nach oben

2011 | Buch

Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Moving Targets

Elliott-Automation and the Dawn of the Computer Age in Britain, 1947 – 67

verfasst von: Simon Lavington

Verlag: Springer London

Buchreihe : History of Computing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten

Über dieses Buch

This book charts the take-up of IT in Britain, as seen through the eyes of one company. It examines how the dawn of the digital computer age in Britain took place for different applications, from early government-sponsored work on secret defence projects, to the growth of the market for Elliott computers for civil applications. Features: charts the establishment of Elliott’s Borehamwood Research Laboratories, and the roles played by John Coales and Leon Bagrit; examines early Elliott digital computers designed for classified military applications and for GCHQ; describes the analogue computers developed by Elliott-Automation; reviews the development of the first commercial Elliot computers and the growth of applications in industrial automation; includes a history of airborne computers by a former director of Elliott Flight Automation; discusses the computer architectures and systems software for Elliott computers; investigates the mergers, takeovers and eventual closure of the Borehamwood laboratories.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. The Navy Comes to Borehamwood

Abstract

About a dozen miles north-west of the centre of London, just off the Great North Road, lies the village of Borehamwood. In the 1930s, this was in a rural part of Hertfordshire, in which were clustered several large film studios. Collectively known as the Elstree Studios, after the neighbouring village of Elstree, the Borehamwood area was, by 1939, home to the largest number of motion picture production facilities outside Hollywood.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 2. A Glint on the Horizon

Abstract

John Coales was 40 years old when he arrived for his first day as Director of Elliott’s Borehamwood Research Laboratory in October 1946.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 3. The Secret Digit

Abstract

We describe three rather special Borehamwood digital computers in this chapter. Two of them were designed to perform tasks for the UK’s intelligence services, via GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters). The third went to a joint British–Australian long-range missile facility in Australia, to be used in analysing data from the Woomera test range. The time frame of all three computers, from conception to delivery, covers the period 1949–1956. Internally to the Borehamwood Research Laboratory of Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., the projects were identified by sequence numbers in the company’s list of orders.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 4. Analogue Expertise

Abstract

Computing devices based on analogue methods have a long history. Physical quantities such as fluid pressure, linear position or speed of rotation had been used as the analogy of numerical quantities long before electromechanical digital computing came into use. Some of the largest and most powerful electronic analogue computers, for example, the TRIDAC described in Sect. 4.4, were designed and built in the 1950s, at a time when electronic digital computers were still in their infancy.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 5. NRDC and the Market

Abstract

The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) was set up in July 1949 to encourage the commercial exploitation of the flood of British ideas that had emerged during and after the Second World War. Fortunately, the early NRDC documents have been catalogued and preserved in the (British) National Archive for the History of Computing (NAHC), currently housed at the University of Manchester. As explained in the preface to the NAHC’s holdings of NRDC papers, ‘during the 1950s, computer development was the single most important aspect of the NRDC’s activities’. The broad-brush story of government policy on the exploitation of computer technology and the role of the NRDC has been presented by John Hendry in his 1989 book [1] and summarised by John Crawley, formerly of NRDC [2]. However, neither of these sources provides detailed assessments of computer hardware and software, nor of the deeper interactions between NRDC and Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 6. Process Control and Automation: The Bagrit Vision

Abstract

Automation, broadly defined as the computer-assisted control of industrial processes, covers a wide spectrum of applications. Here we need to narrow the spectrum somewhat, so as to focus on the word automation as it might have been understood by people such as Leon Bagrit during the period 1948–1968. Of course, Bagrit’s view evolved over this period, just as the capabilities of digital computers evolved over the same period. This chapter charts the evolution.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 7. Automation: The Machines and the Applications

Abstract

As implied in Chap. 6, the general-purpose digital computer made a hesitant entry into the field of process engineering in Britain. In a retrospective note [1], John Bunt implies that Dr. Lawrence Ross was probably the first person within Elliotts to encourage the development of small digital computers as vital components of future industrial automation projects. Bunt recalls that: ‘of all the [Elliott] directors, it was Dr. Ross that we most frequently saw [at Borehamwood]. In addition to his appointment with Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., Dr Ross held a position with another company, Associated Automation, based at Willesden. It was the takeover or merger between these two companies which created the company called Elliott-Automation’.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 8. Software and Applications at Borehamwood

Abstract

Software is an ephemeral artifact. Programmers are, of course, tangible but the results of their labours survive more in the consequences than in the detail. This chapter and the next can only give a mere glimpse, through the eyes of the participants, of what it was like to program and market the Elliott digital computers that emerged from Borehamwood in the period 1947–1967. The machines themselves are summarised in Table 8.1, which is similar to the table given in the Introduction to this book but with the 900 series computers split into two rows. This split indicates that the development of the 900 series machines continued at Rochester for aerospace applications, long after Elliott-Automation itself had been taken over by GEC in 1968.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 9. NCR, the 405 and Commercial Data Processing

Abstract

The first investigation into the possibility of applying an Elliott 402 computer to commercial data processing was published in 1954 (see [1]). There then appear to have been at least two events that persuaded Borehamwood that the 402 was not, after all, a suitable architecture for business applications and that new, specially designed, hardware would be required [2]. The first event was Andrew St Johnston’s unsuccessful attempt to sell an Elliott 402 to the Mars confectionary company. During this exercise, it was realised that the transfer of large amounts of data was a critical issue and that the 402 was not up to this task. The second event was the approach to Borehamwood in May 1954 by the Long Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE), who urgently needed a computer that was also required to deal with very large volumes of data.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 10. Evolution of Elliott Computer Architectures

Abstract

Computer design at Borehamwood was initially driven by the demands of real-time on-line control of ship-borne radar. From January 1949 Harry Carpenter and Ed Hersom became jointly responsible for defining the systems architecture of the Elliott 152 computer, as discussed in Chap. 2. They had some difficulty in meeting the speed of operation required by the MRS5 project. By 1949 the building blocks available at Borehamwood included a relatively fast random-access CRT storage system based on the anticipation-pulse method, a family of innovative printed-circuit logic modules based on miniature pentode thermionic valves (tubes), and a design for a fast serial multiplier

Simon Lavington

Chapter 11. EARS and Aerials: Elliott’s Radar Achievements, 1950–1986

Abstract

The primary source for this chapter is a 6,000-word draft history of Elliott’s radar work in the period 1950–1970, written for the author by Dr Elizabeth Laverick, OBE and John Kinnear in May/June 2005. Subsequent minor comments and explanations have been incorporated where appropriate.

Betty Laverick and John Kinnear were, second only to Peter Mariner, the leading lights of Elliott-Automation’s radar developments at Borehamwood throughout the period under review. Regrettably Peter Mariner, the Chief Executive of the main radar division within Elliott-Automation from the mid-1950s, died in 1995 and was therefore unable to comment on the text of this chapter. John Kinnear died suddenly in January 2007. Betty Laverick died on 12 January 2010.

Simon Lavington, John Kinnear, Elizabeth Laverick

Chapter 12. Airborne Computing System Developments at Elliott-Automation, 1958–1988

Abstract

Peter Hearne, F R Eng., was born in 1927. His posts have included that of Director and General Manager of Elliott Flight Automation (subsequently GEC Avionics) from 1965 to 1986, Assistant Managing Director of the GEC Marconi Group 1986/90, and Chairman of GEC Marconi Avionics from 1992 to 1993. His personal account of the application of digital computers to aircraft was written in 2007. Whilst Peter Hearne drew largely from his own considerable experience, he also had available certain background material from ex-colleagues, as given in [1, 2]. Peter’s draft text was shown to three other former Elliott colleagues, R W (Ron) Howard, Paul Rayner and Terry Froggatt, who provided some additional information as detailed respectively in [3–5].

Simon Lavington, Peter Hearne

Chapter 13. Mergers, Takeovers and Dispersals

Abstract

The 10-year period 1959–1969 saw significant changes – one might almost say upheavals – in the fortunes of British computer manufacturers. In this chapter we show how Elliott-Automation Ltd. was eventually to be pulled apart, the mainframe computing interests being absorbed into ICL which, by the end of the decade, emerged as the primary embodiment of the British computer industry. The story of ICL’s birth has been carefully charted in Martin Campbell-Kelly’s well-researched book on ICL history [1], which had the benefit of unrestricted access to BTM and ICT company records in the 1980s. We shall draw on [1] from time to time in this chapter, adding such material as is needed to do justice both to the wider Elliott-Automation company’s history and to the role of Borehamwood as a source of computing activity.

Simon Lavington

Chapter 14. The End of the Line

Abstract

In the words of the hardware engineer Laurie Bental, who worked there from 1957 to 1994, ‘The demise of computing activities at Borehamwood was a long and painful process, spanning the years 1968 to 1988’ [1]. Although 1968 marked the end of Elliott-Automation Computers Ltd., the ‘long and painful process’ had actually begun 2 or 3 years earlier in the opinion of some market-oriented staff.

Simon Lavington

Backmatter

Titel: Moving Targets
verfasst von: Simon Lavington
Verlag: Springer London
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-84882-933-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-84882-932-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-933-6