Fifty Years Ago .... from the pages of Computer Weekly

Winter 1970 computing, compiled by TNMOC volunteer archivist, Brian Aldous.

A selection of stories from Computer Weekly from the Winter of 1970. 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.

BBC to expand MIS system

The future development and operation of a Television Management Information System will be one of the major applications to be handled by a 64K ICL 1904A computer installed recently by the BBC at Sulgrave House near Television Centre, White City. The BBC’s TMIS is thought to be among the most advanced of its kind in the world. The BBC already have two other ICL 1900 machines, a 1909, which has now joined the 1904A at the newly constructed Sulgrave House computer centre and a 1901A at Cavendish Square. The 1904A has 64K store, 1,600 cpm card reader, paper tape reader, paper tape punch, two 1,350 cpm printers, eight 40Kch/s magnetic tape drives and four 8-million character exchangeable disc stores. An ICL EDS 30 disc store with 150 million characters is to be added shortly. (CW 3/12/70 p.1)

BAC Test Rig Data Processed on 1800

A giant 350-ton test rig is being used by the British Aircraft Corporation to simulate the performance of the Concorde’s fuel system. Data is collected from about 900 points on the rig and processed, both in real time and off-line, on an IBM 1800 process control machine. Testing the fuel system is one of BAC’s areas of “unique responsibility”, which means that it is not duplicated by the French partner, Sud Aviation, but the information is made available to it by BAC. Software consultants to the project are Associated Software House Ltd, of Kingston, a firm which specialises in process control functions. Using the rig, it is possible to reproduce most conditions which will be met in flight. It can be manoeuvred to any attitude from 50 degrees nose up to 16 degrees nose down, and these positions combined with 10-degree rolls to port or starboard. During a test run, the computer simulates environmental conditions such as altitude, engine fuel flow, pitch, roll, and temperature. An interactive console linked to the computer enables the engineer in charge to have access to incoming data from the fuel system and to alter the parameters of the run at will. (CW 3/12 70 p.20)

Databank to trace TV dodgers

Householders in the head post office areas of Croydon, Watford, Bromley and Paddington are being used by the Post Office as guinea-pigs in an experiment designed to improve the detection of television and radio licence evasion with the use of computerised records. A master file, containing the names and addresses of all householders in the areas covered by the experiment, is created, and matched with a file
of known licence holders which is updated with information supplied, under legal obligation, by radio and television dealers. The computer is then used for two main tasks. It sends out automatic reminders to householders whose licence renewal comes due; and it sends a letter to households which do not appear on its file of known licence-holders requesting them to co-operate in updating Post Office records by either buying a licence (if they have a radio or television), or justifying their lack of a licence. (CW 10/12/70 p.1)

Ferranti wins £5m order from Royal Navy school

Expansion has been announced by the Royal Navy for its School of Tactics, Navigation, and Action Information Organisation, otherwise known as HMS Dryad, which earlier this year commissioned a tactical trainer and operations room simulator of a guided-missile destroyer. An order has been placed with Ferranti for the supply of a new £5 million trainer system, for delivery in 1975. The system will simulate the operations rooms and weapons control equipment of Leander class frigates fitted with IKARA antisubmarine missiles; type 42 destroyers with SEA DART surface-air missiles; and small ships fitted with computer-assisted action information systems. The system will be based on three FM 1600 and eight FM 1600B processors, which will control visual display units in the control and operations rooms of the trainer. Approximately 60 displays will be incorporated, and they will be supplied by Plessey, Decca and Ferranti itself. (CW 10/12/70 p.24)

EDP systems to aid police work

Three experimental computer-based systems, now being developed by the Home Office and police authorities could provide the British police with some of the most sophisticated support services in the world. The experiments are being carried out by Thames Valley Police at Slough, by Birmingham City force and by a joint Home Office-Ferranti team. The projects are in addition to the plan for a national police computer system for which a dual B6500 has been ordered. The Slough scheme involves the setting up of a databank containing information on all convicted criminals in the Slough area and is to be based on visual display units in Slough police headquarters linked on-line to the Home Office ICL 1905E in central London. (CW 17/12/70 p.1)

New Model Extends System 4 Range

As the latest move in the planned enhancement of the System 4 range, which has already been extended this year by the addition of the Model 4/62 and the replacement of the 4/70 by the 4/72, ICL has now introduced the 4/52, which provides a big increase in throughput compared with the 4/50. The 4/52, according to ICL, is designed for cost/performance effectiveness while handling a large number of transactions from high-speed peripherals and from sophisticated terminals. The peripheral handling facilities permit control units to be attached to eight selector trunks, two trunks on each of the four simultaneously operating selector channels, and to nine trunks of the multiplexer channel. (CW 17/12/70 p.16)

Global time share service by satellite

Global computer communications for the ordinary computer user have come a step nearer with the announcement by Honeywell Information Systems that time-sharing facilities on a GE-635 in the US are now available to UK time sharing customers. The user only needs to dial Honeywell’s computer centre at Acton, London, to be connected via the Intelsat 3 communication satellite to the GE centre at Cleveland, Ohio. As long ago as September 1969, GE’s general manager of the international information systems division first referred to the possibility of a Mark II time sharing service for UK users based on a G-600 series machine. This was to begin by using a transatlantic link until demand built up, and the second phase was to involve the installation of a G-600 machine on this side of the Atlantic. Honeywell Information Systems have now effectively announced the first phase, but cautiously make no mention at this stage of installing a G-600 machine in the UK yet awhile. (CW 7/1/71 p.1)

Argus 500 for telephone fault checking

Faster and more efficient detection and servicing of faults in telephone lines is promised by the Post Office, when an experimental Argus 500 computer system which they have just ordered from Ferranti becomes operational. Due for installation towards the end of 1971 the £180,000 computer system will monitor line performance, detect faults and impending breakdowns, and provide printout for the engineer in the appropriate area where the fault has been located. The system will also be used to log and print out the results of automatic routine testing of individual items of equipment which is carried out during the night. This log can form the basis of the maintenance work which the engineers do the next day. (CW 7/1/71 p.3)

IBM 360/175 to replace Cambridge Titan

While no official statement has yet been put out by the Computer Board, agreement has been reached in principle to purchase an IBM 370/165 for Cambridge University Computing Laboratory, as the long-awaited replacement for the Titan (Atlas II) computer system. A great many details of the order have yet to be worked out, both financial and technical, and these have to be decided before the order is placed. However, if these problems are satisfactorily solved the machine could be delivered next December, and will be one of the earliest Model 165s to come from IBM’s Havant plant. The configuration has yet to be finalised, but it will probably have at least a million bytes of store, and in theory could operate at 10 times the power of the Titan. (CW 21/1/71 p.16)

RAF and Navy orders go to ICL

Two major contracts, at least one of which involves the design of a large real time computer, has been awarded to ICL by the Ministry of Defence. The contracts, which are understood to have been placed on a single tender basis, cover the provision of a large 1900 installation for the Royal Navy and another large installation, in this case a System 4, for the RAF. Both systems will be devoted to stock control for the supply organisations of the two Services. Details of the orders are hard to come by as negotiations between ICL and the Ministry are still continuing. But the Navy is to have a large central 1900 computer installed at Ensleigh near Bath, with smaller satellite 1900 processors installed in each of the four Naval dockyards - Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham and Rosythe – to replace IBM 1401 systems which they now use. The RAF now uses three AEI 1010 computer systems installed at Hendon, with off-line paper tape links to all RAF stations in the UK and Germany. Replacement for this central hardware is likely to be two or more System 4/72 computers. There are also four RAF equipment supply depots, at Quedgley and Hartlebury, both in Gloucestershire, and at Carlisle and Stafford. These each now have 1903 computers installed, but when the new system goes in, the 1903s will be replaced by on-line terminals to the central System 4 configuration. (CW 28/1/71 p.1)

GEC-EA system for steel mill

Advanced control concepts developed jointly by the industrial control group at Imperial College, London, together with specialist staff from GEC-Elliott Automation and the British Steel Corporation, are to be incorporated in a computer-based control system which GEC-Elliott is to supply for a new five-stand tandem cold mill at Shotton, in Flintshire. The order announced this week by GEC-Elliott Automation, is understood to be worth over £1,500,000 and will be the first commercial use of the new techniques on a new mill. The prototype system was designed for incorporation into a Con/Pac on-line computer control system at the BSC’s Abbey Works in Port Talbot and this installation will start in April, and be completed by June 1972. (CW 28/1/71 p.24)