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Further reading ⇓

□ Overview □ Project
GEC
□ Overview □ 4000 Series □ GEC 4070 Operating System □ Installation □ Communications □ GEC 4000 family □ Nucleus □ Functional spec. □ Babbage assembler □ Instruction set manual □ Nucleus manual
Prime
□ Overview □ The company □ Primos Operating System □ Systems □ Communications □ Software □ Prime and UMIST □ Office Automation □ The Schools Project □ Prime 750 □ FOREST preprocessor □ META II TWS □ META II definition □ FINGS graphics system □ ROOTS extended FORTRAN □ Prime User Manual

GEC Computers Installed

GEC 4070

GEC 4070
Full image ⇗
© UKRI Science and Technology Facilities Council

There was an early decision to install five GEC systems in university departments at Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow, Newcastle and Cranfield. GEC were late on delivering these. The first system did not go into Bristol until October 1978, six months after the order. By June 1979, all five systems had been installed. By October 1980, systems had also been installed at Bradford, Cardiff and Birmingham. Later still, systems were installed at Heriot-Watt, QMC and Sheffield. GEC systems had also been purchased by other Research Council institutions and support was also provided for these.

The main GEC models were:

The series was still evolving up until 1993.

The full list of GEC systems supported by ICF was:

Table 1
Site Machine
Computers wholly owned by SRC and installed by ICF:
RAL GEC 4085
Bristol GEC 4085
Cambridge GEC 4070
Glasgow GEC 4070
Newcastle GEC 4070
Cranfield GEC 4070
Cardiff GEC 4070
Bradford GEC 4085
Birmingham GEC 4080
Sheffield GEC 4085
Herriot Watt GEC 4085
QMC GEC 4085
Computers linked to ICF and running ICF operating systems:
Appleton (Slough) GEC 4070
UCL Enhanced Workstation GEC 4082
Manchester Enhanced Workstation GEC 4082
RAL Data Editing System GEC 4080
ROE GEC 4082
NERC Keyworth GEC 4070
NERC Swindon GEC 4070

Networking status:

ITP, FTP to each other and HASP RJE to central batch facilities all via SRC X25. RJE to each other was available by end 1980.
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