1966: Atlas Future

By 1966, things had changed significantly in several areas:

• Harold Wilson's 1965 Labour Government had been in office for 2 years with a more hands-on approach to computing and research
• The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was broken up in 1965 and the Science Research Council formed
• The implementation of the 1965 Flowers Report was greatly changing the computing scene in the academic sector by late 1966:
  • The Department of Education and Science was formed with the Science Research Council (taking over the role of NIRNS) and the National Environmental Research Council
  • Most universities had sufficient computing power for teaching needs and basic research
  • Three Regional Computer Centres at London, Manchester and Edinburgh provided significant additional computer power for university research
  • RHEL had an IBM 360/75
  • Harwell had an IBM 360/65
  • The Atlas Computer Laboratory was now mainly supporting university research and some government organisations
• Mergers in the UK Computing Sector were encouraged to create a viable company to compete with the USA
  • Ferranti, English Electric, EMI, Elliott Brothers, Marconi were the main computer companies coming from the electronics side
  • BTM and Power-Samas from the punched card processing side
  • Leo By Lyons out of Cambridge University's EDSAC
  • 1959: BTM and Power-Samas merged to become ICT (International Computers and Tabulators)
  • 1962: EMI became part of ICT
  • 1963: Ferranti became part of ICT
  • 1963: English Electric and Leo merged to become EEL (English Electric-Leo)
  • 1964: EEL and Marconi merged to become EELM (English Electric-Leo-Marconi)
  • 1967: EELM and Elliott merged to become EEC (English Electric Computers)
  • This resulted in ICT having a large number of incompatible computers at the time that IBM were launching their IBM System/360 range of 32-bit, 4 byte per word systems with a compatible range of peripherals
  • ICT chose to produce a range of 1900 24-bit, 4 character systems based on the Ferranti-Packard FP6000 rather than going for RCA's Spectra 70 360-compatible architecture that they had access to
  • EEC chose to market its System 4 range based on RCA's Spectra 70 360-compatible architecture that they also had access to
  • November 1967 the pound sterling was devalued
  • March 1968: ICT and EEL were merged to become ICL with the future being a new 2900 32-bit Range P0 to P5. This was finally announced in 1974 after much negotiation. However, the top-of-the range 2990 (P5) was never built due to lack of government funding (ICL wanted a guaranteed order from government of 10 machines) and the 2980 (P4) was not delivered until 1975
• 1970: the new Conservative Government under Edward Heath arrived with little enthusiasm for helping UK industry to weather financial storms
• 1981: ICL/Fujitsu sign an agreement for ICL to market the Fujitsu IBM compatible range and launched the Atlas 10
• Unable to get any enthusiasm for the product within ICL, ICL withdrew the Atlas 10 from its catalogue in 1984
• 1984: ICL was taken over by STC
• 1990: ICL demerged from STC and was taken over by Fujitsu. So much for ICL's vision in 1981 of taking over Fujitsu!

Such was the political scene when the Atlas Computer Laboratory were seeking its future role and a new machine to replace the ICL Atlas as it now was.