Fifty Years Ago .... from the pages of Computer Weekly
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Summer 1971 computing, compiled by TNMOC volunteer archivist, Brian Aldous.
A selection of stories from Computer Weekly from the Summer 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.
Power Station to include Argus 500s:
The gas-cooled reactor power station which is being built at Heysham, on the Lancashire coast, by the Central Electricity Generating Board is to incorporate a computer-controlled system designed by Ferranti’s automation systems division. The order, comprising three Argus 500 processors and related equipment worth over £1 million, was announced last week. It is similar in virtually every respect to the system previously installed at the CEGB’s Hartlepool station, and somewhat akin to that in use at the Dungeness "B” AGR station, although the software will be written by the prime contractors, British Nuclear Design and Construction Ltd. (CW 10/6/71 p3)
UK launch for desk-top OMR:
The new Opscan 17 desk-top optical mark reader was introduced to the UK and Europe this week by InterScan Data Systems, acting as marketing agents for the manufacturers, Optical Scanning Corporation. The unit is designed to serve low volume users of bar-marked documents and can be operated on or off-line with manual or automatic feed. The Opscan 17 incorporates a micro-processor featuring a read-only memory executive which can vary in capacity between 256 and 4K words, and a main memory of 2K words. The machine can read up to 2,976 alphanumeric mark positions per side of a document at speeds of between 350 and 900 documents an hour according to the size of the document. (CW 10/6/71 p24)
Elliott 903 aids Blood Tests:
Using an Elliott 903 computer installed in December, 1969, the pathological laboratories of St Stephen’s Hospital, Chelsea, are now processing about 200,000 blood tests a year in the biochemistry department, serving seven hospitals in the Chelsea and Kensington group and also part of the Putney and Bolingbroke group. About 80 per cent of the department’s work is automated. The computer is to be upgraded by the addition of three magnetic tape handlers and a line printer from Elliott Medical Automation Ltd, to the existing configuration of computer with 8K store, paper tape input and output, associated teleprinters and an IBM printer. (CW 10/6/71 p24)
RCA to build Pioneer Laser Memory:
An experimental high-speed laser data store, claimed to be the first full-cycle all-optical memory and capable of handling up to a million data bits, is being built by RCA in the US under a $193,000 NASA contract under the supervision of the Marshall Space Flight Centre, Huntsville, Alabama. The project should be completed next spring and is expected to form the basis for development of more advanced
systems which could be installed in space stations, satellites and other space vehicles where the fast and reliable processing of large volumes of data is essential. In addition, because it combines large data storage with electronic access, eliminating dependence on any kind of mechanical motion, it could replace the entire hierarchy of magnetic tape, disc and drum systems now used in commercial installations. In operation, the new system consists of a laser beam generated by a pulsed ruby laser, which passes through two acoustic-electric crystals that are electronically controlled. The crystals deflect the beam in direct proportion to the frequency of sound waves made to pass through them. One crystal diffracts the laser beam horizontally, the other vertically. As a result, there are 1,024 different positions in space at which the beam can be aimed as it leaves the second crystal. (CW 17/6/71 p9)
Marconi wins £750,000 contract to develop Post Office system:
A development contract worth £750,000 to provide two prototype stored program controlled telephone switchboards has been awarded by the Post Office to Marconi Communication Systems Ltd. The switchboards will incorporate elements of Martex, the company’s prototype exchange, which is claimed to be the most advanced telephone switching system in the world. The new switchboards will be developed to a Post Office specification and will be known as type CSS 2. They will be Britain’s second generation of cordless switchboards. The first to be operated without plugs and sockets were introduced by the Post Office at Thanet Exchange, Kent, in 1956. (CW 17/6/71 p20)
Green light for ICL’s Red order:
After a delay of more than 19 months ICL is to get the go-ahead to deliver £5 million worth of computers ordered by the central purchasing agency of the Soviet Union on behalf of the Institute of High Energy Physics at Serpukhov. The order which originally covered the supply of two 1906A computers and, it is understood, three 1903A computers, was placed towards the end of 1969, but delivery has been blocked ever since by the US authorities acting under the regulations of Cocom, the coordinating committee of NATO, which enforces embargos on the sale of strategic goods to the Eastern bloc. The length of the delay has led to mounting criticism of the Cocom regulation, not least from Sir John Wall, chairman of ICL, in his evidence to Sub-committee A. (CW 1/7/71 p1)
Big Hungarian order for ICL:
Three orders from Hungary, together worth £650,000, have been received by ICL. They comprise two System 4/50s and an enhancement of an existing 1903A, and bring the total value of ICL equipment sold or on order in Hungary to over £3,700,000. The largest of the System 4/50 orders has been placed by Autoker, the national organisation for the import and distribution of spares for foreign cars - Hungary has no indigenous car manufacturer. Autoker employs around 1,700 people and operates 40 distribution outlets throughout the country. The 4/50, which will initially be used primarily for stock control, will have 131K bytes of core. Backing storage will be provided by four exchangeable disc drives, and four magnetic tape units. Other peripherals will include a line printer, a card reader, and a visual display terminal which will be used for developing further applications, particularly an order validation routine. Some communications equipment will also be supplied (the computer may at a later date be used in automatic warehousing) and the order’s value is approximately £300,000. (CW 8/7/71 p15)
Sat One terminals launched:
In what represents its most important announcement since the introduction of the Modular One computer, Computer Technology Ltd, of Hemel Hempstead, has announced the Satellite One range of expandable intelligent terminals. The smallest version costs under £20,000, while the largest, which can handle 64 or more interactive terminals, costs over £200,000. This move into intelligent terminals represents a considerable re-think of Computer Technology’s future product marketing philosophy and Richard Killick, CTL design manager, says: “Terminals are expected to account for around 50 percent of the company’s sales within three years.” The Satellite One range, which, in the company’s view, is the most intelligent terminal system yet developed, can communicate directly with ICL, IBM and CDC hardware and can be used for local interactive computing as well as remote batch processing. (CW 15/7/71 p1)
Ferranti win £1 million submarine trainer award:
Ferranti has won a £1 million contract from the Ministry of Defence to supply an anti-submarine warfare command and operator trainer for the Royal Navy. The trainer, which will simulate the operations of two frigates engaged in anti-submarine tactics, will be installed at HMS Vernon, near Portsmouth. The trainer is basically a repeat order for an existing system already installed at HMS Vernon, but differs from it in the incorporation of a computer-assisted action information system (CAAIS) and action data automation (ADA) operations rooms designed by Ferranti’s digital systems division. These are based on two Argus 500 processors. The processors have 56K and 20K core stores respectively. They are backed by a two-megabyte Burroughs disc unit and magnetic tapes, and the system also includes two 11-inch, two 14-inch, and a 21-inch display. (CW 22/7/71 p16)
Honeywell 316-based system to aid explosives research:
The analysis of the ballistic characteristics of solid propellants for rockets and guns at the Explosives Research and Development Establishment, Waltham Abbey, Essex, is to be handled by a £41,000 real time computer system based on a Honeywell 316. This system, which is designed primarily to obtain high speed digital measurements of pressure from the combustion of a known mass of propellant inside either a closed vessel or a small rocket motor, is the second of its kind to be ordered in the UK from Honeywell. It will incorporate a high percentage of special equipment made at the company’s Hemel Hempstead engineering centre. For gun propellants the system will be programmed to monitor rising pressure until it exceeds five percent of the expected pressure peak, then the computer accepts the next 200 digital values. Raw data is smoothed to eliminate noise effects and various ballistic parameters computed from the smoothed data. For rocket propellants, digital data capture is initiated by the electrical ignition pulse and the computer is programmed to accept up to 500 values. An analogue recorder which provides a visual and photographic presentation of the analogue pressure/time signal, is also included in the system. (CW 22/7/71 p16)
ICL get £1m export orders for 1900s:
Export orders for twelve 1900 series computers, worth a total of over £1 million, have been announced this week by ICL. Eight machines, including a £300,000 1902S, are for customers in France, and the remainder will go to Germany. Eight of the orders are for 1901As, which must rank as one of Europe’s leading small disc or tape-based computers. The 1902s, most powerful of the machines to be supplied, will form the processing unit for a real time banking system in Brittany. To be installed at the Rennes headquarters of the Caisse d’Epargne de Bretagne, it will serve 30 of the savings bank’s branches, handling around 1.5 million accounts. The 1902S will be connected via telephone lines to 100 NCR terminals installed at individual branches of the bank throughout the region. Data processing operations at the bank are currently centred around an ICL 1901A, which is to be replaced by the larger machine in 1973. This is the first “S” series machine to be ordered by a company in France. It will have a 32K central processor and five EDS30 disc units. The interchange of data between the centre and branches will be handled by a 7901 communications processor. (CW 12/8/71 p32)
ADX message system for Royal Navy:
A contract worth about £300,000 has been awarded to the Data Equipment and System s Division of Standard Telephones and Cables by the Ministry of Defence (Navy). It is for a dual 6400 ADX automatic message switching system to replace a torn-tape system at Fort Southwick, Portsmouth, one of the nodal points of the UK military forces’ world-wide telegraph network. Each of the two 6400 ADXs will consist of an ITT 1650 processor, which is based on the General Automation SPC 16 minicomputer, and two two-megabyte Burroughs disc units. Both will receive and process the telegraph messages, and one will transmit them onwards while the other acts as a "hot” standby. (CW 19/8/71 p12)
SIA modelling to aid road designing:
An initial contract worth £40,000 for the building of a traffic model for proposed major road improvements in the south-west, is one of a number of government orders placed with SIA, primarily by the Department of the Environment, the South-Western Road Construction Unit, and will be used to predict traffic flow in the region taking into account planned road construction schemes, and in particular the proposed extension of the M5 motorway. SIA has set up an office in Exeter, and is employing a staff of 50 there who are currently coding the results of 200,000 roadside interviews. When this is complete, the data will be transferred to SIA’s CDC 6600 in London, on which the model will be constructed. The department has also placed a contract with SIA for the installation of a CDC 200 user terminal at the Eastern RCU’s sub-unit at Witham, Essex. A spokesman for the DoE told Computer Weekly that the installation of further terminals with other RCUs was also being considered. The terminal at Witham will be used for highway and structural engineering, critical path analysis, and a range of other engineering applications. Use is likely to be made of SIA’s own TFA (Traffic Flow Analysis) program which has been used in the past by the South-Eastern RCU and may also be used on the south-western project. (CW 26/8/71 p1)