is part of what I did:

http://www.bobeager.uk/anecdotes.html#CPUhack

--
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wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
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On Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 9:31:04 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:09:55 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:

Here's our first one being installed.



https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/...-mary-college/

I wasn't there at the time.

Hilarious how the fool 'supervising' the film gets a Mr title but the serfs
dont.

He obviously wasn't supervising whoever made up the credits.

Terribly cheesy soundtrack (even a bit of Animal Magic in there!) and the cameraman just had to find a pair of female legs to slowly pan up.

In article , Tim Streater
writes
In article , Andrew Mawson
wrote:

ICL West Gorton was originally Ferranti West Gorton. ICL was formed
from ICT and bits of Ferranti and government money.

Don't forget Elliott Automation and English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM)
which were also force-merged into ICL.

EELM had become English Electric Computers before the merger.
--
bert

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.
--
bert

On 16/05/18 20:55, bert wrote:
End of an era
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot7sw7v9nd...orton.jpg?dl=0

I'm old but alas ICL means nothing to me - I was a DEC fan and sadly HP
grabbed them yonks ago....

They were International Computers Limited, quite a prestigious
institution in the 60's and 70's, working all over the world. I went
seeking a job with them for an interview in their London head office in
around 1969, referred there by their Leeds office.

In article ,
Tim Streater writes:
In article , Andrew Mawson
wrote:

ICL West Gorton was originally Ferranti West Gorton. ICL was formed from ICT
and bits of Ferranti and government money.

Don't forget Elliott Automation and English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM)
which were also force-merged into ICL.

Only parts of them - both Elliott Automation and English Electric
continued existing afterwards. I described the technology split
between ICT and Elliott Automation elsewhere in the thread
(data processing computing to ICT, and process control and military
computing to Elliott Automation which changed names a couple more
times to GEC Computers and some bits to other GEC companies such as
EASAMS).

English Electric got all the non-computing bits of the merging
businesses, but almost immediately afterwards became part of GEC.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Halmyre" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 9:31:04 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:09:55 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:

Here's our first one being installed.



https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/...-mary-college/

I wasn't there at the time.

Hilarious how the fool 'supervising' the film gets a Mr title but the
serfs
dont.

He obviously wasn't supervising whoever made up the credits.

Terribly cheesy soundtrack (even a bit of Animal Magic in there!)

Yeah, had the same reaction to that.

and the cameraman just had to find a pair of female legs to slowly pan up.

And the lighting at the start was absolutely obscene. Not as bad later.

And that ****wit with an unlit fag in his mouth.

"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

In article ,
Bob Eager writes:
The Elliott 4130, which I started using in 1970, was very clean and
simple.

The 4130 was a joint development with NCR.
They both sold them under their own names, but in different market sectors.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Brian Gaff wrote:

Well, is not ICL now part of Fujitsu?

Yes, now Fujitsu Services.
Now do services for many platforms: ICL, IBM, BS2000, x86 etc.

ICL "mainframes" are now x86 based.

Paul.

On Friday, 18 May 2018 16:51:30 UTC+1, Halmyre wrote:
On Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 9:31:04 PM UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:09:55 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:

Here's our first one being installed.



https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/...-mary-college/

I wasn't there at the time.

Hilarious how the fool 'supervising' the film gets a Mr title but the serfs
dont.

He obviously wasn't supervising whoever made up the credits.

Terribly cheesy soundtrack (even a bit of Animal Magic in there!) and the cameraman just had to find a pair of female legs to slowly pan up.

Well I guess he hadn't had muchopportunity to do it with male legs, remmeber this is 1968. The year before h;ed have been though of as gay if he was caught filmimg mens legs if he could find any on show that is.