International Computers Limited
International Computers Ltd, or ICL, was a large British computer hardware company that operated from 1968 until 2002, when it was renamed Fujitsu Services Limited after its parent company, Fujitsu. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.
In later years ICL attempted to diversify its product line, but the bulk of its profits always depended on the mainframe customer base. New ventures included marketing a range of powerful IBM clones made by Fujitsu, various minicomputer and personal computer ranges, and (more successfully) a range of retail point-of-sale equipment and back-office software.
ICL was always dependent on large contracts from the UK public sector. Significant customers included Post Office Ltd, Inland Revenue and Ministry of Defence.
Origins of ICL
International Computers Ltd was formed in 1968 as a part of the Industrial Expansion Act of the Wilson Labour Government. ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM. ICL represented the last step in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950's.
The main portions of ICL were formed by merging International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) with EEC, the latter itself a recent merger of Elliott Automation, and EELM. EELM was itself a merger of the computer divisions of English Electric, LEO and Marconi.
On its formation the company inherited two main product lines: from ICT the ICT 1900 Series of compatible mainframes, and from English Electric Computers (EEC) the System 4, a range of IBM-compatible mainframe clones, based on the RCA Spectra 70.
International Computers and Tabulators (ICT)
ICT was itself the result of a merger of two UK companies that had competed with each other throughout the 1930s and 1940s during the punch card era: British Tabulating Machines (BTM) and Powers-Samas. ICT had thus emerged with equipment that would process data encoded on punched cards - 40, 80 or 160 column cards in the case of ICT, compared to the 64 or 80 column cards used by IBM and its predecessors. I
In 1962 ICT delivered the first ICT 1300 series computer which was its first transistor machine and also the first to use core memory.
In 1964 ICT purchased the computer division of Ferranti in another government-forced merger. Ferranti had been building a small number of scientific machines based on various university designs since the 1950s. None of these could be considered commercially successful, however, and Ferranti always seemed to be slow bringing their designs to market.
In 1962 a small team from Ferranti's Canadian subsidiary, Ferranti-Packard, visited the various Ferranti computer labs and saw their work on a next-generation machine. On their return home they produced the Ferranti-Packard 6000 in an astonishingly short period of time, developing the machine, compilers and an operating system (before these were common) and putting it on the market by 1963. The machine went on to have some success and sold in small numbers in Canada and the United States.
Meanwhile ICT management in England was looking to rejuvenate their lineup; their latest developments, the ones used to develop the FP 6000, were still not on the market. Management looked at the FP 6000 as well as licensing the RCA Spectra 70, an IBM System/360-clone. In the end decided to go with the FP 6000 as the basis for a small line of small-to-midrange machines. The result was the ICT 1900 series, which would eventually go on to sell into the thousands.
The 1900 Series, which derived from the Canadian Ferranti-Packard 6000, competed successfully in the UK with the IBM System/360 range from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. The basic design was based on a 24 bit word, divided up into 6 bit characters. Lower case and control characters were provided for by "shift" characters. The early machines (1904/1905 with hardware Floating Point)) were only 15 bit addressing. Later machines (1904E, 1905E, 1906A) has extended addressing modes up to 22 bits. The operating systems (Executives) were
- E4BM - the original for the FP 6000 (known internally as the FP1)
- E4RM - a significantly rewritten version of E4BM, with parts of the operating system overlaid to save space.
- E6BM - A rewritten version of E4BM for the later machines with 22 bit addressing.
- £6RM - A rewritten version of E4RM overlay software for the later machines with 22 bit addressing.
A later development was GEORGE 3, remembered with great affection by a generation of British programmers. It conisted of two elements: an executive (E6G3) based on the older E6BM and GEORGE3 itself, a core and a much larger set of overlays. A later development was GEORGE 4 (with E6G4) using the then new techniques of paged hardware. The operating software was written in assembler ( and a slightly higher level language called GIN, roughly an alogous to the commercial ICL language PLAN. The GIN compiler was known as the Ginerator (sic).
A series of smaller machines (1901, 1902, 1903), with their own Executives, were developed sy the ICL Stevenage site.
English Electric LEO Marconi (EELM)
During the same period of time, LEO was struggling to produce their own machines that would be able to compete with IBM. Their parent company, J. Lyons and Co., simply didn't have the financial might to develop a new line of machines. Not wanting to see their work go to waste, they sold their computer division to English Electric.
English Electric had developed a series of machines over the years, notably the famous KDF9, but never had much commercial success.
Now with serious financial backing at their disposal, the new company nevertheless decided not to come up with their own design, and licensed the Spectra 70 instead (the design ICT rejected). The result was the System 4-series.
The System 4 series ran the J (for Job) operating system. This was a batch operating system, although there was a variant that allowed interactive access called MultiJob. Programming languages used were assembler and COBOL. The system was controlled from a console comprised of a mechanical printer and keyboard - very like a Teletype. The assembly language was identical to IBM System 360 Assembly Language.
Leo computers
- LEO computer Leo 3 - origins in J. Lyons and Co.
Elliott computers
The last four were 18 bit binary computers. The 900 series were commercial machines and the 920 series were built to military specification and were used in military aircraft and tanks.
New Range
- See also: ICL 2900 Series, VME
Even before the merger that created ICL was complete, a working party had recommended that the new company should develop a new range of machines offering "acceptable compatibility with the current ranges of both companies". The resulting 2900 Series was launched on 9 October 1974. Its design drew on many sources, one being the Manchester University MU5, and it is still available in the guise of the Fujitsu Trimetra. It ran the VME operating systems, and supported emulation of both the earlier architectures, either standalone (DME, Direct Machine Environment) or concurrently with native-mode operation (CME, Concurrent Machine Environment). In the early 1980s ICL struck a deal to acquire semiconductor technology from Fujitsu, on whom they became increasingly dependent as the years progressed. Eventually Fujitsu acquired ICL, and in 2002 the residue of the company was rebranded as Fujitsu's European services arm.
The term "New Range" was used during development for product line that was eventually launched as the 2900 Series, the operating system being known initially as VME/B and later simply as VME.
The computer hardware included:
These ran the VME and DME (emulation) operating systems.
Series 39
Series 39 followed the same essential architecture as 2900 series, but was a dramatic step forward in hardware technology. It was the first commercial mainframe to exploit optical fibres for central interconnect, and also introduced a multi-CPU (multinode) architecture transparent to the applications.
The series included:
- Level 50
- Level 60
- Level 80
Operating systems
At the inception of New Range development, two operating systems were planned: System B for the large processors, and System D for the mid-range; these were subsequently renamed VME/B and VME/K. (Confusingly, VME/B was developed in Kidsgrove, VME/K in Bracknell.) The first machines (the 2980 and 2970) were launched with VME/B.
The chief architect of VME/B was Brian Warboys, who subsequently became professor of software engineering at the University of Manchester.
VME/K development continued independently for several reasons. Early VME/B customers suffered significant performance and reliability problems, and the existence of an alternative product provided a safety net. Perhaps more significantly, VME/K was the brainchild of Ed Mack, who had been brought in by managing director Geoff Cross as ICL's head of research and development. Despite his wide responsibilities, Mack took a detailed personal interest in every aspect of VME/K design. To quote historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, "Mack had a good deal more autonomy than was good for the company." Not only was too much resource going into VME/K at the expense of the VME/B system that ICL's biggest customers were actually using, but the development of mainframe systems was also diverting expenditure from small business systems such as the 2903, whose sales were growing much more rapidly.
ICL's finances deteriorated during the late 1970s, leading to the appointment of a new management team led by Robb Wilmot and Peter Bonfield. One of their first actions was to end VME/K development. This happened just at the time that VME/K had finally reached a level of performance and reliability that made it saleable; however, the customer base was very small, and by this time VME/B (which was renamed VME 2900) had also matured sufficiently to give confidence that it would meet the future requirements for the entire mainframe range.
VME 2900 subsequently became simply VME and then Open VME, and continued to evolve. In 1980 it was marketed as "Your system for the 80s", and indeed that decade proved to be its heydey. It continued (and continues) to give service to many loyal and demanding users, but has attracted few new users since 1990 or so.
Application Superstructure software
- IDMS(X) (Integrated Data Management System - A Codasyl database, ported from the IDMS system developed by Cullinane, later Cullinet)
- TPMS(X) (Transaction Processing Management System)
- DDS (Data Dictionary System)
Languages
- S3 (a variant of Algol 68 - The operating systems were written in this)
- SCL (System Control Language)
- COBOL (for most business applications)
- FORTRAN
- Pascal
- Maple
- Staple
- SFL (System Function Language) - an assembly language
- C
- Application Master (AM) Batch and TP application generation from the Data Dictionary System
2903 range
A cut-down system based more closely upon the 1900 series was introduced as:
- ME29
The smaller machines in the 290x family were replaced in about 1982 by the ME29 system.
Operating systems and Software
- Executive
The 290x operating system was known as 'Executive' which allowed the machines to be operated 'manually' via a video console, or by means of JCL (Job Control Language), which was based very closely upon the macro language of the GEORGE 1S operating system from the earlier range.
- TME (Transaction Machine Environment)
TME was the operating system on the ME29 and required CL (Control Language) to run jobs - 'manual' operation being discouraged.
Practically all the software packages available on the 1900 range ran on the 290x and ME29 systems.
Subsidiaries
Dataskil
Dataskil Ltd or ICL Dataskil was a software house that developed commercial programs and some utility software for the ICL marketplace.
Dataskil software products included:
- 1900 Datadrive
- 1900 Datafeed
- 1900 Dataview
- 1900 IDMS
- 2900 IDH (Interactive Data Handler)
- 2900 LP (Linear Programming)
- 2900 OMAC
- 2900 PERT
BARIC
This was a joint venture of International Computer Services Ltd (ICSL), a division of ICL, and Barclays Bank, that provided computer services. In the early days of computing many organizations avoided the capital costs of purchasing their own equipment and the recruitment of technical specialists by putting their work out to service companies which were then known as computer bureaux such as BARIC. This kind of business diminished during the 1980s, only to reappear in the 1990s under a new name - outsourcing.
ICIM
ICL had established a presence in India in its earliest days, through a partly-owned subsidiary International Computers India Manufacturing (ICIM). As the name implies, ICIM took on some of the manufacturing of ICL-designed equipment, generally for overseas markets. In later years ICIM, from its offices in Pune, started to establish a presence in the market for offshore software development and eventially outsourcing of the operation of computer services. ICIM subsequently became a joint operation with Fujitsu, establishing links to Japan that were as strong as its traditional links to the UK. Reflecting the shift in its business, the company was renamed ICIL (International Computers India Limited), and is now Zensar.
Corporate History
This section describes the various takeovers of and by ICL that followed the formation of ICL in 1969.
Singer Business Machines
Early in 1976 ICL acquired the international (that is, non-US) part of Singer Business Machines. Subsequently ICL also took on the development and manufacturing plant at Utica, New York. The Singer group (best known for their sewing machines) had diversified into computers and in 1970 launched the System Ten, a small business minicomputer. The acquisition shifted the geographical balance of ICL's sales away from the UK, and also gave a presence in industry markets such as retail and manufacturing. ICL subsequently developed the System Ten into the System 25, and used the product to spearhead the growth of its Retail Systems business during the 1980s.
Takeover by STC
On 26 July 1984 a takeover bid for ICL arrived from Sir Kenneth Corfield, head of Standard Telephones and Cables. The stated rationale was the predicted convergence of computers and telecommunications. To the bemusement of many ICL staff, Corfield also announced that he thought ICL's marketing skills would complement STC's technical strengths. The ICL board recommended acceptance of the bid, and the takeover was completed on 10 Sept 1984. Sir Michael Edwardes, who had been chairman for just six months, resigned; Robb Wilmot became Chairman at the age of only 36, and Peter Bonfield managing director.
The merger was soon followed by a financial crisis in STC, leading to Corfield's replacement by Lord Keith as chairman, and Arthur Walsh as chief executive. Wilmot resigned, and Peter Bonfield was appointed chairman and managing director of ICL. Within a few years ICL was contributing 60% of the profits and turnover of the combined group. Wilmot was created a CBE for his role in turning the company around.
Regnecentralen
In 1989, ICL acquired Regnecentralen of Denmark, which had made a name in front-end communications handling computers.
Nokia Data
In 1991 ICL acquired Nokia Data, part of the Finnish Nokia Group. Nokia Data was itself the result of Nokia's mid-1980s acquisition of Ericsson Information Systems, whose origins lay in the purchase by Ericsson of the computer business of Saab, known as Datasaab. ICL's acquisition (at a price of around £250m) added 9500 employees to the company (7000 of them in Finland and Sweden), and brought with it a PC manufacturing capability, a suite of desktop software products, and more importantly a strong presence in the Nordic market and an awareness of the high-volume end of the IT market.
Merger/takeover by Fujitsu
(to follow)
See also
- ICL: A Business and Technical History. Martin Campbell-Kelly, Clarendon Press, 1989. ISBN 0-19-853918-5
- ICL and Europe. Virgilio Pasquali. In Resurrection, the Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society, Summer 2005