International Computers Limited

International Computers Limited (ICL) was a British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English Electric Computers (EEC) and Elliott Automation in 1968. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.

In later years, ICL diversified its product line but the bulk of its profits always came from its mainframe customers. 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. Although it had significant sales overseas, ICL's mainframe business was dominated by large contracts from the UK public sector, including Post Office Ltd, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence. It also had a strong market share with UK local authorities and (at that time) nationalised utilities including the water, electricity, and gas boards.

The company had an increasingly close relationship with Fujitsu from the early 1980s, culminating in Fujitsu becoming sole shareholder in 1998. ICL was rebranded as Fujitsu in April 2002. Fujitsu (UK) as the hardware and software supplier has been implicated in the British Post Office scandal, which has extended from the 1990s to the 2020s

The ICL brand is still used by the former Russian joint-venture of the company, founded in 1991.[2]

Origins

International Computers Limited 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; the formation of the company was the last in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950s.

The main portions of ICL were formed by merging International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) with English Electric Computers, the latter a recent merger of Elliott Automation with English Electric Leo Marconi computers, which itself had been a merger of the computer divisions of English Electric, LEO and Marconi.[3] Upon its creation, the British government held a 10% stake in the company and provided a $32.4 million research-and-development grant spread across four years.[4]

Locations

ICL was concentrated in the United Kingdom, with its corporate headquarters in Putney in the London borough of Wandsworth.

At the time of the original merger, the company inherited extensive engineering and manufacturing facilities in West Gorton, Manchester; Castlereagh in Belfast, Stevenage and Croydon from ICT, and from English Electric in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire and Winsford, Cheshire. Manufacture and assembly also took place at several factories in Letchworth Garden City (the original home of the British Tabulating Company) and Croydon.

The company had a large research, operating system and software development and support centre in Bracknell, another smaller one at Dalkeith in Scotland and a software development centre in Adelaide, South Australia, between 1970 and 1973, application development in Reading, and training centres at Moor Hall (Cookham), Beaumont College (Old Windsor) (sales, support and software) and Letchworth (Hertfordshire) (manufacturing & field engineering).

The company also had manufacturing facilities in Park Road Mill, Dukinfield; later replaced by a purpose-built factory at Ashton-under-Lyne.Ashton under-Lyne's team was noted for working on numerous mechanical innovations in the field of computer engineering. A state of the art printed circuit board plant was built in Plymouth Grove, Manchester in 1979, however financial troubles within the company forced its closure in 1981. Other offices included a facility at Bridgford House in Nottingham which was the headquarters of Rushcliffe Borough Council, but has since been converted into apartments.

Early products: 1900 Series and System 4

On its formation, the company inherited two main product lines: from ICT the 1900 Series of mainframes, and from English Electric Computers (EEC) the System 4, a range of IBM System/360-compatible mainframe clones, based on the RCA Spectra 70.

As of 1971, the United Kingdom was unusual in Europe for IBM not having more than 50% of the computer market, although an observer stated that the company constrained the size of its British subsidiary to keep ICL alive. Although still the largest European computer company, in 1971 ICL had a poor reputation.[6] When the companies were first merged the EEC order books were full, while ICT (which had twice as many employees) was struggling, perhaps because it was already obvious that the 1900 series was incompatible with the rest of the industry, with an architecture based on a 24-bit word and 6-bit character rather than the 8-bit byte that was becoming the industry norm.

The new board decided that the 1900 should be phased out in favour of the System 4, but shortly afterwards reversed their decision. It is probable that this was due to union and political pressure from the Wilson government. In any event, most of the original EEC board resigned over the interference as they believed that the 1900 series was doomed from the outset, being incompatible with the rest of the marketplace. ICL initially thrived, but relied almost wholly on supplying the UK public sector with computers. The 1900s were sold in several countries worldwide, but the largest slice of the market was always in the UK, and the largest part of that in government, local authorities, universities, and nationalised industries.

Until the 1970s launch of the 2900 Series

New range: 2900 Series

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". This was also seen as a way to help "achieve company unity" for the newly formed organization. The resulting 2900 Series was launched on 9 October 1974. Its design drew on many sources, one being the Manchester University MU5.

It ran the VME operating systems, and supported emulation of both the earlier architectures (1900 Series and System 4), 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.

The term "New Range" was used during development for the product line that was eventually launched as the 2900 Series, the operating system being known initially as VME/B and later simply as VME. Models included:

These ran the VME and DME (emulation) operating systems, and were available in both single and multi-processor configurations, the later being known as Duals and SuperDuals (2966 and 2988 only). The company also developed:

• 2950
• 2955
• 2956

2903 range

The 2903 range was a rapid development to produce a small business computer to replace the 1901A. As far as possible it was developed from existing hardware and software, but configured for an office environment without underfloor cabling.[12] It was urgently needed to generate a cashflow that would support continuing 2900 development. The hardware was based on the 2900 DFC (Disk File Controller), and used the MICOS engine. The 2903/4 system cabinet housed the MICOS engine, Drico FEDS disk storage and a punched card reader.[13] A wing attached at 45 degrees carried the operator's console which was a visual display unit (VDU): for 1900 users who were accustomed to the Westrex teletype as console, this was a major advance. The printers abutted to the wing and were initially integrated; they were soon replaced by the CPI shuttle printer and PBS. The printers ran at 300 or 600 lines per minute, selected by a hidden link.

The 2903 used microcode to emulate 1900 hardware. The operating system was George 1* (a modification of George 1S batch operating system) running on top of the UDAS Executive. In consequence, the 1900 compilers and utilities ran on the 290x range without any changes or recompilation. For some sites a microcode floppy was available that would make the system work as an IBM 360 running the IBM operating system, although this entailed changing the removable hard drives as the formats were completely different.

A new feature provided on this range was

Personal computers

Amidst the broader appearance of personal computers in the early 1980s, ICL introduced the DRS 20, a system supporting multiple DRS 20 Model 10 (or DRS 10) client machines, each equipped with the 8085 processor, accessing Model 40 and Model 50 file storage computers over an ICL network. In this context, ICL's commitment to the emerging microcomputer market was questioned by industry commentators who regarded the DRS 10 as a missed opportunity, producing a machine whose £ price was elevated substantially by a £ network card that could have been replaced with a disk controller to deliver a competitive standalone, but network-ready, CP/M system.[15] ICL later added support for running CP/M under the DRX operating system, permitting CP/M applications to be used on DRS 10 machines.[16]

ICL launched its Personal Computer range in 1982, licensing technology from Rair and effectively adopting the established Rair Black Box product as its own,[17] an approach described as "a prime example of badge engineering" in one assessment of the range. In common with the DRS 20 models, the Rair design also used the 8085 processor, and the Personal Computer range consisted of the low-level Model 10 with 64 KB of RAM, dual floppy drives and two serial ports; the Model 30 as an upgraded Model 10, replacing one floppy drive with a hard drive; the Model 31 as an upgraded Model 30 with 128 KB of RAM and four serial ports; and the Model 32, upgrading the Model 31 to 256 KB of RAM and eight serial ports.

Departmental systems

For many years ICL marketed departmental computers under the DRS brand, standing originally for Distributed Resource System. During the mid-1980s, separate Office Systems business units had produced a disparate range of products including IBM-compatible PCs such as the PWS (an AT clone), small servers branded DRS, and a range of larger Unix servers sold under the Clan name. A re-branding in late 1988 pulled these together under the DRS brand, with a consistent grey and green livery.

In the mid-1980s ICL developed the DRS 300 in Kidsgrove, and ran down Utica.

In 1994 the DRS range was superseded by the SuperServer and TeamServer ranges of SPARC and Intel-based machines, running Unix or Microsoft operating systems.

OEM products

In the early 1970s, ICL signed an OEM agreement with the Canadian company, Consolidated Computers Ltd (later Consolidated Computer Inc.) to distribute CCL's key-to-disk data entry product, Key-Edit, in the British Commonwealth of countries as well as in western and eastern Europe. Models included Key Edit 100, 50, 59, 1000, and 2000. In the mid-1980s a version of the Key Edit 59 operating system was ported (in emulation mode) to the DRS 20 series and marketed as Data Entry 20.

Subsidiaries

Corporate history

This section describes the various takeovers of and by ICL that followed its formation in 1969.

ICL Fellowship

ICL Engineers responsible for pioneering achievements in the field of Computing could be recognised through the ICL Fellowship, established in 1990 by then-CEO Sir Peter Bonfield. The Fellows represented the peak of technological expertise within ICL and directly advised the company leadership on technology matters.

See also

• Odra (computer) – the Polish Odra 1300 series computers used ICL software

Further reading

• 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
• Trojan Horses and National Champions: A History of the European Computing and Telecommunications Industry. Paul Gannon. Apt-Amatic Books, 1997. ISBN 0-9530284-0-2

External links

• ICL 1900 Series Computers at fsu.eu.com (archived)
• The ICL Archive – an on-line directory of ICL archive material maintained by the Computer Conservation Society
• The ICL Computer Museum