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Rod Brown fires up the 1301 |
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About the seminar
In the late 1950s a company called ICT decided it would design a second generation computer. It was to be based on known principles and have considerable expansion potential. It was also designed for its existing customer base of exclusively punched card file users.
The result in 1962 was the ICT1300 series. It was successful and it provided a design base which allowed it to grow from a punched card tabulator emulator, through a magnetic tape file handler, to a full time-sharing multi-programming system.
Engineering on these systems and earlier generations of valve computers was an interesting challenge. Rod Brown will talk through the design principles, the growth of the systems as its users needs changed and point to the machines that followed. The presentation will also cover computer conservation before the CCS society existed, the ICT 1301 Resurrection Project’s active years in Kent and the project’s hopes that it can restart at TNMOC some time in the future..
More information on the restoration project can be found at ict1301.co.uk/13010510.htm.
About the speaker
Rod Brown joined ICT in the early 1960s and spent most of his working life with the standard ranges of programmable calculators and computers produced by ICT/ICL/Fujitsu, encompassing 550, 1200, 1300, 1900, 2900, 3900 before specialising in managing the outsourcing and subcontracting for many of the ICL government contracts. This last role gave him a chance to compare the histories of many of the other companies both within and outside the ICL fold and since retiring in 2000 he has pursued an interest in resurrection and conservation of many machines from that period.
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