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

1st May 1975 computing, compiled by TNMOC volunteer archivist, Brian Aldous.

A selection of stories from Computer Weekly from 1st May 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.

Laser aids Chieftain tank’s gunnery: A Laser-Based system developed by Marconi Space and Defence Systems under a £2.5 million contract awarded by the Ministry of Defence for gun control on the Chieftain battle tank is now being tested by the Army. This follows successful development trials and production engineering is now going ahead under the final phase of the contract. Known as Improved Fire Control System, IFCS, the equipment is built around the Marconi 12-12P digital computer and a laser aiming device developed by Barr and Stroud. (CW 443 1/5/1975 p1)

PROM-based LSI unit from Pertec: A PROM-based LSI microprocessor enables the Pertec 7100 CRT display terminal, now available in the UK from Pertec of Reading, to be customised to suit a customer’s character set and data transmissions requirements. The 7100 can display either 960, or, as an option. 1,920 characters from a 64-character ASCII set, at up to 80 characters per line. A 96-character set including lower case is another option. The typewriter keyboard can also have a 13-key numeric pad and up to 11 special function keys for operations such as character line insertion. (CW 443 1/5/1975 p11)