GEC Computers
Encyclopedia
History
Starting life as Elliott AutomationElliott Brothers (computer company)
-Elliott Brothers Ltd:Elliott Brothers Ltd was an early computer company of the 1950s–60s in the United Kingdom, tracing its descent from a firm of instrument makers founded by William Elliott in London around 1804. The research laboratories were based at Borehamwood, originally set up in...
, the data processing computer products were transferred to ICT/ICL and non-computing products to English Electric
English Electric
English Electric was a British industrial manufacturer. Founded in 1918, it initially specialised in industrial electric motors and transformers...
as part of a reorganisation of the parent company forced by the British Government.
Elliott Automation retained the real-time computing systems, the Elliott 900 series computers, and set about designing a new range of computer systems to carry them forward long-term. The rules of the reorganisation disallowed Elliott Automation to continue working on data processing computing products for some years after the split (and similarly, disallowed ICT/ICL to work on real-time computing products). Three new computer ranges were identified, known internally as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha became the GEC 2050
GEC 2050
The GEC 2050 was an 8-bit minicomputer produced during the 1970s, initially by Marconi Elliott Computer Systems of the UK, before the company renamed itself GEC Computers Limited...
8-bit minicomputer, and beta became the GEC 4080
GEC 4000 series
The GEC 4000 was a series of 16/32-bit minicomputers produced by GEC Computers Ltd. of the UK during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.- History :...
16-bit minicomputer with its unique Nucleus feature. Gamma was never developed, so a few of its enhanced features were consequently pulled back into the GEC 4080.
The main company product was the GEC 4000 series minicomputers, which were used by many other GEC and Marconi companies as the basis for real-time control systems in industrial and military applications, and development of many new computers in the series continued through most of the life of the company. Other products manufactured in the earlier years were the GEC 2050, computer power supplies, and high resolution military computer displays, as well as the Elliott 900 series for existing 900 series customers. GEC Computers also found that some of the software applications it developed for its own use were salable to other companies, such as its salary payment services, its multi-layer printed circuit board
Printed circuit board
A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...
design software, and its project management software.
In the mid 1970s, GEC Computers was working on OS4000
OS4000
OS4000 is a proprietary operating system introduced by GEC Computers Limited in 1977 as the successor to GEC DOS, for its range of GEC 4000 series 16-bit, and later 32-bit, minicomputers...
, a more advanced operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
for the GEC 4000 series. This opened up the GEC 4000 series computers to more customers, including many in the academic and research communities. A number of collaborative projects ran, some of which resulted in applications which GEC Computers developed further and sold, in addition to the sales of the computers themselves. One of the largest of these were X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
packet switch systems, which resulted from a research collaboration with NERC
Natural Environment Research Council
The Natural Environment Research Council is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.-History:...
.
In the late 1970s, UK General Post Office developed Prestel
Prestel
Prestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979...
on GEC 4000 series. This resulted in sales of similar systems all over the world.
In 1979, the company was awarded the Queen's Award for Technical Achievement
Queen's Awards for Enterprise
The Queen's Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation or sustainable development. They are the highest official UK awards for British businesses...
for the development of the 4000 series, particularly Nucleus.
By 1980, OS4000 was becoming quite popular in the UK academic and research organisations as a multi-user system, with installations at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory near Daresbury in Cheshire, England, which began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Harold Wilson...
, Harwell Laboratory, NERC
Natural Environment Research Council
The Natural Environment Research Council is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.-History:...
, Met Office
Met Office
The Met Office , is the United Kingdom's national weather service, and a trading fund of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills...
, CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
, in many university Physics and/or Engineering departments, and as the main central computer service at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
(Euclid) and Keele University
Keele University
Keele University is a campus university near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as an experimental college dedicated to a broad curriculum and interdisciplinary study, Keele is most notable for pioneering the dual honours degree in Britain...
. So, in the early 1980s, the company launched the GEC Series 63
GEC Series 63
The GEC Series 63 was a 32-bit minicomputer produced by GEC Computers Limited of the UK during the 1980s in conjunction with A.B. Dick in USA. During development, the computer was known as the R Project. The hardware development was done in Scottsdale, Arizona whilst the software was the...
, which was specifically aimed at this market, but the GEC Series 63 was not a success, and the project was wound down after a few years, with the GEC 4000 Series continuing to be the company's main product.
The numbers of GEC computer systems around the UK by now meant that GEC Computers had built up a widespread field service organisation, and could guarantee on-site response within hours across pretty much the whole UK. This turned out to be a valuable asset. Many new technology companies trying to enter the market struggled when required to provide this type of service, and GEC Computers started taking on 3rd party field service support for many other companies, including some which competed with GEC Computers own products. (GEC Computers field service operations is still identifiable [in 2009] in Telent.)
Throughout the 1980s, GEC Computers expanded from its Borehamwood offices into 3 large purpose-built factory units in Woodside Estate, Dunstable. The company closed these as the business contracted in the 1990s.
GEC Computers extensive presence in UK academic and research organisations, and the UK field service organisation, led Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
to chose GEC Computers to be its presence in the UK for the UK launch of its Sun-2
Sun-2
The Sun-2 series of UNIX workstations and servers was launched by Sun Microsystems in November 1983. As the name suggests, the Sun-2 represented the second generation of Sun systems, superseding the original Sun-1 series...
product range in the early 1980s, which GEC Computers sold under the name of GEC Series 42. GEC Computers developed some reduced cost workstations called the GEC Series 21 based on Atari 520ST and 1040ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
systems with replaced PROM operating system code. GEC Computers was not particularly successful at selling the Sun systems, and Sun opened UK offices to sell direct, although GEC Computers field service continued providing field service for Sun Microsystems across the UK for many years, until Sun built up its own field service organisation.
At the company's peak in the early 1980s, there were about 1,600 employees, mainly based in the original Elliott building at Borehamwood
Borehamwood
-Film industry:Since the 1920s, the town has been home to several film studios and many shots of its streets are included in final cuts of 20th century British films. This earned it the nickname of the "British Hollywood"...
UK, and at 3 new purpose built factory units in Woodside Estate in Dunstable
Dunstable
Dunstable is a market town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, 30 miles north of London. These geographical features form several steep chalk escarpments most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north.-Etymology:In...
UK. There were a number of small offices in many other countries too.
By the 1990s, the real-time process control market was moving to cheaper microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
based systems, and GEC 4000 series sales into that market dried up. X.25 networks were being replaced by Internet networks, and so X.25 packet switch sales dried up. This left just the Videotex
Videotex
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
sales to other countries, and so the company concentrated on this product. However, there was only a window of a few years before the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
displaced Videotex systems, and the last of the company's main products also dried up.
From the mid 1990s, manufacture of systems ceased, although maintenance of installed systems and 3rd party maintenance still continues today (2009).
Company Name
- Elliott Automation
- Marconi Elliott Computer Systems
- GEC Computers Limited
- GPTMarconi CommunicationsMarconi Communications was a principal subsidiary of the Marconi Corporation plc and was formerly known as GEC Plessey Telecommunications . The company was a world leading telecommunications manufacturer...
Computers Limited - GPT Data Systems
- GPT Video and Data Systems
after which the remains of the company folded into Marconi Communications
Marconi Communications
Marconi Communications was a principal subsidiary of the Marconi Corporation plc and was formerly known as GEC Plessey Telecommunications . The company was a world leading telecommunications manufacturer...
, and subsequently into Telent.
GEC Computers was granted special permission by GEC to not use the logo on its products, as the logo was seen as rather old fashioned (even back in the early 1970s) for the new branding for the company. At the time, there was pressure from some other GEC subsidiary companies to have the GEC logo moderised, but GEC refused to do so.
Products and services
- Inherited the Marconi MyriadMarconi MyriadThe Marconi Myriad was an early computer designed by the Marconi Company in the 1960s and assembled in the same factory as the English Electric System 4/30....
, but probably only maintained existing ones. - Inherited English Electric M2100, but probably only maintained existing ones.
- Elliott 900 series
- GEC 2050GEC 2050The GEC 2050 was an 8-bit minicomputer produced during the 1970s, initially by Marconi Elliott Computer Systems of the UK, before the company renamed itself GEC Computers Limited...
- GEC 4000 seriesGEC 4000 seriesThe GEC 4000 was a series of 16/32-bit minicomputers produced by GEC Computers Ltd. of the UK during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.- History :...
, and operating systems COS, DOS, OS4000OS4000OS4000 is a proprietary operating system introduced by GEC Computers Limited in 1977 as the successor to GEC DOS, for its range of GEC 4000 series 16-bit, and later 32-bit, minicomputers...
, SCP-2 - GEC Series 21
- GEC Series 42 (Sun-2Sun-2The Sun-2 series of UNIX workstations and servers was launched by Sun Microsystems in November 1983. As the name suggests, the Sun-2 represented the second generation of Sun systems, superseding the original Sun-1 series...
and Sun-3Sun-3Sun-3 was the name given to a series of UNIX computer workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched on September 9th, 1985. The Sun-3 series were VMEbus-based systems similar to some of the earlier Sun-2 series, but using the Motorola 68020 microprocessor, in combination with the...
) - GEC Series 63GEC Series 63The GEC Series 63 was a 32-bit minicomputer produced by GEC Computers Limited of the UK during the 1980s in conjunction with A.B. Dick in USA. During development, the computer was known as the R Project. The hardware development was done in Scottsdale, Arizona whilst the software was the...
- Early Switched-mode power supplySwitched-mode power supplyA switched-mode power supply is an electronic power supply that incorporates a switching regulator in order to be highly efficient in the conversion of electrical power...
OEMOriginal Equipment ManufacturerAn original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a... - Early high resolution colour Visual display units (mainly for military use)
- Computing consulting services (mainly to other GEC companies)
- 3rd party maintenance
- X.25X.25X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
Packet switchPacket switchA packet switch is a node in a network which uses the packet switching paradigm for data communication. Packet switches can operate at a number of different levels in a protocol suite; although the exact technical details differ, fundamentally they all perform the same function: they store and...
es - Public VideotexVideotexVideotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
and private ViewdataViewdataViewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel, request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate channel. Samuel Fedida was credited as inventor of the...
Systems - 3rd party electronic and cable assemblies manufacture