For the Old Computer types in here

[Martin]

Nobody ever mentions one of the last computer makers in UK CTL/ITL

[Bob Eager]

I remember them. A friend of mine used to work for them. Must add the Modular One to a list of machines I've used.

[Bob Eager]

The Elliott 4130, which I started using in 1970, was very clean and simple.

[Bob Eager]

This is part of what I did:

[Martin]

I'd read it, Bob

[Martin]

+1

[bert]

In article , Tim Streater writes

EELM had become English Electric Computers before the merger.

[bert]

In article , Martin writes

Not quite. It was recognising the reality of the scale of the competition. IBM UK had a bigger turnover than ICL yet ICL managed to produce an operating system which BP rated better than IBMs - but they bought IBM anyway. ICTs 1900 series whilst a good system was a dead end. The individual companies stood no chance of surviving on their own. But like IBM they filed to recognise the threat/opportunities from the PC and the minis which followed.

[Harry Bloomfield]

They were International Computers Limited, quite a prestigious institution in the 60's and 70's, working all over the world. I went seeking a job with them for an interview in their London head office in around 1969, referred there by their Leeds office.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Only parts of them - both Elliott Automation and English Electric continued existing afterwards. I described the technology split between ICT and Elliott Automation elsewhere in the thread (data processing computing to ICT, and process control and military computing to Elliott Automation which changed names a couple more times to GEC Computers and some bits to other GEC companies such as EASAMS).

English Electric got all the non-computing bits of the merging businesses, but almost immediately afterwards became part of GEC.

[Andrew Mawson]

The 1900 series was basically a Ferranti Argus 500 implemented in a different physical form - the instruction set and word format were identical

Andrew Mawson

[Andrew Gabriel]

The 4130 was a joint development with NCR. They both sold them under their own names, but in different market sectors.

[Paul]

Yes, now Fujitsu Services. Now do services for many platforms: ICL, IBM, BS2000, x86 etc.

ICL "mainframes" are now x86 based.

Paul.