| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
International Computers Ltd was formed in 1968 from a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), part of English Electric, and Elliot Automation. This was an initiative under Tony Benn, the UK Minister for Technology , to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM.
ICT had emerged in the UK with the punch card era with equipment that would process data encoded on punched cards - 40 column cards in the case of ICT - (compared to the 64 or 80 column cards used by IBM and its predecessors).
Initially the data was entered onto punched cards and then verified (by a second operator) prior to processing, hence the job title of Punch Card Operator.
The resulting packs of punched cards were then processed, initially to agree the batch of data with pre-prepared control totals, and then accepted into the operational systems.
Other equipment such as sorters, collators, and tabulators were used to prepare and process the batch(s) of punched cards (hence the term Batch Processing).
The tabulator/accumulators could tabulate (or print) the information from the cards, and although mechanical with typically 120 or 132 hammers would print a line of output (line printing) for each card read. They were also capable of accumulating totals that could be printed as necessary.
Typical operations were for census work, and business tasks such as payroll, invoicing and stock control.
Tabulator connection and punch boxes - The operations were programmed using hard-wired connection boxes that controlled the operations undertaken, the coloums to be totalled, and the fields that identified the type of records, and the needs for sub-totalling and totalling. A different connection box would be prepared for each task and kept for re-use on the particular task.
An additional unit that could be coupled to the rear of the tabulator was a summary punch that would prepare summary cards for each customer, stock item, etc. with totals. These were typically used so that the accumulative results could be output for use in the subsequent period.
These tabulators, by modern computer standards were very large, and occupied an area 6 feet by 4 feet and stood 5 feet tall.
Early Computers - A subsequent additition was a computer, or calculating device, possibly the 553 or 555, that enabled cards to be read in, calculations made, and a new card punched out with the added information.
I can recall that these devices were expensive for the time, and we bought a day's time from a user that had one. We arrived with a car full of metal trays containing the punched cards and returned with an extra set of updated cards. By the stanadards of the time these were very fast, but with today's computers similar calculations would be performed in minutes.
The devices of this era, which had substantial mechanical parts were unreliable and the cards frequently mis-feed or jammed. We had special tools that could retrieve the damaged or jammed cards, hopefully with our information intact !
In the 1960sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around ICT introduced range of mainframe computers called the 1900 series. These varied in computing power and the models included the 1901 , 1902 , 1903 , 1904 , 1905 and 1906 . I think there was a 1908 at the top end mainly for scientific use.
Enhanced versions subsequently appeared with an A suffix, an E suffix, and a T suffix, e.g. 1901A , 1904T , etc.
The basic memory on the smaller machines was 16k words (or 64 k bytes equivalent), and there were even 8kw versions. despite this apparent small memory size, quite sophisticated applications were run on the equipment and computer programmers paid great attention to the efficient use (and reuse) of memory.
Disc capacity was also very limited and similar attention to ensuring the efficient use of disk space was common. Early machines used storage on reels of magnetic tape and were then augmented by direct access devices (disks) typically with disk capacities of 1.6mb, 4mb and 8mb were the order of the day and occupied a cabinet 4 feet high.
Programming languages used were PLAN (Programming Language Assembler Nineteen-hundred) and latterly COBOLCOBOL is a second-generation programming language. Its name is an acronym, for CO mmon B usiness O riented L anguage defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. Prehistory and specification C were used for the development of commercial-orientated systems. ALGOLALGOL (short for ALGO rithmic L anguage) is a programming language originally developed in the mid 1950s which became the de facto standard way to report algorithms in print for almost the next 30 years. It was designed to avoid some of the perceived prob and FORTRAN were used for scientic work.
The operating system used by the 1900 series was GEORGE (meaning to follow) and so GEORGE1 , GEORGE2S , GEORGE3 and GEORGE4 etc. were born.