Large computer installations 1970-90

June

IBM announced the System/370 range of mainframe computers as its replacement for the hugely successful System/360. The first two models, which shipped in 1971, were high-end machines and were designed for easy migration from the System/360.

The name of the new series signified that these were products for the 1970s, but the System/370 architecture was to have a 20 year lifespan, underpinning IBM mainframes until the launch of the System/390 in 1990.

The Aer Lingus installation at Dublin Airport, which was already the largest computing operation in Ireland, took delivery of its third IBM System/360. A second-hand model 65 with 512 KB of RAM joined the two model 50s that had run the airline’s Astral reservations system since 1968. The model 65 was previously used by American Airlines in Oklahoma.

Its implementation was delayed, however, after an unsuccessful attempt to move the S/360 memory module from the cargo door of a Boeing 707 onto a road-going truck. The heavily-constructed unit fell onto the tarmac and had to be replaced.

In addition to the real-time reservations system the model 50s were now handling administrative applications such as stores management and a departure control system. Aer Lingus also provided batch processing and payroll services to external customers. The model 65 was placed at the back of the computer room and assigned to tasks other than airline reservations.

The Bank of Ireland Group, which had been formed in 1969 through a merger of Bank of Ireland, National Bank of Ireland and Hibernian Bank, selected the ICL 1900 range as its computer platform and formed a programming team. Hoskyns Consulting assisted this group to develop its first software on a 1904S mainframe at the ICL offices in Adelaide Road.

In 1972 the bank transferred this machine to a new computer centre in Cabinteely and installed a second ICL 1904S beside it. A third 1904S followed in 1973 to manage increased volumes of processing.

The operating system on these mainframes was George 3, which could handle multiple tasks simultaneously by allocating resources and CPU time to different processes. The main programming language was COBOL, but the bank also used ICL’s machine code language to achieve the speeds it required for a nightly update of customer accounts and to control new Burroughs devices that sorted 1,000 cheques per minute.

The computer centre depended on optical character reading for data input. The bank ran a fleet of vans that transported tally rolls and other vouchers overnight from each of its branch offices for scanning in the morning. This was the first time that Bank of Ireland centralised the management of customer data instead of storing account information inside the branches.

The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) installed an IBM System/360 model 40 to manage its customer billing operations. This processor came with 128K memory and ran the DOS/360 operating system.

The System/360 model 40 was a relatively old computer that IBM had launched seven years earlier. It was attractive to the ESB, however, because an emulation program made it backward compatible with two IBM 1401s that previously ran the billing application.

Separate computing groups catered for commercial and technical computing inside the ESB. The second unit supported the electricity authority’s engineers. Its top priority in the early 1970s was the development of software to improve the ESB transmission network.

Aer Lingus restructured its system services division into a subsidiary company, Cara Data Processing, which sold bureau services on the company’s IBM System/360 mainframes.

The telephone billing section of the Department of Posts & Telegraphs and the Voluntary Health Insurance Board were major customers for Cara in its early years.

Cara Data Processing also offered consultancy and systems development services to client organisations that preferred to run computers of their own.

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) installed one of its PDP-10 mainframes at its facility in Galway soon after it commenced manufacturing operations there in July 1971. The new facility assembled the company’s PDP-8 and PDP-11 minicomputers for delivery to its European customers.

“When we built Galway, we included a very large PDP-10 computer in the MIS department – much larger than was needed to run the plant, and one of the biggest computers in Ireland,” says Dave Knoll. “This became a beacon that helped attract people and customers to the plant, and greatly enhanced people’s learning. We soon had stronger customer connections and a larger market share in Ireland than we had in any country.”
Source: Jamie Parker Pearson (ed.): Digital at Work – Snapshots from the first 35 years, page 124 (Digital Press, 1992)

Dublin Corporation installed its first computer – an ICL 1902A mainframe.

ICL went on to become the principal computer supplier to Ireland’s city and county councils in the late 1970s, but none of the other local government authorities required a machine as powerful as the 1902A.

August

The Department of Finance reorganised its data processing unit under a new name: Central Data Processing Service (CDPS). Headed by Maurice O’Connell, its mission was to develop and co-ordinate ‘effective information systems’ throughout the public service. It also assumed responsibility for researching the potential for new computer applications.

In January 1973 CDPS installed an IBM System/370 model 145 to deliver batch processing services to other government departments and to the agencies that they oversaw, including local authorities, health boards and state-sponsored bodies. It housed this computer at a purpose-built facility in Kilmainham.

Wherever it was practicable, CDPS encouraged government departments to use its new facilities rather than establishing their own computer centres. It also stated its intention to supervise all future expenditure on computer systems, services and staff for the public service.

Three of the largest government organisations – the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Posts & Telegraphs – chose more autonomous strategies. In the years that followed these departments planned and operated substantial computer installations outside the CDPS centre.

Irish Life advanced from one generation of IBM processors to another, updating its primary computer from a System/360 to a System/370 model 135.

The insurance company had a long-established relationship with IBM, whose punched card equipment supported its data processing operations before computerisation. By 1973 Irish Life had become one of the country’s largest employers and trainers of computer programmers.

Read Barry Murphy’s testimony

Allied Irish Banks (AIB) installed two IBM System/370 model 45s at a new computer centre in Dublin. Finbar Donovan, who had recently joined the financial services group from Aer Lingus, oversaw its initial computing initiatives.

The first applications to go live at the bank handled share registration and payroll processing. These were followed by a much bigger application for cheque clearing and another for standing orders.

AIB introduced floppy disk equipment into its branch offices in order to capture transaction data for forwarding to the computer centre. In 1975 it began to use dial-up data connections to transmit this information.

May

The Office of the Revenue Commissioners installed a dual Honeywell 6060 computer in a newly built data centre at St Johns Road, Dublin.

This £2 million model was originally developed by General Electric. It supported magnetic disk storage, a transaction processing system for online applications and two Datanet 355 processors to facilitate VDU access over leased lines. All of Revenue’s computing operations migrated to the new platform by November 1974. By then the Revenue data processing division had also relocated its systems development group to new offices in Lower Mount Street, Dublin.

Read Seán Connolly’s testimony

June

The Department of Social Welfare placed an order with Honeywell for two Series 16 model 716 systems. These machines were classified as high-end minicomputers. The department planned to computerise its general benefits section and the primary purpose of the new computers was data capture. Their first application managed disability benefits.

CDPS continued to run other social welfare applications and the Series 16s were linked to its mainframe centre in Kilmainham. The Honeywell installation was, however, an important step towards an independent data processing strategy in the department.

Honeywell had previously established a firm foothold in Irish computing with its H200 mainframes and was now actively expanding in the minicomputer sector.

Read Seamus Clince’s testimony

The Department of Posts & Telegraphs (P&T), which employed half of all civil service personnel, opened a data centre in Dundrum and installed an IBM System/370 model 135.

This was the the first major computer installation inside the department, but P&T was already running two minicomputers to support air traffic control at Shannon Airport and had recently begun to use the Aer Lingus bureau service to produce telephone bills.

P&T had formed a computer unit in 1971, drawing its staff from an accounting department with experience of punched card technology and an engineering group that supported the national telephone network.

This unit initially ordered a System/360, similar to the machines that ran its telephone billing application at Aer Lingus, but subsequently opted for the newer System/370 platform. P&T standardised on the PL/1 programming language at an early date, setting it apart from the other large IBM users in Ireland.

The first application on the System/370 supported the Post Office Savings Bank, using an online connection from its premises in College Street to Dundrum. The savings bank had previously depended on batch processing services provided by IBM and CDPS.

June

Amdahl Corporation, A California-based company founded in 1971 by former IBM mainframe designer Gene Amdahl, introduced its first processor.

The 470V/6 competed directly against IBM’s large System/370s with Amdahl claiming faster performance for a lower price. By naming its product 470 the company signalled its intention to maintain software compatibility with equivalent IBM platforms – a strategy that it pursued until the late 1990s.

Amdahl brought the 470 to market through a research and development partnership with Fujitsu. The Japanese corporation was also an early investor in the firm, as was Nixdorf Computer in Germany.

ESB upgraded the computer that ran its commercial applications to an IBM System/370 model 145 with 768K of memory. The new mainframe ran the MVS operating system which allowed multiple online and batch programs to run at the same time.

In 1978 the electricity supplier replaced the model 145 with a more powerful System/370 model 158. This machine enabled the company to introduce online program development in place of batch processing based on punched cards.

Read Vivian Young’s testimony

The Office of the Revenue Commissioners increased its processing capacity by upgrading its primary mainframe to a dual Honeywell 6080.

It subsequently invested in new technologies for data preparation and storage. The introduction of Microdata key-to-disk equipment enabled Revenue to phase out paper tape for data entry. It also adopted Datagraphix microfiche products to retain printed records.

Transport group Córas Iompair Éireann (CIE), which had been an IBM mainframe user since 1967, turned to Digital Equipment as its primary vendor. It initially acquired three PDP-11/70s to run a transaction processing system.

CIE subsequently became a major VAX customer for Digital Equipment. By the late 1980s the processing capacity of the group’s VAX cluster made it one of the top ten computer installations in Ireland.

Thermo King Europe installed an IBM System/370 model 125 at its production facility in Galway.

The company, a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corp, manufactured on-board refrigeration systems for vehicles.

October

IBM announced the IBM 3031, which it described as ‘System/370 compatible’ to distinguish the new mainframe from earlier S/370s and to highlight its technical advances. The 3031 brought in significant price-performance improvements over its predecessors, took up less than half the floor space and supported several operating systems. It was also the corporation’s most powerful air-cooled platform. Larger IBM mainframes required expensive water-cooling

The Kilmainham-based Central Data Processing Service became one of the first organisations in the world to place an order. The government computing bureau chose the IBM 3031 to replace its existing IBM System/370.

IBM Ireland persuaded two more of its major customers to upgrade to 3031 in 1979. The ESB’s commercial computing group installed one to meet further growth in its processing needs and Aer Lingus ordered two IBM 3031s for its computer centre at Dublin Airport.

October

Digital Equipment launched the 32-bit VAX computer and its VMS operating system. This product range became the core of the company’s strategy until the introduction of its Alpha architecture in 1992.

VAX stood for ‘Virtual Address eXtension’ and the first member of the family was designated VAX 11/780. DEC positioned it as an extension of the older 16-bit PDP-11.

In the decade that followed Digital not only ramped up the performance capabilities of individual VAX systems but also facilitated even more powerful configurations through clustering. Its VAX cluster technology enabled the Department of Social Welfare and CIE to build up two of the largest computer installations in Ireland.

The VAX, indeed, was exceptionally successful throughout the public sector, supporting computer centres in the universities and the health service, the bigger state agencies and energy suppliers.

In the same month as it unveiled the VAX Digital Equipment opened an assembly facility in Clonmel to supplement its manufacturing operations in Galway.

Read ‘The only mini thing about it was that it came from the Digital stable’

Digital Equipment delivered DECSystem-20s to Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin. This 36-bit computer was the newest version of Digital’s PDP-10 mainframe and ran the TOPS-20 operating system.

Both universities were struggling with budgetary constraints, but discovered that they could afford DECSystems following an initiative by Pat O’Sullivan at Digital Equipment Ireland. He assisted the universities by drawing up a structured purchasing plan for the Irish government as a whole – an arrangement that allowed Trinity and UCD to obtain new machines at a discount price.

The existing computer operations in both colleges were based on IBM System/360s. The Digital mainframes enabled them to provide processing services more widely across their campuses.

December

ICL announced that the Guinness brewery in Dublin, which had used its mainframes since 1966, was updating its primary system to an ICL 2960. The new machine was valued at £850,000.

In October 1979 the company established a new subsidiary, Rainsford Computing Services, to make the IT expertise in its Dublin brewery available to sister companies in the Guinness group and to other organisations.

February

Representatives of the Irish Computer Society, the Irish Business Equipment Trade Association, the Irish Computer Services Association and the Federation of Computer Users in Ireland formed a new group, the Computer Industry Joint Education Committee (CIJEC), to examine the infrastructure for computer education in Ireland. Alan Mullally, head of computer services at Irish Sugar, chaired the committee.

CIJEC reported its findings in November 1979. It concluded that Ireland was facing a significant shortfall in computer skills and recommended the introduction of new third level syllabi in computer programming and information processing. These proposals reflected the priorities of large user installations as well as the emerging software industry.

The CIJEC initiative contributed to the establishment of certificate and diploma courses throughout the country in the early 1980s.

September

The Department of Social Welfare began a long relationship with Digital Equipment by ordering multiple PDP-11/70s to computerise its Registry. It proceeded to install five of these systems in two sites with links to 150 terminals in seven locations. The department based its new application on TRAX, a transaction processing version of the RSX operating system.

It subsequently upgraded this configuration to Digital’s VAX platform, developed other applications for the VAX and added a steady stream of VAXes to its hardware collection. The Department of Social Welfare thus became an international reference site for the systems vendor.

Amdahl opened a production facility in Swords, two years after it had begun assembling its systems at a temporary premises in Glasnevin. By the mid-1980s the Swords operation was producing 40 per cent of its worldwide mainframe output.

1980 was also the year in which founder Gene Amdahl severed all of his ties with the company. He launched another mainframe development venture, Trilogy Systems, which planned to build all of its computers in Ireland but failed to achieve this objective.

Amdahl Corporation, meanwhile, announced the 580 series of processors in November 1980. This became the successor to the 470 family and, once again, the company provided full compatibility with the IBM System/370 instruction set. The first customer shipments of the Amdahl 580 followed in August 1982.

The Department of Posts and Telegraphs commissioned Digital Equipment to supply the first electronic directory enquiry system for its public telephone service.

DEC sourced directory look-up software from a phone company in Tallahasee. This application was built on Digital Standard Mumps – a transaction processing database with an integrated programming language. The computer vendor then assigned programmers Margaret Fitzgerald and Joan Heelan to convert the American code to support the enquiry service in Ireland. They completed this work in 1981.

Posts and Telegraphs initially installed two Digital Equipment PDP-11/70s with 63 terminals to support this system, but it soon required more processing muscle. In late 1980 it was reported that the configuration had expanded to eighteen PDP-11s.

June

ICL announced a mainframe replacement deal, worth more than £2 million, with Bank of Ireland. This led to the installation of two ICL 2956/20 computers to take the place of its older ICL hardware.

This upgrade followed a major investment in computing for the bank’s branch offices. It introduced Nixdorf 8864 network controllers into every branch throughout the island of Ireland and Great Britain. Bank of Ireland also installed the first automated teller machine in Ireland during 1980.

Ulster Bank ordered two Burroughs B2900 mainframes — computers classified as ‘medium systems’ by their manufacturer.

The Belfast-based organisation subsequently claimed that it had become the first bank in Ireland with online connections to all of its branch offices.

The Irish Sugar Company, which had installed the first computer in Ireland back in the 1950s, adopted a new approach that would end its dependence on a central mainframe and in-house software development. The agribusiness group chose to implement packaged applications on multiple systems instead.

As the first step in this transition the Sugar Company replaced its ICL 1903A with an ICL ME29 – a newly announced medium-size successor to the ICL 2903 – in 1980. It subsequently migrated all of its information processing operations to a distributed network of IBM System/36 minicomputers.

April

The Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast installed an IBM 4341 mid-range mainframe. It already used PDP-11 equipment from Digital Equipment.

IBM had introduced its 4300 series in 1979. These computers were compatible with the System/370 but did not use the complex cooling technology that IBM’s bigger processors required.

December

The ESB reported that the total processing capacity for its customer billing operations had expanded six-fold over seven years.

The electricity provider’s latest enhancement was an additional processor for the IBM 3031 configuration at its data centre in Dublin. This increased the installation’s computing power by 40 per cent.

Read Bill Rutherford’s testimony

January

Northern Bank began a long relationship with Honeywell – and its successor Bull HN Information Systems – when it awarded a £2 million mainframe contract to the vendor. This deal displaced Burroughs as the primary computer vendor at the Northern Ireland-based financial institution.

October

Bank of Ireland installed two Digital Equipment VAX 11/750s to deliver administrative applications and to enable more users to access the database on its IBM mainframe.

This project was based on DEC’s Office Plus software – a just-announced set of office automation applications that preceded its better known All-in-1 suite. Office Plus offered word processing, internal email and information retrieval functions.

In 1982 the bank was anxious to halt the proliferation of microcomputers. Its IT management saw the VAX-based project as a way of delivering a form of personal computing to head office staff, while maintaining its central procurement policy for information technology.October

Bank of Ireland also severed its dependence on ICL platforms during 1982. In May it placed a £2.6 million order for two mainframes – an IBM 3081 and an IBM 3083 – both based on the new System/370 Extended Architecture. Two years later the bank installed an IBM 3084, which was reported to be the largest computer in the country at the time.

January

The Department of Posts & Telegraphs became the first customer in Ireland to place an order with Amdahl, selecting an Amdahl 470 processor as an upgrade for its IBM installation.

For years to come IBM and its plug-compatible challenger engaged in head-to-head competitions to equip the country’s largest user installations. Their rivalry had a special flavour in Ireland because Amdahl could cite its manufacturing base in Swords as a significant local presence.

Slowly but surely the company notched up further successes. In September 1984 University College Dublin ordered a second-hand Amdahl 470V/8 under a £500,000 contract. Six months later Aer Lingus chose an Amdahl 470 to replace two IBM 3031s. The airline retained a third IBM 3031 and maintained relationships with both vendors.

September

IBM expanded the 4300 series with the announcement of the IBM 4361 and IBM 4381 processors. Like the 3081 both featured the latest System/370 Extended Architecture, but their compact frame size and simple environmental requirements gave them a much broader appeal. Unlike its high-end mainframes, moreover, IBM allowed partner companies to market and support these systems through an agent scheme for software and service providers.

The 4381 in particular attracted Ireland’s mid-to-large installations and the system became noted for its longevity. IBM kept it in production until 1992.

Early adopters included the ESB, which spent £500,000 on two 4381s and Neodata Services, a US-based company that sold information management services to large corporations. Neodata, which ran data entry locations in Limerick and Kerry, installed an IBM 4381 in 1985. The company had been a Data General user for the previous decade.

Other IBM 4381 users in Ireland included AIB Group, medical device maker Becton Dickinson, Bord Bainne, Cara Data Processing, the Department of Agriculture, Educational Building Society, Guinness Group Sales, Industrial Credit Corporation, Insurance Corporation of Ireland, Krups Engineering, Sisk Group, Tara Mines and Texaco.

January

A state-owned company, Telecom Eireann, assumed responsibility for the telecommunications services formerly provided by the Department of Posts & Telegraphs. The new organisation, which was established through the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act, 1983, inherited the department’s computer centre and its Amdahl 470 system.

By the end of the decade Telecom was running the largest computer installation in Ireland, as measured by the total processing capacity of its mainframes.

Telecom Eireann also made a major computing investment for its head office during 1984, installing an IBM 4361 with the PROFS suite of office automation software at its headquarters in St Stephens Green.

February

The Revenue Commissioners sought ministerial approval for pilot projects that would provide personal computing options to staff at different levels.

The government’s taxation authority wanted to study how PC applications would complement the mainframe operations that it continued to run on Honeywell systems. Revenue’s early focus on personal computers differentiated it from other organisations with a background in centralised data processing. These showed a preference for terminal-based office automation systems as their way of distributing information to end users.

May

ICL launched its new mainframe generation, Series 39, incorporating processor technologies that the company had obtained through a partnership with Fujitsu. It initially offered a choice of two models with a selection of new peripherals and subsequently expanded the range with options for smaller installations.

Soon after this announcement Trinity College Dublin chose a high-end ICL Series 39 Level 80 to be the primary engine for its computer laboratory.

In April 1986 the Northern Ireland Department of Finance installed two ICL Series 39 Level 60 mainframes at its central information services division, which supported the larger government departments including environment, health and economic development.

As the Series 39 range expanded, several of ICL’s longstanding users in Ireland migrated from its older platforms. Dublin Corporation, HGW Paints, Independent Newspapers, New Ireland Assurance and RTE were among these customers.

Irish Permanent Building Society decided to transfer its core systems from an NCR platform to an IBM 3081 mainframe. It went on to implement an applications suite developed by Dallas-based banking software specialist Hogan Systems.

September

A government white paper made each department responsible for its information technology strategy and revised the mandate of the CDPS mainframe bureau in Kilmainham. Under a new name, the Central Computer Service (CCS), its role would be to provide processing to departments and offices that could not support their own systems and operations.

A new information management advisory service (IMAS) took charge of IT planning and research for the public service. Eric Embleton, who previously worked at the Central Statistics Office, was appointed head of IMAS in 1986.

Read Seamus Clince’s testimony

November

Perkin-Elmer, a US firm with a background in semiconductor fabrication technology, changed the name of its computer systems division to Concurrent Computer Corporation with the intention to reduce its shareholding in the business. Concurrent went on to sever all ties with its former owner in 1988.

New Jersey-based Concurrent specialised in 32-bit superminicomputers for parallel processing applications and had established a European assembly facility in Cork in 1981.

The company had recently won a major contract with Allied Irish Finance and subsequently supplied its systems to a number of insurance firms in Ireland.

April

Sperry Ireland delivered a mainframe to Foreign Exchange Company (Fexco), which ran a computer-based VAT refund service for visitors to Ireland. The financial services company housed the Sperry 1100 system at its headquarters in Killorglin, Kerry and developed software applications with Sperry’s own Mapper fourth generation programming language.

Fexco expanded its range of services in the following years and the Killorglin computer centre became one of the largest and most innovative outside the capital. It invested another £1 million in this facility in 1989, adding a Unisys 2200/401 system – Sperry and Burroughs had merged to create Unisys – and opening new satellite offices in Dingle and Cahirciveen with leased line connections to the mainframe.

May

The Department of Social Welfare expanded its collection of Digital VAX equipment to sixteen machines when it signed a contract for a VAX 8650 – the department’s most powerful computer to date.

November

The National Software Centre (NSC), a government-backed company that provided technical advice and marketing support to Irish software developers, conducted its second annual survey of computer usage in the 26 counties. The study aimed to measure the existing adoption of hardware, software, communications and applications as well as expectations for future expenditure – information that vendors and users alike could use for planning purposes. It concluded that the total market was worth more than £200 million in 1986, but was likely to decline in value in the following year because hardware sales were falling.

The NSC survey confirmed the dominance of IBM and Digital Equipment in the computer hardware trade, especially in the top tiers of Irish installations.

One strand of the technology census focused on large and medium-size mainframes. The NSC identified 25 systems in operation with more than 144 end users in late 1986. All but one of the organisations that ran them – Limerick-based Neodata – were located in Dublin.

Revenue upgraded its primary platform to a dual Honeywell Bull DPS 90/92T which supported around 700 local and remote terminals.

The computer vendor was now known as Honeywell Bull and changed its name again in January 1989 to Bull HN Information Systems.

Starting in 1988 Amdahl landed multiple orders in Ireland for the 5890 models at the upper end of its 580 range. The 5890-200 and 5890-300 dual processor machines made significant inroads into the IBM customer base, mainly because they scored well in price-performance comparisons.

Irish Life, whose computers ran custom-written mainframe policy management applications, chose an Amdahl 5890-300E as its latest mainframe. Then Hibernian Insurance ordered another 5890-300E.

In July 1989 the ESB announced plans to replace two IBM 4381s with one Amdahl 5890-190E. in November Bank of Ireland replaced one of its three IBM mainframes with an Amdahl 5890.

Amdahl’s relationship with Fujitsu had deepened during the 1980s. The Japanese giant had increased its stake in the company to 47.3 per cent in mid-decade. Amdahl not only sourced microelectronic components for its systems from this major shareholder. It was also co-developing communications controllers and data storage devices with Fujitsu. And the Amdahl manufacturing facility in Swords was fitted out with Fujitsu test equipment.

August

Teradata Corporation began the construction of its first international manufacturing facility at Clonshaugh Industrial Estate in Dublin. The company, which was headquartered in Los Angeles, started to ship its products from these premises in the following year.

Its DBC/1012 Data Base Computer was specially designed for relational database processing and was powered by multiple Intel microprocessors – up to a maximum of 1,024. Only one of these ‘database machines’ had hitherto been seen in Ireland. Trinity College Dublin acquired a DBC/1012 in the mid-1980s.

Teradata’s Irish facility entrusted its own computing requirements to an IBM 4381.

November

Memorex Ireland, which supplied peripheral equipment for mainframe installations, opened the country’s first ‘hot site’ in Dublin. The Memorex Business Protection Centre offered emergency back-up and disaster recovery services, initially based on an IBM 3081. Memorex invested in this facility following its acquisition of computer maintenance company Specialist Machine Services.

IBM Ireland was quick to respond to its competitor’s initiative. It started to market a ‘continuity of operations’ service of its own in 1988 and announced two years later that it would build a data centre in Tallaght to provide a wider range of business recovery services.

By that time Memorex had been restructured as Memorex Telex and had replaced the IBM machine inside its installation with a three-processor Amdahl 5890-400E.

December

Aer Lingus installed an IBM 3090/170S, running ALCS software under the MVS operating system, to support its participation in the Galileo travel trade reservations system.

February

The ESB registered a new company, ESBI Computing, to promote its information systems expertise and sell software services to international customers.

The new entity not only offered custom software development, but also marketed applications that the ESB had developed for internal use. These included a computerised maintenance management system and a comprehensive materials management system.

The Information Management Advisory Service merged with the Central Computing Service to create a new public service organisation. The Central Information Technology Service, known as CITS, was led by Eric Embleton.

The primary system at its data centre in Kilmainham was now a second hand IBM 3081. CITS ran an IBM 4381 as well.

National Irish Bank, the former Republic of Ireland arm of Northern Bank, chose a DPS 8000 system from Bull HN Information Systems to run its core banking applications. National Australia Bank had acquired the institution two years earlier.

October

Digital Equipment Corporation introduced the VAX 9000 series and claimed that its processing capability had previously been available on mainframes only. Prices started at just above £1 million.

The Digital facility in Galway was one of only two production locations worldwide for the VAX 9000. It shipped one of the new systems to Schlumberger in France in July 1990. As a way of illustrating the benefits of this machine over a traditional mainframe, Digital reported that it was fully operational just four hours and 25 minutes after delivery.

December

The Board of the Revenue Commissioners approved plans to automate customs import/export procedures, starting in January 1991. The Customs and Excise Service would set up an Automated Entry Processing (AEP) bureau for this purpose, while more than 100 customs stations would be linked to a Bull mainframe at Revenue’s computer centre.

The AEP service aimed to replace the millions of physical documents that traders submitted to Revenue each year with millions of messages through an X.400 email platform. The project required a new data network so that traders could access this system. Six companies and groups had already declared an interest in managing the network. This work would not only be lucrative in its own right. The chosen contractor would also be well placed to develop and sell additional online information services.

Finance minister Albert Reynolds surprised the applicants in January when he instructed three of them to combine their resources and to run the network as a consortium. One of the three was a private company, International Communications and Information Systems (ICIS), whose majority shareholder was engineering contractor PJ Walls. The ICIS proposal was endorsed by the Irish Port Authorities Association, whose members claimed to handle 75 per cent of the country’s trade. State-owned communications service providers Telecom Eireann and An Post would complete the consortium.

ICIS, however, withdrew from the AEP project in early 1990. It tried to convince its new partners to include a cargo management service in the network plan, but this suggestion met strong opposition from industry groups that foresaw it resulting in an undesirable monopoly.

The end result of the contracting process was the formation of the Irish National Electronic Trading Agency as a 50:50 joint venture between Telecom Eireann and An Post. This new entity would be responsible for running the AEP network.

September

IBM introduced the System/390 – a new generation of mainframe processors for the 1990s – based on a revised Enterprise System Architecture and incorporating fibre optics channels for faster connections to storage subsystems and other peripherals. The company also unveiled no fewer than eighteen models, built on three form factors, to supersede its IBM 3090, 4381 and 9370 ranges.

This announcement ended the long ascendancy of the System/370.