Character Reading Wand: A hand-held wand for reading printed eye-readable characters may be available soon from Recognition Equipment of Dallas, Texas. Industry sources indicate that a prototype wand has already been shown in Europe to certain long-term potential customers. The most promising application could be in the booming PoS market. RE in the UK are unable to comment as yet about the wand and there is no indication yet of when it will be officially announced or how much it will cost. It appears, however, that development is quite well advanced since it is believed that the prototype model can read the numeric and special characters of the OCRA and Farrington 7B stylised founts. Characters are read by a photo diode array chip at the tip of the wand and some of the character recognition and coding circuitry is located in the wand body itself. Interfacing would simply involve incorporating a single additional PC board in the main body of the terminal using the wand. (CW 4/10/1973 p1)

PoS report predicts big market: Both manufacturers and potential users of PoS retail terminal systems will be interested in a 200-page report on the European PoS market now available from Frost and Sullivan Ltd , of the Strand, London. The report predicts a market worth over £800 million for PoS equipment in Europe over the next 10 years and is the first survey from the new European subsidiary of Frost and Sullivan Inc, who have published many reports in the US on the computer industry. The report points out some basic differences between the European and US retailing methods that could affect the design and marketing of PoS equipment. One difference is that credit card sales are of little importance in Europe, especially in France and Germany, two of the major PoS markets, so that credit verification features are not really needed. The report, which costs about £160, covers virtually the whole of Western Europe.. (CW 27/9/1973 p16)

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist

Britships Package Revealed
The nature and the present extent of use of the British Ship Research Association's Britships package was revealed for the first time at the recent conference on “Computer application in the automation of shipyard operation and ship design” in Tokyo. Britships, an integrated production and design system adapted specifically for shipbuilding, is being used in its present form by Swan Hunter, Sunderland Shipbuilders, Austin Pickersgill, Vickers, Govans and Lithgows. These, and other yards using the package, account for the majority of the industry. (CW 20/9/1972 p7)

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist

BP To Use Argus 500s For Oil Work
Monitoring of off-shore oil production in BP’s North Sea Forties Field concession is to be handled by a duplex Ferranti Argus 500-based system worth £250,000. To be installed at an operations centre in Dyce, near Aberdeen, the two Argus 500s will each have 32K of core store and two Megabytes of disc backing store. The system will supervise drilling operations and control the flow of oil in the seabed pipeline to Cruden Bay, some 20 miles further up the coast, and the on-shore pipeline to Grangemouth where oil is either refined or shipped at the new deep water tanker terminal in the Firth of Forth. The operations centre will have alarm and data logging facilities, a plant mimic diagram and CRT monitors with colour displays for tabular and graphic information on the state of the remote plant on the off-shore platforms and pipelines. (CW 6/9/73 p1)

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist

M4 motorway traffic warning systems now controlled by GEC 905 computer - RAF start using Sperry 1412 mini-processors for their message switching system - HP releases the 2100S in Europe - A CTL Modular One is being used by Smith Industries Aviation division to design and test PCBs - The ICL 1301 used for over 10 years by SGB Group has finally been retired and replaced by an ICL 1904E - British Company SB Electronics introduces Telepen, the worlds first low cost alphanumeric bar-code reader - Ferranti launch the the brand new line of Argus 700 computers for real-time information and data communications systems and to compliment the Argus 500 - The Home Office begins trial of a fingerprint system based on the Ferranti Argus 500 with 2MB of disk store - British company Alphameric Keyboards Ltd introduce the all solid-state, non-mechanical alphanumeric keyboard - Prime Computers launch their latest Prime 300 range of mini-computers - DEC release their 5th OS for the PDP-11 range with the release of RT-11 - Met Police Q Division experiment with Burroughs B6700 to help identify stolen cars - Argos Distributors opened it's first 'catalogue show rooms' which are equipped with Plessey light pen data capture system - Hull municipal planners are using an ICL 1904E to map out the city based on the 1971 census data - Ford use a General Automation SPC 16/50 with drum store to fully automate testing of up to 6 different engine types.

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist

The Army starts using a GEC-Marconi 920B with high speed drum for mobile, computerised, store are forward messaging switching system - A British holiday company starts operating the Radifon 2000, the first Lockheed Tristar Simulator in Europe - ICL introduces a PDP-8/E based key-to-disk system to expand it's existing range - RCA enters the Telex business with several models of its CCT3 stored program control, solid-state telex exchanges - ESRO use Modular One computers to test the GEOS satellite - NPL's first minimod processor is released to help with it's experimental packet switching network and help expand the use of systems like Scrapbook - NCR installs the first "in-store" PoS system in the UK - ICL introduce the 2903 mainframe which is a microprogrammed "soft-machine" allowing it to look like and run as a 1900 system - SWIFT, the International banking message switching network achieved official status - GLC extend the London Traffic Control system with an additional 200 signal intersections using Siemens 306 computers - Memorex UK release the 651 Flexible (floppy) Disk Drive with a capacity of 300KB.

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist

Philips UK Subsidiary, MEL Equipment, announce the £40,000 X1300 page and document OCR reader, Plessey Telecoms supply a £300,000 order of library equipment to Bibliotekstjanst AB of Sweden, Ferranti introduce an Argus 500E based compact graphics package designed to work with existing graphics screens, The Gas grid gets a telemetry network system using 15 Computer Technology Modular Ones and 2 Ferranti Argus 500 computers connected to 40 Ferranti System 40 displays, Revenue System’s UK subsidiary, Automatic Fuel Dispensing Ltd introduce their Money Card system, for the first time allowing automated fuel dispensing and payments on a forecourt, Potter Data Systems has introduced their DDS 1073 diskette Data Station in the US to compete with IBM’s 3740 Diskette data entry system, MDS data processing introduce the first Cartridge Tape Drive utilising 3M’s DC300A cartridge, Glasgow Fire Department introduce a Honeywell Model 316 to allow detailed info on building and fire hazards to be sent direct to the fire engine cab, Gas supplies to 540,000 customers in Wales will be regulated by a £750,000 Honeywell 316 and 516 based computer system, and the UK will finally join ARPA in June 1973 allowing access to an large computing resource in the US and connecting resources in the UK and Norway.

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist

NPL installs one of the first UK designed HP 2100A based satellite processing system, £500,000 buys Computer Board 24 Computer Technology Satellite One Model 10 terminals to be used in universities throughout the UK, Honeywell get Customs & Excise approval for their systems for business VAT submissions, GEC-Elliott Automation introduce their GEC 2050 based large-scale information displays to be used at Manchester Airport, the Post Office published proposals for a new high-speed (48K) Packet Switching Network to replace a myriad of slow point to point connections, an Argus 500 will be used to experiment in calculating minimum aircraft separation distances at RAE, A DataGraphics 4460 computer output microfilm (COM) recorder, connected to an existing ICL 4/72 computer will be used by the RAF in it's centralised supplies control system at Hendon, Liverpool expand their traffic management systems based on Plessey XL9s by introducing satellite computers as area controllers communicating back to the 2 existing XL9s, The Army use a mobile Ferranti FM1600B computer are large displays for optical projection and tracking of data, Crosfield Business Machines design new bank note sorters for the Bank of England and Independent Broadcast Authority have developed a new USA/Japan to European standards digital converter for colour TV transmissions.

Brian Aldous – TNMoC Archivist