Fifty Years Ago .... from the pages of Computer Weekly
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Spring 1971 computing, compiled by TNMOC volunteer archivist, Brian Aldous.
A selection of stories from Computer Weekly from the Spring of 1971. 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.
IBM steps up production in the UK:
The long-awaited 370/135, announced this week by IBM, is of particular significance to the UK. It will be manufactured for Europe, Africa and the Near East at IBM’s Havant, Hampshire, plant, and, as a replacement for 360 models 25 and 30 it extends the 370 range to cover a further major sector of the world market. Havant, responsible for supplying 62K countries, should be shipping the first 135s next year. About 80 per cent of the 700 parts of a 135 will be made in the UK and if, as IBM expects, the 135 is a best-seller, it should make a considerable contribution to the UK balance of payments in years to come. (CW 11/3/71 p1)
Honeywell launches Series 6000:
Seeking major penetration of the important large systems market sector, Honeywell has introduced the Series 6000 - six medium-large to large computers - which, it claims, gives it a lead over all the competition and, in particular, outperforms the IBM 370 series. Their introduction followed only a month after that of Honeywell’s three new Series 200 machines, which were said to compete with IBM’s 360 range from the 20-5 to the 40, and another new computer system is promised later this year. The new Series 6000, which is based on and compatible with the GE 600 series, was largely developed by General Electric before the merger of most of its computer interests with Honeywell. It has now been revealed as having been a considerable factor in the negotiations. (CW 11/3/71 p5)
Off-line OCR system uses Varian 620/i:
A low-cost off-line OCR system able to recognise any standard OCR font as well as numerics printed with a pencil is being manufactured by OCR Systems Inc of Horsham, Pennsylvania. It incorporates a Varian 620/i minicomputer and can process up to 24,000 documents an hour. The OCR System 1000 Document Reader handles documents up to 81/2 by 11 inches in size, and costs $69,000 (£28,750) for a stand-alone configuration with a basic 4K memory and magnetic tape output. The 620/i is utilised for controlling document feeding, character interpretation, error checking, sequencing and code conversion. The video document scanning system sends bit trains representing the characters being read to a buffer memory and a recognition module where interpretation is performed under computer supervision. (CW 18/3/71 p5)
Disc Controller System Compatible with PDP-8, PDP-8/L:
A disc controller system, which is indirectly compatible with the Digital Equipment Corp PDP-8 and PDP-8/L computers, has been introduced by Information Data Systems Inc of Michigan for its series 7000 and 10,000 disc files. The controller’s interface signals correspond with the programmed data transfer and three-cycle data break facilities of the PDP-8. The average access time is 16.7 milliseconds. The word transfer rate varies with the capacity of the disc storage system which can range from 16K up to 1,024,000 words of storage. A track holds 16 blocks of 128 words each. (CW 18/3/71 p15)
Marconi – Elliott launch new range:
A new range of control and automation-oriented computers has been announced by Marconi-Elliott Computer Systems. Called the MECS 2000 range, it will feature real time processors with modular architecture, the first of which, the 2050, will be available in 1972 although it will also be the subject of a presentation at Datafair. There will be two other ranges after the 2000, but it is not yet clear how many machines will make up each series. The next range is likely to be announced towards the end of this year, and the 2000 machines will be the lower end of the price scale, with the basic 4K 2050 and teletype priced at under £5,000. (CW 25/3/71 p1)
Gas grid control based on Mod Ones:
A contract worth £500,000 has been awarded by the Gas Council to Computer Technology Ltd for a communications and control system for the natural gas pipeline grid which now covers the UK. Software for the project is being developed by Logica at a cost of about £70,000. The contract covers 12 Modular One computers and will be installed in the control centres of the 12 area gas boards. They will be linked by five asynchronous 600 baud lines to two Argus 500 computers which are installed at the Gas Council’s operational centre at Hinckley in Leicestershire. Two, or possibly three, Modular Ones are planned for Hinckley as frontend processors to the Argus systems. Each Modular One will be linked by 600 baud lines to various gauges, valves, etc, on the pipe network itself. Generally speaking control of the system will be with the Argus machines, but each Modular One will be programmed to do some local processing on, for example, alarm states, error states and scaling. In the event of failure of the lines to Hinckley or the Argus machines each Mod One will be able to take over and control its own area of operations. (CW 1/4/71 p1)
Low-cost, Custom-built Mini PDP-16 Launched by Digital:
A breakthrough in the production of very small customer-designed functional computers for OEM purposes was claimed by Digital Equipment for its new PDP-16 which was announced world-wide on the opening day of Datafair. The PDP-16 is a special-purpose low-cost alternative to the use of stripped-down general purpose minicomputers which tend to have more hardware than is required for dedicated roles. It will initially be marketed in quantities of 10 or more at unit costs of £400 to £1,500. It is intended for small tasks involving no more than 150 program steps where speed is not a major requirement. (CW1/4/71 p1)
Eight more on-line satellites proposed for centre’s Atlas 2:
Proposals are now under consideration which could result in the Atlas 2 at the Department of Trade and Industry’s Computer-Aided Design Centre at Cambridge becoming one of the most powerful interactive graphics systems in the world. Atlas 2 currently supports three in-house graphics satellites, a PDP-9/340, and two MECS 905/928s. Two further 905s are connected on-line, one at the National Engineering Laboratory, at East Kilbride, and the other at the Machine Tool Research Establishment, at Macclesfield. (CW 8/4/71 p1)
'On-the-Spot’ Check-in for Airlines Planned by SRS:
As part of its move into the “high traffic” reservation area Seat Reservations Systems, the computerised reservations organisation, is developing a check-in system for airlines. The new SRS system will enable an airline’s check-in desks to access a common inventory stored on computer and allow boarding passes for specific seats to be printed out by on-the-spot terminals. In SRS ’s view it will enable an airline to make the best use of available aircraft space and improve control over day-to-day operations. (CW 15/4/71 p12)
360/22 Launched in US by IBM:
Seven years to the day after the announcement of System 360, IBM have Introduced a new model at the low end of the range. Model 22, it is claimed, is a general purpose computer that combines intermediate-scale processing capability with small system economy. First deliveries are scheduled for July, but availability is restricted as yet to the US and Canada. In terms of performance, the 360/22 is similar to Model 30; cycle time is the same, at 1.5 microseconds for a single byte. Hardware decimal arithmetic and a selector channel, both optional extras on 360/30, are fitted as standard to Model 22, though the selector channel has a capacity of 170,000 bytes per second, only half that of Model 30. (CW 22/4/71 p1)
ICL move to enhance 1900 series:
In a move to ensure that their customers remain true to the 1900 range, ICL have announced a “package” of new hardware and software developments which substantially enhance the performance of the range and which will, hopefully, prolong its life until the new ICL range, code-named Project 52, is ready to be unveiled. Most eye-catching feature of the package is a group of four new computers known as the S series. These machines, the 1906S, 1904S, 1903S and 1902S are all fully compatible with other computers in the 1900 range, but provide greater throughput and a better price/performance ratio than their counterparts in the 1900A series. The 1906S which offers approximately 50 per cent more power than the 1906A now becomes the most powerful computer to be marketed by ICL. Main storage on the 1906S takes the form of a plated wire memory with a cycle time of 300 nanoseconds and an access time of 130 nanoseconds. The memory, which is manufactured by Plessey, is used in stores with capacities of 128K, 192K, 256K, 348K or 512K words, all of which are four way interleaved. (CW 29/4/71 p1)
GEC-Marconi to Study Police Communications:
High speed data transmission between police vehicles and their control rooms is the subject of a systems study contract which the Home Office has awarded to GEC-Marconi Electronics Ltd. In the first part of the study GEC-Marconi will build an experimental system probably involving a small digital computer in the control room and teleprinters installed in the cars. The study will be based on producing high-speed communication in printed data form, which it is expected could lead to more effective deployment of police resources, and the study represents an alternative to the use of speech channels, which may well be insufficient by themselves to meet demand. (CW 29/4/71 p16)
Big Orders for GEC Road Control:
Two notable orders, together worth about £300,000, have been added to the list of overseas sales successes achieved by GEC-Elliott Traffic Automation. The orders cover a new computer based road traffic control system in Zurich and extensions to an existing system in Lisbon. The company has also been commissioned to carry out design studies which hold out good prospects for further orders. Under a contract believed to be worth about £100,000 the company will provide a computerised system controlling all traffic from seven roads and 10 tram routes in the busy Bahnhofplatz at the centre of Zurich. The control equipment has been installed and is already in use. There are loop detectors in the roads and specially developed tram detectors have been installed. The system is expected to go on-line to its control computer, a March 9050, later this month. The Bahnhofplatz scheme called for a flexible and dynamic control strategy similar to those already employed by GEC-Elliott Traffic Automation in its systems for Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon and Munich, and the order was won in competition with a number of leading traffic system companies including Siemens. (CW 6/5/71)
Honeywell brings H58 to UK Market:
To attack the low cost end of the computer market Honeywell Information Systems Ltd has at long last introduced the small Model 58 computer in the UK. This multiprogramming machine, which will be made for the UK at Angers, France, was first announced as the General Electric-Bull 58 in 1969. The first UK customer deliveries are scheduled for July, and the main applications are expected to be accounting, inventory control and production scheduling. Among the important features of the Honeywell 58 are a digital display which facilitates direct entry, and communications facilities to permit connection to other computers. It will be marketed in the UK under Honeywell’s bundled policy in two punched card and four disc versions, and rental charges will range from £384 to over £1,000 a month. A significant point is that the low cost versions are aimed at a sector of the UK market Honeywell has not touched before - that which extends from accounting computers to its own Honeywell (formerly GE) 105. (CW 20/5/71 p1)
IBM to make low-cost computer VDU system in Britain: A visual display system which represents a considerable design improvement on previous models, and is priced low enough to cause heart-searching among its competitors, has been introduced in the UK by IBM. Designated the 3270, the system includes two display stations, the 3277 and the 3275, both available with 480 character or 1,920 character capacity; the 3271 remote control and 3272 local control units; and two printers, the 3284, 40 cps, and the 3286, 66 cps. The 3270 system, which can be linked to all 370 computers and 360s from the Model 25 upwards, will be manufactured in the company’s Greenock factory for worldwide markets other than the US. (CW 20/5/71 p16)
BBC uses ICL 1909 for world broadcasts data:
The BBC is using its ICL 1909 - one of the two machines installed in its new computer centre - to process data on the quality of reception of World Service broadcasts monitored at nearly 300 strategically placed points around the world. The operation, which is known to the BBC as XTRAN and to the layman as “reception data analysis” is conducted by the chief engineer’s department, external broadcasting. The BBC’s external services cover most of the globe, and 40 different languages, including 24-hour broadcasts in English. These programmes are carried by signals in the international high frequency broadcasting bands, and to some extent also in the long and medium wave bands. Transmission is from London, with relay stations at Singapore, Ascension Island, Masira, Cyprus, Malta and Berlin. (CW 27/5/71 p19).
