1956-60: The system in a seed store
In 1960 Eoghan Busteed was appointed as the first full-time manager of the first computer installation in Ireland. His actual job title at the Irish Sugar Company was ‘manager, central accounts’.
Speaking about this role in 2006 he described his experience as ‘a great struggle’. He led a staff of programmers, punch card machine operators and the handlers of various collators, sorters, tabulators and printers. If everything ran smoothly, this team could get its computer to produce 8,000 statements over a weekend. But the system was down for most of the time. In fact, the company had been struggling to get this computer to work since 1957.
Irish Sugar was headed by Michael J Costello, a former army major general, and its command and control processes had a distinctly military character. If General Costello issued an order, it was carried out without question. But his accounts staff struggled when he instructed them to operate a BTM 1201 computer.
This valve-based system came from the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and cost £33,000. In 1957 Irish Sugar installed it in a seed store at its complex in Thurles. This factory already had a research role. A company lab in Thurles was responsible for breeding seeds that could improve yields and raise sugar content.
The new computer arrived in the middle of a rural electrification scheme. A visitor to Thurles could have observed Sugar Company employees trying to grasp the basics of computing while, in another part of town, the ESB and the Irish Countrywomens Association were treating the local populace to demonstrations of an ‘all-electric farm kitchen’.
The computer used punched cards for data input and output alike and performed calculations by placing data and instructions in designated positions on a rotating magnetic drum. Irish Sugar wanted the BTM machine to generate financial statements for the 28,000 farmers around the country that grew sugar beet, juggling all the variables behind its sales and purchases so that the growers could be paid more promptly.
BTM programmer Norman Frances produced a set of codesheets to control each step in the calculation of these payments. BTM also assigned Brian Pardoe, who had extensive experienced with punch card machinery, to operate the computer during the annual ‘beet campaign’ that ran from September to November. It then recruited Gordon Clarke for computer skills training so that someone based in Ireland would be able to provide technical support.
Auditors and accountants from the Sugar Company’s head office also made tentative attempts to program the BTM 1201. None of these people, however, was given this responsibility for an extended period and none acquired computing skills at the necessary level.
These efforts failed to convince the senior management of Irish Sugar that the BTM machine was ready to handle the company’s accounts for the 1958 or 1959 campaigns.
By then, according to Eoghan Busteed, the bosses at Irish Sugar were debating whether the entire computing project should be scrapped. Some accountants were, however, making regular use of tabulators that supported the computer system. Their activities might explain why the company decided to persevere with developing a payments application.
In 1959 the Sugar Company moved its BTM machine into a prefabricated building in a field beside the Thurles factory. The system was now officially designated as an ICT 1201, because BTM had evolved into International Computers and Tabulators (ICT).
The BTM/ICT 1201 finally began to produce statements for beet growers at the end of 1960. Four company employees who had learned how to write code, accomplished the mission by producing extremely compact programs.
It had taken three years of hard toil and around 100 people, including the advisers from BTM and ICT, to get Ireland’s first computer up and running.
During this time the focal point for computing in Ireland had shifted north of the border. Short Brothers and Harland took delivery of an English Electric system in 1957. Queens University Belfast ordered the first university computer on the island in 1960 and, in the same year, the Ministry of Finance in Belfast became the first government user when it selected an ICT 1202.
1961-66: Fourteen potential customers
The international computer industry was striding forward with new technologies in the early 1960s. The latest systems were built with transistors instead of valves, performed binary arithmetic rather than decimal calculations and their data storage options now included magnetic tapes. It still took a lot of people to support a computer installation, however, especially because user organisations were expected to write and maintain their own software.
Derek Overend was the first salesperson at IBM Ireland. Looking back in 1993, he recalled that he used to insist in the 1960s that every computer installation was headed by someone who knew as much about the equipment as IBM did. That meant that they understood the systems’ capabilities, were able to assess the viability of new ideas and could develop realistic upgrade plans. IBM’s customers should not only be loyal to the corporation’s products, but also firmly committed to IBM philosophies and IBM practices.
IBM Ireland shipped its first computer in 1960 – an IBM Model 650 ‘magnetic drum data-processing machine’ for the Electricity Supply Board. IBM then prepared for further sales by hiring dozens of system engineers, technical trainers and service bureau operators. ICT expanded the workforce at its Dublin subsidiary in the same way in the 1960s.
Computing in Ireland evolved as a virtual duopoly of these two vendors. Other computer manufacturers won occasional deals occasionally, but most Irish buyers opted for one of the big firms that had technical expertise and infrastructure inside the country. Many computing staff began their computing careers by working for either IBM or ICT. After a few years, when they had gained some experience, these engineers, programmers and operators might move into a user organisation or to a consulting firm.
The first wave of Irish computing resulted in installations at manufacturing companies, distribution firms and universities. Cadbury Ireland, Gateaux, Goulding Fertilisers and Cement Ltd were IBM customers. ICT provided systems to Esso, Clondalkin Paper Mills, PJ Carroll and Jacobs Biscuits. It also landed the first computer order from the Irish civil service, when the Office of the Revenue Commissioners ordered an ICT 1301 in 1963.
IBM soon became the dominant computer supplier in higher education. Both of the Dublin universities installed IBM 1620s in 1962, while University College Cork acquired a 1620 two years later.
The scale and ambition of computing projects at two state-owned companies made them stand out from the pack. When the ESB installed two IBM 1401s for accounts management in the mid-1960s, it claimed to have the largest computing operation in Ireland. The company’s engineering division set up its own computer group, which also employed IBM systems. Aer Lingus took an early decision to introduce a travel reservations system along the lines of Sabre in the US. Its first computers were a pair of IBM 1440s.
Both of the leading vendors announced new computer families in 1964 – IBM’s System/360 family and ICT’s 1900 series.
The five models in the IBM range ran different operating systems, but they used a common instruction set and the same input-output interface for their tape and disk devices. For the first time programmers were able to transfer the code written for one of the System/360 models onto another. IBM guaranteed upward, though not downward, compatibility.
In Ireland IBM foresaw an unprecedented demand for its computers and ran a massive education programme for its staff. It urged the country’s larger organisations, especially those that were still dependent on tabulators and ledger machines, to buy or lease System/360s. This campaign was largely a matter of finding and befriending individuals who showed an interest in the company’s new technologies and were senior enough to influence investment decisions in their workplaces.
In the end IBM Ireland identified just fourteen potential customers for the System/360. Some, like the ESB and the universities, were already running IBM computers. The public service, on the other hand, offered fresh opportunities. Apart from Revenue, which was already in the ICT camp, the Irish government was an uncharted territory. IBM targeted the civil service, along with state-owned transport companies Aer Lingus and CIE, and Irish Life Assurance, where the government held more than 90 per cent of the shares.
IBM shipped the first System/360 in Ireland to CIE in 1967. By then ICT had installed 1900s in Player Wills, Irish Shell & BP and the Guinness brewery. The old rivalry between the dominant suppliers persisted and was now underpinned by a new generation of computer technologies.
1967-69: Career paths and a computing milestone
Cracks in the IBM-ICT duopoly began to appear as the decade advanced. Honeywell arrived in Ireland when the Revenue Commissioners replaced its ICT 1301 with a Honeywell 1200 in 1967. A communications station near Shannon Airport installed two Digital Equipment minicomputers in 1968 for relaying teletype messages to and from aircraft on the North Atlantic. General Electric and NCR shipped systems into Ireland. Programmable calculators – the personal computers of their era – started to sell to engineers and then to business administrators. Olivetti, which had a Dublin-based distributor, set the pace at this entry level of the trade.
The formation of the Irish Computer Society in 1967 was another sign of change. It bridged the tribal division between IBM and ICT by facilitating dialogue across the profession. Data processing specialists now constituted a distinct community. Their numbers were steadily increasing and their career paths were becoming more structured.
When organisations installed their first systems, they usually hired managers who had already acquired computing experience in Ireland or abroad. They also selected and trained existing clerical staff to become programmers and operators. The vendors supplied aptitude tests to help customers identify candidates for the new data processing departments. This practice helped to gain trade union acceptance for projects that would reduce the employment of office workers. Some of the resulting agreements, however, imposed constraints on the size of a company’s computer or on the scale of its applications.
The workforce was relatively young and unusually mobile. Computing specialists took full advantage of the growing number and diversity of job opportunities. Most systems were still overseen by accountants, but technical applications existed in organisations like the ESB and De Beers Industrial Diamonds.
Independent programming and support services for IBM installations were also appearing for the first time. The computer maker had previously made it uneconomic for customers to choose alternative service providers, but the market opened up after an antitrust suit in the US. A group of former IBM staff opened System Dynamics in 1968, effectively creating the first software firm in Ireland.
Bureau services enabled an increasing number of organisations to avail of data processing – and payroll processing in particular – without committing themselves to major investments. Most of these services originated inside user installations and sought a local clientele. First they got their internal operations running smoothly. Then they added a bureau as a revenue-generating sideline. The most notable exception to this pattern was a Dallas-based service provider, University Computing Company, which expanded into Ireland in 1968 by acquiring an existing bureau in Shannon and setting up a new operation in Dublin.
Like IBM, University Computing Company targeted the public service. IBM eventually won, but the contest to computerise the government ran on for years.
IBM delivered the smallest models in its System/360 range to the Department of Defence and the Land Commission in 1967. In the same year the Department of Finance started to train civil servants as systems analysts and programmers in the expectation that they would develop applications for other branches of government. Some of the initial projects made use of Revenue’s computers. The Department of Finance initiative led to the formation of a central data processing service for the civil service, based on IBM mainframes, in the 1970s. The largest government department, Posts and Telegraphs which ran the telephone service and a savings bank, did not install its first computer until 1973.
Financial institutions were also slow beginners. Insurance firms Irish Life and New Ireland Assurance installed systems in the late 1960s, but the major banks took longer to get started. This was largely due to the wave of restructuring and consolidation that created Bank of Ireland Group and Allied Irish Banks. But the banks’ decentralised structures constrained them as well. Individual branches ran their own electro-mechanical accounting machines, usually supplied by Burroughs or NCR, that enabled officials to view each customer’s profile on a single card. These systems were labour-intensive and unconnected, but those limitations suited the self-interests of most branch managers and staff.
It was not until the 1970s, when the number of cheques that needed processing reached unprecedented levels, that the two big banking groups invested in computer centres.
By the end of the 1960s around 50 organisations in Ireland had followed the Sugar Company’s lead and installed electronic computers. The distinction between stored program computers and other data processing equipment was now harder to discern. Desktop calculators could be programmed and accounting machines were beginning to incorporate electronics.
The largest and most sophisticated project of the decade was at Aer Lingus. Its Astral system was a milestone in Irish computing.
The airline had begun evaluating the potential for electronic computers to manage passenger reservations in the 1950s. In 1961 it embarked on a development project with IBM to develop a real-time system, but changed its plans when the System/360 was announced. In 1964 Aer Lingus imported a second-hand airline inventory system from the US – a Bunker-Ramo Teleregister based on vacuum tube processors and magnetic drum storage. Coloured lights showed the availability of seats on a particular flight and date to the staff in a central reservations group. The airline also installed an IBM 1440 to store passenger information, followed by a second 1440 for accounting and for tracking the ages of replaceable aircraft parts.
It took four years for Aer Lingus to introduce a reservations system on the System/360. By Irish standards, this was a computing project of unprecedented ambition and complexity. The investment was also on an unprecedented scale. Aer Lingus paid IBM around £4 million for equipment and services.
The enabling software for the project was the Programmed Airline Reservations System (PARS) developed by IBM and American Airlines. IBM had hoped to install PARS in airlines throughout the world, but soon discovered that it would need fundamental alterations to work outside the US. It set up a special software development group at Heathrow Airport, announced an ‘international’ edition called IPARS and persuaded five European airlines to adopt it. Aer Lingus achieved the fastest roll-out of an IPARS system.
Astral – or the Advanced System of Telecommunications and Reservations for Aer Lingus – went live in October 1968 and was phased into service across 18 cities around Europe and North America over the following months. Every location required a hardwired computer and every configuration was different. More than 200 user terminals were able to access the system and each one cost more than an operator’s annual salary.
The Astral project encapsulated emerging trends in computer applications. It was based on real-time data management, not batch processing. It involved computer networking across multiple locations in different countries. It proved that software could be supplied as a product and rolled out in multiple organisations. It utilised visual display terminals with display screens and keyboards. These were operated by customer service staff, not by computing specialists. Its support procedures and back-up measures were more complex and advanced than those in other installations. And it started a process that led Aer Lingus to develop add-on software for other airlines and to sell computing services to other industries.
These advances, along with the arrival of minicomputers that more organisations could afford, foreshadowed the computing agenda of the 1970s.
Last edit: January 2024
