Fifty Years Ago .... from the pages of Computer Weekly
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13th March 1975 computing, compiled by TNMOC volunteer archivist, Brian Aldous.
A selection of stories from Computer Weekly from 13th March 1975. The full archive of Computer Weekly can be seen at TNMOC, where there are special rolling displays of front pages from 25 and 40 years ago.
Tote orders in France, Spain: Two orders with a sporting flavour have been won by UK firms. Already a major supplier of totalisator equipment to French horse race tracks, Bell Punch, of Uxbridge, Middlesex, has won an £85,000 order for 50 self-service totalisator ticket machines. The machines, a new product from Bell Punch, will be installed at two tracks in Paris and one in Nice. They will be linked to Intertechnique Multi-8 and Multi-20 minicomputers at the tracks, which in turn communicate with a central IBM 360 in Paris. The minicomputers transmit the transactions taking place at the totalisator machines, at present all manually operated, to the 360, which calculates new odds and transmits them back to the track. The second order is for two totalisator systems, both comprising a General Automation SPC-16 minicomputer and ticket issuing machines designed and manufactured by Time Designs International of Hove, Sussex. (CW 436 13/3/1975 p1)
Step ahead in brain surgery techniques; A new computer program which can assist a neurosurgeon in the operating room has been developed by engineering scientists at Toronto University, Canada. It is called Computerised Data Processing System for Stereotactic Neurosurgery. It involves the use of an automatically directed probe introduced in to the brain through a small hole in the skull. Modern telecommunications could enable surgeons working simultaneously thousands of miles from each other to rely on the same computer program. The idea was conceived by Dr Ian Rowe, associate professor in the university’s Department of Electrical Engineering, and developed in co-operation with Toronto General Hospital and the computer centre at the university. Dr R. Tasker, a neurosurgeon at Toronto General Hospital, uses this technique for the control of tremors and for the relief of pain. The problem, however, has been that the target site of the probe cannot be seen by the surgeon. Under local anaesthesia, the probe is advanced by small increments towards the tentative site. The surgeon determines its position in the brain by passing weak electrical pulses which elicit a response in the patient’s body. The site and nature of the response is related to the location of the probe. Since the probe may pass through 60 stimulation sites with up to five responses in each, the surgeon has to interpret and act upon a mass of data. Professor Rowe determined that this information could be taken from the operating room through a portable computer terminal. (CW 436 13/3/1975 p2)
High speed system for chemists: A new distributive processing system enables German chemists to order from a range of 20,000 pharmaceutical products, and expect delivery within two hours. The system is based on 11 Honeywell 716 minicomputers linked to a Univac 90/60 at the Hamburg head office of Reichelt, the German pharmaceutical supplier. Each 716 is housed at a distribution centre at Reichelt’s warehouses throughout Germany, where clerks using Honeywell DET 77 VDUs are able to check on the immediate availability of goods and enter orders into the system. Order requests are made using a simple three or four letter code definition. The product file and its stock quantities are then indicated on the VDU allowing the clerk to act accordingly, and recommend an alternative product if need be. Once the customer’s transaction has been communicated to the Hamburg 90/60, invoices and picking instructions are produced and returned to the distribution centre. (CW 436 13/3/1975 p23)
