Dudley Dolan balanced commercial opportunities with his educational interests throughout a long career in information technology.
His oversaw software implementation projects by user organisations and by service providers BIS Beecom and Software AG Ireland. His roles included computer science course director at Trinity College Dublin, chief executive of the European Computer Driving Licence Foundation and adviser on skills development to the European Commission.
I completed my secondary school education in Wesley College, then located on St Stephens Green, and entered the School of Engineering, Trinity College, in 1958.
The first two years of the engineering degree were common to all engineering disciplines. I then chose to take the production engineering option, mainly because I did not see myself as a civil engineer.
The production engineering option included such topics as production management, trade union law and, in particular, automation. I was fascinated by the servo-assisted mechanical devices that were used in power steering and brake mechanisms.
All final year students selected a project in an area that interested them. I chose computers and their potential, because I was intrigued by the possibilities they opened up. I also felt that none of the staff members knew much about the topic and so it would be easier to obtain a pass mark.
Prior to graduation in June 1962 I started looking for a job. At that time I was romantically linked with my wife of today and so I sought a job in Ireland. Most members of my class were emigrating to UK, Canada, USA and Australia.
Following a number of interviews the only company to offer me a job in Ireland was IBM Ireland. Their interview consisted of the normal face to face process plus a programmer’s aptitude test. This took the form of a booklet with pages of multiple choice questions that candidates had to answer under strict time control. The three sections of the test involved completing series of numbers, relating shapes correctly and solving arithmetic problems.
I passed the aptitude test and happily took the job. It suited my needs and the company was based in Dublin.
In June I was informed that my employment would commence on 1st July and that I should report to IBM UK Limited in Newman Street, London. This was the start of some 18 months spent in London. The number of computers in Ireland was limited and the need for trained staff in IBM Ireland was minimal.
Not suitably dressed for IBM in 1962
On my first day in IBM I was called in by the manager of the education centre to be told that in IBM one did not wear a sports jacket, checked shirt and Trinity graduate’s tie. (I thought that I was very well dressed, compared to my garb for the previous four years.) I was instructed to ensure that by the next day I had a grey suit, white shirt and dark tie. This was my first experience with the rules and regulations in IBM. So for the next four years this was the uniform I wore.
The first training course was on unit record equipment . All the information about a single transaction constituted a ‘unit record’. When this information was punched onto a card, the card became a permanent record and could be used many times. As part of its induction process IBM gave us a ‘personal study program’ – a set of seven books that explained the principles of punched card data processing.
The course took us through card punches, verifiers, sorters, collators, reproducers, calculators and accounting machines. The means of controlling these devices was the plug board panel. This was wonderful for a logical engineering mind. Electronic brushes read input from holes in cards and the resulting signals were directed by a physical wire through selectors to output areas for punching holes or printing characters. The logic required for the collator was particularly enjoyable. The whole world of electronic signals buzzing through wires at your direction, together with emitters for creating signals, meant that the possibilities were endless.
IBM required a pass mark of 80% to get through its courses – a far cry from the 40% pass mark in academia. In fact anything less than 100% was frowned upon.
Having completed the unit record course I returned to Dublin to put into practice what I had learned. I spent most of my time supporting the IBM installation in Irish Life’s premises beside the Grand Canal. Its operations depended on accounting machines, sorters and reproducers, together with card punches, card verifiers and literally millions of punched cards. There were master cards for each policy holder and transaction cards for each premium amount.
My greatest achievement there was to design a configuration of sense switches which allowed the date to be set without disturbing any wires on the plug board panels. Irish Life and I were delighted.
Then I learned another lesson regarding rules and regulations in IBM. I was given a splendid gift of a lovely pen and pencil set for Christmas by Irish Life. I duly mentioned this to my manager in IBM and was promptly instructed to give it back. IBM employees did not accept gifts from customers.
Soon after, I learned another lesson. IBM Ireland held its Christmas party for staff and wives. The party was in the form of a sit down meal in a hotel. On the tables were jugs of fruit cup. IBM did not allow alcohol.
It was around this time that IBM and I made a discovery. Although recruited as a trainee salesman, it was clear that I did not have the motivation or aptitude for a sales job. I was much happier being a systems engineer. The managing director of IBM had other thoughts. He believed that I would be useful as a trainer of IBM customers. I was duly despatched to Zurich for a ‘Teach the teachers to teach’ course which proved to be invaluable for me and helped shape my future career. The main lesson was to be yourself and never to pretend that you know more than you did.
My teaching experience commenced in the rather beautiful chapel which was attached to 28 Fitzwilliam Place and is still there today.
Dudley (arrowed) at a 1963 IBM training class in London. Note the suits, white shirts, ties and just one female in the group.
In 1963 I returned to London for another training course. This one involved computer programming. We learned SPS and Autocoder for the IBM 1401. We also learned machine language. This was particularly useful for modifying programs on the fly, as waiting for machine time to go through the assembly process was often difficult. We also learned some Fortran IV, which I used much later for financial planning using Mini Plan on the IBM System/3.
With a knowledge of programming under my belt I was then attached to the London North Branch Office of IBM UK, based in Welwyn Garden City, and went to assist some IBM customers in the London area.
One of these customers was Vauxhall in Luton. Getting there involved a train journey through the countryside on a rail line soon to be closed by Lord Beeching. In Vauxhall I was deputed to write a program to spool to their IBM 1410. Spooling was useful because devices accessed data at different rates. The buffer provided a waiting station where data could rest while the slower device caught up. The most common spooling application was print spooling, where a printer pulled documents off the buffer at its own rate. There were very few support programs available then.
My other customer at that time was Mann Crossman and Paulin Breweries, located on Mile End Road in Whitechapel. They had installed an IBM 1440. Working there was very reminiscent of my time spent in the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, where I had been a fitter’s helper in 1957. It was wise to ensure that all sensible work was done before 11.00am when the first visit of the day was made to the tap room for the regulation pint of bitter.
On returning to Dublin my time was divided between customer training and programming. Another role was to back up the sales force by tailoring demonstration programs to show that a selected computer could meet the needs of the potential customer.
Occasionally I would be asked to write a program for the service bureau at the IBM Ireland office, which had its own IBM 1401 computer. One very interesting task modelled the staffing levels of the main banks, showing recruitment levels, promotion paths and the like for the next 10 years.
One of the most uplifting experiences I had with IBM was my first ‘Kick off Meeting’. At this the MD and senior staff outlined the successes of IBM worldwide and the plans for the future. I remember being naive enough to walk out of my first meeting believing that we could conquer the world.
IBM did not look kindly on employees having a look at what its competitors had to offer. This did not suit me and much of my time was spent in the library researching the manuals from competitive suppliers. I began to get restless. I felt that unless one was in a sales capacity one would soon reach a ceiling and no further progress could be made.
Around this time IBM sold a 360 Model 20 to Cement Limited. They were looking for a data processing manager. I applied, was offered the job and joined Cement Limited in 1966.
The role of DP manager in a new installation had little to do with IT. The main role was recruitment, analysing requirements and considering suitable locations for the computer equipment and the ancillary air conditioning.
This was my first experience of management. I had a good idea what I needed to do but had no experience. I began to look around to see if there were other people in the same situation as myself. This led me to visits to meetings of the British Computer Society (BCS) which took place in Queens University, Belfast. I also remember reading a book ‘Management Standards for Data Processing’ by Dick Brandon, published 1963. He was my first introduction to the need for standards in IT
Cement Limited was a wonderful company to work with. It was effectively engineering-oriented and held a monopoly position in its marketplace. My role took me to locations in Drogheda, Limerick, Athy and Ballyclare. This was a whole new experience and enabled me to view computing from the user’s perspective.
The main applications we developed in my first years with the company were sales invoicing, stores control and payroll. These were all written using RPG II.
During this time I had meetings with like-minded people in IT regarding the creation of an Irish equivalent of the BCS. I recall initial small group meetings in the RAF Club in Earlsfort Terrace, followed by the first public meeting at the offices of P J Carroll and Company on the Grand Canal. I was a founder member of the Irish Computer Society in 1967.
The computing community in Ireland at that time was quite small, with most people knowing each other. It was expanding rapidly and there was a real shortage of people with many returning from gaining experience abroad.
In 1969 I was fortunate enough to be asked by Professor John Byrne of Trinity College to go to the National Computing Centre (NCC) in Manchester, which had been founded three years earlier by the Labour Government in the UK. He wanted me to attend NCC’s introductory course on systems analysis and design and to assess its suitability for evening courses in Trinity.
The NCC course established a clear methodological approach to the development of computer systems. It also introduced the concept of the systems development life cycle. These processes had been missing from the computer operations of the 1960s, but they became the bedrock on which many information systems were built.
In later years I became the course director for Trinity College’s evening BSc degree. I found that I saw computing in different way than most people in the university. I was an information systems person rather than a computer scientist. The training that IBM gave me in the 1960s might have steered me in that direction.
Last edit: July 2016
© Dudley Dolan 2016