An I C L Anthology

AN I C L ANTHOLOGY ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS FROM THE PEOPL E OF ICL EDITED BY Hamish Carmichael Laidlaw Hicks Publishers SURBI T ON 1 9 9 6 First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Laidlaw Hicks Publishers 63 Collingwood Avenue, Surbiton, Surrey, KT5 9PU Copyright © Hamish Carmichael, 1996 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission, in writing, from the publisher. ISBN 0-9527389-0-2 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 2000 99 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available in the British Library. Printed in Great Britain Page design and typesetting by TRAX, ICL Enterprises, Windsor. Contents Foreword Introduction Prologue Chapter 1 British Tabulating Machine Co Chapter 2 Powers Samas Chapter 3 ICT Chapter 4 Elliott Automation Chapter 5 Ferranti Chapter 6 LEO Chapter 7 English Electric Chapter 8 ICL: The Nineteen-Seventies Chapter 9 Singer Business Machines Chapter 10 ICL: The Nineteen-Eighties Chapter 11 Personalities Chapter 12 ICL: The Nineteen-Nineties Foreword Hamish Carmichael has had a very happy thought in taking the initiative to collect anecdotes and recollections from the people of ICL, and so to edit and produce this Anthology. Those of us who were and who still are privileged to work in the most exciting and significant industry so far created by the human race will recall that our colleagues came together from BTM, Powers Samas, and the computer activities of GEC, EMI, Ferranti, English Electric, LEO, Elliotts, Singer and other companies. The strategy of consolidating all the parts making up ICT was the work of Cecil Mead. The creation of ICL was - I suppose fairly - the desire of Harold Wilson’s government; their chosen method was a combination of stick and carrot, termed by Tony Benn ‘a golden rod’. As I recall, the rod caused some pain and the gold contribution was minuscule. Nevertheless, the combined efforts of all the people overcame the problems with the enthusiasm of pioneers. ICL is unique in many ways, but there is one outstanding characteristic: its recognising and rewarding - as it always has - long service. More than 15,000 people have served for 21 years or more, and over 360 for more than 42 years. No wonder there are many anecdotes! The computer business itself is also unique in that only two countries, Britain and the United States, can fairly claim not only to have invented the computer but to have spurred virtually every advance and innovation which the last fifty years have witnessed. The talents of people from all parts of ICL have contributed more to the state of the art than any other single company. ICL people, past and present, can be proud of their achievements, and as they flip through this Anthology their memories will be triggered with more and more recollections, and Hamish is likely to be inundated with more and more material justifying or even demanding further editions of this work. I wish it well. Arthur Humphreys, November 1995 Introduction This book is really based on gratitude: first and foremost to my former colleagues in many parts of ICL. If the company’s products provided a career full of continuing interest and excitement, it was my fellows in ICL who always provided the ideal atmosphere in which to exploit them. Their attitude was always stimulating, very occasionally exasperating, and nearly always amusing and enjoyable. Although there are a few historical articles as scene-setting, this is not an attempt at a serious work of history. It will have succeeded if it reminds people of the flavour of their times in ICL and its constituent companies. Although, when I joined in 1958, the great days of the pioneers were already in the past, it was a fine time to see a great industry shake itself into order and start to grow, in what Lord Peter Wimsey called ‘the “ampelopsis” manner: first year, tender little shoots; second year, fine show; third year, all over the place’. How lucky we are to have been part of it. As for the compilation, the book effectively wrote itself. A few requests for material brought in a wonderful flood of contributions, which may have slowed to a comparative trickle, but which has certainly not yet stopped. I think this supports my contention that ICL, although it has always thought it was producing computers, has actually had some of its greatest successes in producing raconteurs. Except on a very few topics, such as the Galactic Storage Device and Mike Forrest, there has been remarkably little duplication. My thanks to everybody whose various inputs I have joyfully accepted. Particular thanks to Chris Cheetham, who not only supplied many gems from his own varied experience, but who kindly read the whole compilation with great care, and saved me from many errors of taste, accuracy, and orthography. Further hearty thanks to the great family of Anon, several of whom are represented by several masterpieces. On the arrangement of the material, there have been two types of advice. One said I should aim for a thematic structure, with chapters on Quirks of Machines, Foibles of Customers, The Things Salesmen Say, and the like. Another suggested that I should aim at a balanced anthological structure (shades of well-balanced trees), with meatier items embedded in snippets à la Reader’s Digest. Instead of either of these I have gone for a simple-minded and approximately chronological sequence, which I hope produces an acceptable mixture of material. But do please note that ‘approximately’; I am only too well aware that better-informed people will have many occasions to say: ‘Oh no, that didn’t happen then’. Maybe it didn’t, but I hope it doesn’t matter too much. I hope that the chosen arrangement helps to illustrate the different strands of the ICL character: the fifty-year rivalry between British Tabulating Machines and Powers Samas (long dormant but even now perhaps not finally extinguished); the engineering flair of Ferranti; the far-sighted boldness of LEO; the somewhat reticent steadiness of English Electric; and the striking originality of Singer. An apology is perhaps due on the score of accuracy. What I have put together is largely what people have told me, without any formal checking on their veracity. Many of these stories have been filtered through the years, and perhaps been improved in the re-telling and, anyway, human memory is an active process without the boring restrictions of parity checks and such. So there are, I already know, instances where A and B were jointly involved in some memorable activity, and A has sent me a version of what happened, on seeing which B has said: ‘Oh no, it wasn’t like that at all’. Well, to all the Bs among you I can only respond that you had the chance to get your version in first. One other apology, and then I’ve done. There are many mentions - or hints - of particular people whose permission to mention them I have not sought. But all are included for reasons of respect or affection or both; there has been no room for malice. ‘No no, I do but jest, poison in jest; no offence I’ the world’. Formal acknowledgments for permission to quote copyright material are due to the British Computer Society, the National Physical Laboratory, the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists, and to Punch Publications Limited. Rod Smith of the Science Museum kindly provided photographs of old equipment. I thank ICL for its permission to plunder historic copies of Tabacus, the ICT House Magazine, and associated publications, and Bernard Bassett for having the good sense to preserve an archive of them and the kindness to let me borrow them. For practical help in producing this book I owe thanks to Denis Blandford of Peritas, and to Alan Thomas of ICL Enterprises. Many people have allowed me to see a wide variety of cherished documents, which has been a great help and very interesting. In that connection may I issue a general plea: don’t unthinkingly throw anything away! Precious little survives of the documentation of the last forty years, because of the speed with which programs and ideas are superseded. ‘Oh, that’s old hat’, we say, and toss it in the bin. Yet historians of technology are going to look back on our times and wonder what it was like, and how we performed our marvels, and are going to have to rely far too much on guesswork. What we so casually discard is probably equivalent to one great library of Alexandria every five years, vandals that we are. I hope you will find in this collection both some old favourites and some new delights. No doubt you will also notice many omissions. But then, if you suppose that each ICL person and each ex-ICL person knows one unique good story (which must be on the conservative side), and if you reckon how many tens of thousands of such people there are, a book of this size can only be like dipping a teaspoon in a vast tankful of possibilities. Who knows, with your help another dip might easily be possible. Finally, I can never completely express my thanks to my wife Yvonne, who with commendable patience has tolerated her menfolk’s obsession with computers for many years, and who while I have been producing this book has been, as always, an unfailing help and support.

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