Barclays Bank replaces masses of printouts sent daily to 3000 branches with a Kodak KOM-80 microfiche system which runs on Hewlett-Packard systems and interfaces to the banks existing IBM 370/180 mainframe, ICL has had success in the commissioning and go live of a new ICL 2980 mainframe by the New Zealand State Services Commission after 18 months of trials leading the way to a possible order from the EEC to replace an IBM 370/145, Ex CRC managing Director Alan Hendrickson’s new company Pulse Train Technology has introduced a new OCR system that can read hand or machine printed alphanumeric characters at a much more reasonable cost that current competitors, and Morgan Grenfell bank introduces a new on-line system using an ICL 1902T to replace an existing batch based system for assessing investment appraisals and evaluate cooperate finance methods and capital equipment leases.

British Library plans to make available UK hosted medical, scientific and technology databases using an IBM 370 computer that are normally only available via the US, the Post Office’s GEC 4080 hosted Viewdata system has seen enthusiasm from many areas of industry all keen to use the system to promote their services and enable information to be made available to users, Teknos Management of Uckfield, Sussex now offer plug-compatible ICL EDS 30 and EDS 60 disk dives for the ICL 1900 range, Texas Instruments and Hewlett-Packard introduce additions to their calculator range including programable versions that can have up to 480 program steps and can use magnetic sripe cards for program and data entry, and Varian introduce the UK developed Varicam scanning system using a gamma ray camera rather than the traditional X-ray scanners and can produce coloured 3-D images of organs.

UK Post Office Experimental Packet-Switched Service (EPSS) soon to establish direct links to Packet-Switched networks in the US, allowing EPSS users in the UK access to vast databases and computers in the US, Typescan of Glasgow introduce a hand-held Datawand OCR reader developed by Compuscan Inc of Teterboro, New Jersey, capable of reading both typed and free-hand text on documents, a GEC developed thermal analysis software suite is to be made available as a Bureau service by SIA of London. Known as Meltan, it is designed to give analysis of heat transfer through complex structures and initial trials have been done in the Nuclear industry, The UK government funded general purpose international computer network is now up and running in Europe connecting government and higher educational establishments in the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy.

Honeywell expands it’s Series 60 level 64 range with the 64/30 and 64/50 with memory ranges from 96KB to 384KB and supporting up to 8 100MByte disk drives and 8 tape units, US based Software AG gives UK software a boost by adopting MSF’s Datamanager data dictionary system for their Adabas DBMS, ICL introduce the 2904 mainframe computer with 80% more performance, twice the memory (96K words) and twice the disk capacity of the 2903, and has already had 10 orders valued at £1.25 million, and Comshare introduce the Ambassador bureau service via a newly installed transatlantic link between it’s Xeros processors in Michigan and those in London to enhance it’s overall European service.

ICL announce the 2960, a cost reduced but faster medium-range system with a performance of 2.5 times a 1904S, Honeywell introduce conversion software to convert ICL 1900 Cobol, Fortran and assembly language applications to Honeywell Level 66, DEC unveiled a dual CPU system 1088 to rival IBM 370’/158 and CDC Cyber 72 and 73 systems, Ferranti win a £350,00 contract for two FM-1600D mini-computers with AAEE for an Air Traffic Control system radar processing, GEC-Elliott Process Automation introduce a March-4 micro based on-board marine monitoring system, Intel launches the 8048 ‘computer on a chip’ incorporating active and passive memory on the same chip as the processor, and Royal Navy Taunton introduce an EMI-Threshold voice Information Processor 100 to enable voice information to be recorded with digitised maps.

GEC release a low cost variant of their 4080 minicomputer designated the 4070 minicomputer running at 75% of its performance, British based Sintrom now offer an American made, fixed head disk drives with 1.25ms latency aimed at Digital and Data General minicomputers, Hitachi introduce a 16Kbit N-Channel MOS RAM with a 200ns access time, EMI come under competition pressure from US, German, French and Italian companies in the X-Ray brain scanner market that will eat into their £80 million earned business over the past 4 years, The Post Office’s Experimental Packet Switching Service (EPSS) reach a major milestone in exchanging data packets between several university computing centres, Tally introduce the modelM1315C paper tape reader/perforator to enable system designers to incorporate paper tape facilities into their designs, Rupert Neve of Royston introduce a Computer Automation LSI 2-10 computer-based sound mixing system that will ‘make studio engineer’s life a lot easier’ and after the earlier successful EPSS data traffic test, The London exchange successfully transferred packets between different mainframes, network interfaces and terminals from Queen Mary Collage, NPL, Computer Aided Design centre, ICL and the Post Office.

Staffordshire Police install a real-time command and control system using Ferranti Argus 700S and 700e minicomputers, Data Recording Instruments (DRI) claim a world first 12MB front loading single disk unit, Calcomp introduce a low cost model 836 table-top drum plotter in the UK to replace the very popular 15 year old 536 model, Electronic Memories and Magnetics (EMM) introduce an up to 4 Megabytes N channel MOS based memory system for the IBM 370/158, Euronet, a European data transmission network over packet switched networks, and having over 1000 terminals and 20 databases, will be introduced over the next 2 years, Prime introduce the prime 400 supermini to compete with the IBM 370/158, Digital PDP-11/70 and Data General Eclipse and others, and Muirhead introduce a held held data collection unit that can hold 64k characters in semiconductor memory, replacing and competing with existing cassette based systems from other manufactures.

IBM enters the Satellite communications business with a joint venture with Comsat General and Aetna Life, ICL releases the new smaller packaged and less expensive 2903/20 model, ICL delivers the first NIFU 9network Interface Unit) for the Post Office’s EPSS (Experimental Packet Switching Network), Applied Data Research of New Jersey, have released ‘Look’ that offers real-time performance monitoring for IBM 360 and 370 systems, IBM UK wins a £375,000 PoS order from Royal Arsenal Co-operative society, Computer Automation’s Naked Mini computer used to control self-service filling stations has been installed by Arco Petrol Company on the West coast of the USA, DEC introduce the System-20 to fill a gap in the interactive transaction-orientated market and will compete with ICL 2903, Univac 90/30 and IBM system 3 & 370/115.