Hilary Louis Doyle is best known internationally as an authority on armoured tanks and has published more than 100 books on the history of military vehicles.
His achievements in Ireland involved very different technologies. Hilary was the country’s first promoter of desktop computers, selling the earliest available models in the 1960s. He subsequently spent 30 years at Nixdorf Computer and its successor companies: Siemens Nixdorf and Siemens Business Services.
Having completed my leaving certificate in 1961, I joined the Chief Civil Engineers Office of CIE as an apprentice draughtsman. I had learned of this opportunity while spending summer holidays working in the transport company. An apprentice draughtsman was involved all aspects of survey, drawing and calculating associated with a large national civil engineering office. Approved studies were part time and in the evenings at Bolton Street College of Technology.
Two years later, in 1963, the consulting engineering firm of Joseph Mallagh and Son offered me the position of trainee engineer, which carried increased responsibility and greater opportunity to pursue my engineering studies. Mallagh’s specialised in civil engineering projects, especially for harbour development. These required hydrographic surveys in the rivers and seas around an area.
At the beginning of 1967 I was seconded to Irish Sea Surveys to project manage the in-shore part of a hydrographic survey in Saudi Arabia. The survey was a prerequisite for the building of a large new harbour at what was then the village of Dammam, now a large city, on the Gulf.
In the world of engineering, the slide rule was the universal tool for calculation. Computers were confined to the administration departments of very large international companies. In the Gulf, I encountered my first manually operated calculator, a rather tedious device when compared to our slide rule.
After returning to Ireland I was contacted by Eoghan O’Regan, a former CIE engineer. He had identified that Olivetti’s Programma 101 would solve his organisation’s need for repeated heavy calculation. However, the Olivetti representatives in Ireland had been unable to meet his requirements as they had not found a technically qualified person to programme and sell the Programma 101.
I was invited to an interview and subsequently joined Bryan S Ryan, the very successful Irish representative for Olivetti. Based in Dawson Street the company’s primary business had been selling office furniture but they had expanded with Olivetti’s range of electric typewriters, adding machines, and electro-mechanical accounting machines. With Olivetti, Bryan S Ryan had captured third position in the Irish accounting machine market after NCR and Burroughs. The Italian equipment maker continued selling through Bryan S Ryan long after it had bought out most of its agents across Europe.
Olivetti patented the magnetic card that held data for the Programma 101. (Image created by Hilary Louis Doyle)
Olivetti had previously developed the ELEA mainframe computer range, but sold this division to General Electric. It retained a computer design group under the engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto, but their products were reclassified as calculators. This project team developed the Programma 101 – an electronic computer that was small enough to sit on a desk and therefore claimed as the world’s first desktop computer. The company unveiled the concept at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and the system went into production in October 1965. The Programma 101 was adopted by organisations like NASA, the US military and education. NASA used ten Programma 101s to support the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The Programma 101 was designed to perform arithmetic calculations, but was clearly more advanced than a regular calculating machine. It consisted of a CPU based on delay line technology, ten data registers each with a capacity of 22 digits plus decimal point and sign, a tally roll printer to display the results and a magnetic card reader/writer.
Programming was in an assembler language that had conditional branch instructions and provided scientific, mathematical or statistical calculations. 120 step programmes were recorded on magnetic cards that had been patented by Olivetti. When the programme sequence on one card was completed, further cards could be inserted into the reader to initiate more complex calculations. Data storage inside the computer, other than in the ten data registers, was not an option. In 1964 core memory was prohibitively expensive and added weight that would defeat the desktop concept. The exterior form by Mario Bellini, one of the team, is still recognised as a milestone in industrial design. The magnetic stripe patent earned Olivetti significant royalties over the next decade.
The Olivetti Programma 101 was a completely novel and exciting opportunity for a young civil engineer to enter the world of computing. Following a lengthy intensive programming and sales course in the Olivetti Training Centre in Berkeley Square in London I had to man the Olivetti stand at the 1967 Business Equipment Exhibition at Earls Court Exhibition Centre.
Pictured at the Irish launch of the Programma 101 in 1967 (l-r): Teddy Ryan (Bryan S Ryan managing director), Paul Clancy (British Olivetti computer division manager) and Hilary Louis Doyle. (Source: Olivetti News Letter, published by British Olivetti)
After our Programma 101 launch in Dublin it became clear that a ready market for technical computing in Ireland did not exist. My first months were spent trying to educate potential users on the value of “programming” their calculations. The weight of 35 Kg allowed the Programma 101 to be taken on site for demonstrations, another first.
In 1967 the cost of a Programma 101 was £2,000, which was nearly double the average annual salary of that time, so not an easy sell.
My first success came at the beginning of 1968 when the statistical department of the B & I shipping company purchased a Programma 101. Then, following one of my presentations to a group of civil engineers, John Guinn became interested. He was an eminent engineer in TG Garland, one of the leading consulting engineering firms. I devoted one Friday afternoon to teaching John the assembler language. Secretly I lent him my demonstration Programma 101 for the weekend. The following Monday I called to collect my demonstrator and discovered that John Guinn had spent the entire weekend programming complex application suites to solve difficult structural engineering computations rapidly. John’s reputation opened further opportunities among the engineering consultants.
Although further successes continued at a rate of approximately one every six weeks, it became apparent to me that each sale required an immense effort. Even when I convinced the “technical” users, I found that they did not control a budget. Often it was necessary for me to programme bespoke applications and demonstrate a complete system before senior managers would even consider an order.
The breakthrough to a faster sales cycle came after I called a protective clothing manufacturer in Rathmines. Their workers were paid a productivity-related bonus. This meant that their payroll staff had to look up bonus tables and carry out hundreds of repetitive manual calculations every week. To automate this process, they were negotiating to purchase a small mainframe computer capable of storing all the necessary bonus tables.
I realised that the basis of the tables was a mathematical calculation. So, if I could eliminate the need to store tables, the Programma 101 could be offered at a fraction of the cost of even a small mainframe computer. I confirmed with several work-study engineers that, after timing each stage of a manufacturing process, they graphed productivity curves. Bonus payment tables were derived from these curves and periodically printed for use in the payroll office.
I used my knowledge of calculus to write a mathematical programme that would calculate the curve, from first principles, in the virtual space of the Programma. Then each time an entry was made by a payroll operator the bonus due was calculated. This eliminated several steps and made the whole process more streamlined.
In the Ireland of the late sixties there were many such manufacturing firms with similar weekly payroll practices. The administration departments had budgets for such productivity systems so this became my most successful application for the Programma 101.
In 1968 Olivetti introduced the Programma 203 which integrated an electric typewriter, with continuous stationary feed, to the electronics and tally roll printer of a Programma 101. Again, the design by Bellini is still considered outstanding. After the launch in Ireland in 1969 I programmed the Programma 203 so that it automatically printed payslips coupled with calculating tax, bonus and other complex payments. Commercial applications of that time did not need the accuracy of 22 digits, so I wrote a subroutine that split each data register in to two and took account of the potential +/- state of each half. This further enhanced my capability to sell to business firms. A Programma 203 sold for £3,000. Of course, at the time payrolls were processed on accounting machines but these depended on manual calculations.
About 40 Programma 101 and 203 systems had been installed in 1970, when Olivetti announced the Auditronic A770, an electronic accounting system, powered by a transistor-based computer. The Auditronic, with a starting a price of £7,000, was considerably more expensive than the Programma range, however, it overcame the data storage problems of that period by holding programmes and data on continuous loop magnetic tape cartridges. Each cartridge held 36 Kb, an amazing amount for the time. These tape cartridges allowed comprehensive programmes to be loaded and data to be stored for generating statistical reports. Multiple tape cartridges could be used to increase the data storage.
Bryan S Ryan now created an accounting systems division, bringing together the new Auditronic A770, the Programma 101 and 203, an inhouse programming group and the accounting machine department. Maurice O’Grady was the head. I was appointed as the first sales person for the Auditronic A770. Ray Naughton was recruited to take over Programma sales. The accounting machine sales force included Peadar Mulligan, Olaf O’Duill, Pat O’Donoghue, David Rossi, and Billy Guy, all who subsequently had notable careers in the computer industry. Mary Galvin headed the customer support group.
One of my first Auditronic A770 customers was Dan Morrissey and Sons Ltd, a concrete manufacturer based in Carlow. The data storage capability allowed this company keep contract pricing data online. This facility gave them a competitive edge in the construction sector. The Belton Pub Group successfully used an Auditronic A770 for stock control. Clery’s department store administration became an Auditronic A770 user and later hired Mary Galvin to manage that department.
Last edit: July 2017
© Hilary Louis Doyle 2017