Minicomputer systems and software 1969-82

July

IBM announced the IBM System/3, which was designed to run business applications and was said to cost less than half as much as the smallest member of its System/360 mainframe family.

The System/3 inaugurated IBM’s midrange category of computers and was initially promoted as a suitable replacement for IBM ‘unit record equipment’ – its long established electromechanical accounting machines.

The new hardware was accompanied by the RPG II programming language which emulated the punched card management procedures associated with unit record equipment. This capability would facilitate the transfer of existing transaction records from mechanical systems to electronic minicomputers.

IBM had struggled in the 1960s to identify potential customers in Ireland for its mainframes, but would be able to target a much larger number of candidate organisations with the general purpose System/3. Midrange computers would become the backbone of the corporation’s activity in Ireland over the next decade.

January

Massachusetts-based Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) announced its PDP-11 family. The company was growing rapidly and was already ranked as the industry’s leading minicomputer specialist.

The 16-bit PDP-11 not only worked as a standalone computer, but could also be embedded into process control applications. It soon supported a selection of operating systems – some developed by DEC, but most originating elsewhere – and became a major commercial success.

Digital Equipment had made its first sale in Ireland in 1968, delivering two of its PDP-8 computers to an aviation communications station near Shannon Airport.

September

IBM demonstrated the System/3 at a ‘commercial productivity exhibition’ in the RDS. This was the first time in Ireland that a working electronic computer had been displayed in a public venue without air conditioning. Its previous systems had required the controlled environment of a dedicated computer room.

The System/3 was notably successful in foreign-owned assembly facilities whose parent firms ran IBM mainframes. In general, indeed, such companies soon gravitated towards minicomputers to manage their operations in Ireland.

Read Robert Poynton’s testimony

Ulster Bank bought ICS Computing, a Belfast-based bureau service. Tom Winter, a former IBM staff member, had established the business in 1967.

The company evolved into a minicomputer-based bureau, offering financial management services that ran on DEC PDP-11s.

This bureau expanded across the border with backing from Ulster Bank. A new subsidiary, ICS Computing (Ireland), opened offices in Dublin and Cork in the early 1970s.

Pharmaceutical group Beecham became the first IBM customer in Ireland to install a System/3.

Insurance Corporation of Ireland, which installed two systems, Cork County Council, Fiat Motors and food distributor Williams & Woods were also early adopters of IBM’s midrange machine.

At this stage in the evolution of the minicomputer IBM still assumed that customer organisations would employ in-house programmers rather than install packaged applications. The company established an ‘installation centre’ in Dublin where new users could develop and test software on a System/3 before they received their own computers.

Read David Laird’s testimony

July

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) opened its first manufacturing operation in Europe at Mervue Industrial Estate in Galway. Cy Kendrick, the first manager of the facility, relocated from the company’s home base in Massachusetts. Personnel manager Mike Mulqueen was the first employee hired in Ireland.

In the early years of the factory almost all of the components and subassemblies that it required were shipped from the United States.

The first Galway-assembled system was a PDP-11/20. The facility also assembled and tested PDP-8E computers and PC8-3A paper drives in its initial phase.

DEC started to ship software kits to its European customers in 1972. These took the form of paper tapes that contained an operating system and diagnostics plus supporting documentation.

The photograph shows a 1971 contract signing ceremony at the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in Dublin. Pictured (l-r) are Patrick Lalor (minister for industry and commerce), Edward Schwartz (DEC general counsel), Pete Kaufmann (DEC vice president), Michael Killeen (IDA managing director), JP Dunne (IDA secretary) and Robert Molloy (minister for local government).

(Photograph source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Photographer unknown.)

Read Finbarr Power’s testimony

December

Gerry McKeown established GC McKeown & Company (Computing Facilities) Ltd in Dublin.

In the years that followed this venture built up a partnership with Digital Equipment and developed applications for the PDP-11.

Digital Equipment UK shipped PDP-8 systems with typesetting software to a number of newspaper publishers in Ireland.

The Belfast Telegraph, the Cork Examiner, the Clonmel Nationalist and Irish Independent adopted this hardware-software combination.

An international office equipment business owned by sewing machine maker Singer entered the Irish computer trade with the introduction of its System Ten computer. The company had released this partitioned memory minicomputer in the US three years earlier.

The arrival of the System Ten was accompanied by the launch of the Singer Business Machines name. Previously known as Friden, the company’s Dublin office was led by Donald McDonald. Friden sold calculators and products that gathered data for bureau services. Its Flexowriter combined a typewriter with a paper tape punch and was mainly used to capture invoice details for processing on computers.

Singer promoted the System Ten as an affordable option for small businesses. The price of this machine started at less than £50,000.

April

ICL, one of the two big contenders for mainframe sales in Ireland, expanded the low end of its product range with the launch of the 2903 computer. Unlike its predecessors the new machine could be installed in an office environment without underfloor cabling.

The company’s sales and support capabilities in the 1970s were matched only by IBM. Before the arrival of the 2903 ICL had around 30 computer customers in the Republic of Ireland and was also the dominant systems vendor in Northern Ireland.

The ICL 2903 was technically compatible with an ICL 1900 mainframe and could run the same software. The performance of the 2903 was, however, comparable with IBM’s System/3 minicomputer. ICL positioned it explicitly as an alternative to System/3 by offering an RPG compiler.

Demand for the 2903 far exceeded ICL’s expectations and the company sold almost 3,000 of the machines during the 1970s.

The Department of Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin installed a Burroughs B1714 minicomputer to take over some of the workload on its heavily utilised and ageing IBM mainframe. The B1714 remained in service until 1979.

Burroughs Corporation had entered the computer business in the 1950s and in the following decade it was ranked as the largest of IBM’s competitors in the US market. In Ireland, however, its primary activity was selling electro-mechanical accounting machines, most notably to bank branches.

Burroughs had launched the B1700 range in 1972 as a general-purpose computer that could compete with IBM’s System/3.

June

Germany’s Nixdorf Computer set up a marketing and service subsidiary in Ireland.

The new organisation was headed by country manager Maurice O’Grady, who had previously worked for office products supplier Bryan S Ryan. The initial staff of seven included software manager Hilary Doyle, who had sold Olivetti systems at Bryan S Ryan.

Wexford Farmers Co-Operative in Enniscorthy became their first customer when it ordered a Nixdorf 820 minicomputer.

Named after its founder Heinz Nixdorf and headquartered in his home town of Paderborn, Nixdorf Computer had launched its first minicomputer in 1968. The company’s strategy was to sell general purpose systems together with services that tailored them to suit the needs of individual customers. In 1973 its computers stored information on ledger cards, punched cards or tapes, but a system with interchangeable hard disks became available in the following year.

Read Hilary Louis Doyle’s testimony

JJ Haslett, a food wholesaler based in Derriaghy outside Belfast, placed the first order in Ireland for a Singer System Ten.

Another Northern Ireland firm, textile machinery maker James Mackie and Sons in Belfast, also set up an early Singer installation.

In 1974 Singer Business Machines won a deal at pharmaceutical distributor United Drug in Dublin. The company picked the System Ten for order processing on the recommendation of consultants from System Dynamics. Singer offered an order entry package that used an early form of auto-completion. This assisted users to find records in in an indexed file system as they entered a reference key – a technique that suited the complexities of pharmaceutical product naming.

September

Digital Equipment held an official opening ceremony for its new factory at Ballybrit in Galway. The addition of a second module would soon double the size of this facility.

The new building was not far from DEC’s initial premises in Mervue. In the years that followed Ballybrit housed the company’s hardware assembly operations for Europe while its software group worked in Mervue.

Digital Equipment set up a sales and service organisation in Ireland for the first time. Pat O’Sullivan, who had previously worked for Honeywell, led this initiative. He started to sell DEC computers from his home in Malahide with administrative assistance by Patricia Flahive.

The company had previously channelled all sales in the country through an office in Manchester. Its existing customers in 1974 included a group of third level colleges. The National Institute for Higher Education in Limerick had recently acquired a PDP-8E. The College of Technology in Bolton Street, Dublin and the regional technical colleges in Cork and Limerick installed PDP-8s as well.

In 1975 Digital Equipment Ireland moved into Park House in North Circular Road, initially renting just part of the ground floor. This building would be the company’s commercial base in Ireland for the remainder of its existence.

Read Finbarr Power’s testimony

Management and Computer Systems (MCS), a bureau service in west Dublin, was an early adopter of the ICL 2093.

The company was formed by former staff from the computing department at Clondalkin Paper Mills, which had been an ICT/ICL mainframe user since the mid-1960s. MCS accordingly launched batch processing services that ran on ICL hardware.

May

Matt Crotty, who had previously worked for Honeywell, set up Dublin software company Applied Management Systems (AMS) to focus on implementing the new generation of minicomputers. Many of the company’s early recruits had previously worked in Irish Life’s computer department.

AMS initially produced packages for Digital Equipment’s PDP-8, including an administration system for vocational education committees.

In later years, however, the company became known as a developer of accounting and financial planning applications for IBM’s midrange systems.

Read Barry Murphy’s testimony

The new Digital Equipment sales organisation in Dublin got off to a strong start in its first year, identifying prospective users for its PDP-11 computers and emphasising that the systems were made in Ireland. By the end of 1974 DEC had added some notable names to its client base.

The Glen Abbey clothing firm selected a PDP-11 to replace an IBM System/360 mainframe at its premises in Tallaght. The company’s computer department had previously planned to migrate to an IBM System/370 and had already converted much of its applications software. The board of directors decided to switch to a minicomputer instead.

Waterford-based Bell Lines installed a PDP-11/40 at its Dublin office, a PDP-11/10 in Waterford and five more PDP-11/10s at port locations outside Ireland, including Rotterdam, London and Le Havre. SM Byrne, a software company in Birmingham, developed most of the Mumps-based applications that Bell ran on these systems.

The Meteorological Service also picked DEC to supply the first computers at its headquarters in O’Connell Street, Dublin. Two PDP-11/40s supported data collection from the service’s monitoring stations and from international weather forecasting networks. Before their introduction, this information had to be obtained by teleprinter, telephone and telex.

Nitirigin Éireann Teoranta used bureau services to provide engineering applications for its fertiliser factory in Arklow before it introduced an in-house PDP-11 and developed its own software for the system.

Read Patrick O’Beirne’s testimony

January

IBM launched its IBM System/32 – a single-user business computer, targeted at accounting applications and using RPG II as its main programming language. This minicomputer looked like a large office desk with a six-line display screen and a built-in printer.

In Ireland IBM formed the general systems division (GSD) to take on responsibility for midrange computer sales. This group was managed by Joe Rooney and focused on promoting the System/32, targeting companies that had never used computers before. GSD not only opened a demonstration centre in Dublin but also sent a System/32 roadshow around the country.

Radiator manufacturer Veha became the first IBM System/32 installation in Ireland.

Read Declan Ganter’s testimony

Neodata Services installed a Data General Nova minicomputer at its premises in Limerick, becoming the first DG customer in Ireland. Neodata employed some 800 data entry staff at six locations in the Limerick / Kerry area, providing back office services to US customers. These included the registration of ‘cigarette coupons’ and subscriptions management for Playboy magazine.

Massachusetts-based Data General had been founded in 1968 by former Digital Equipment engineers. It designed the Nova systems to outperform and cost less than equivalent DEC machines and they were widely adopted by scientific and technical users.

Neodata was soon joined by more Nova installations in Ireland, including the astronomical observatories in Dunsink and Armagh.

A Data General office in Manchester was responsible for sales into the country, but the company needed support staff on the ground. It recruited Oliver Ryan, Kevin Pender and Kieran O’Toole and formed an Irish service unit.

The Office of the Paymaster General acquired two top-end Nixdorf 820 systems to process a weekly and monthly payroll for 23,000 civil service pensioners.

This was one of a number of projects prompted by the implementation of PAYE tax procedures in the civil service. Nixdorf developed bespoke software to meet the Paymaster General’s requirements.

March

Digital Equipment launched the PDP-11/70 – the most powerful system to date in the PDP-11 range and the first to feature cache memory. It played a central role in some of the landmark customer projects of the late 1970s.

Significant installations in Ireland included transport authority CIE, which implemented a transaction processing system on three PDP-11/70s, and bureau operator ICS whose Timelink accounting and payroll service ran on machines in its Belfast and Dublin offices. Timelink customers installed terminals on their premises and paid usage-based fees for the service.

March

A company with a curiously generic name was established to supply consultancy and programming services, primarily to first-time computer users in the distribution trades.

Kilmainham-based Computer Software Limited promoted itself as a specialist in minicomputer implementation.

April

Michael Kirwan, who had worked for IBM Ireland, formed Systems Software to develop and sell software for IBM midrange computers. He was later joined by Joe Rooney, who had headed IBM’s sales group for the System/32.

The Dublin-based company subsequently specialised in applications for retailers and became one of Ireland’s early software product exporters.

Dublin-based System Dynamics began to develop customer-specific minicomputer applications.

The company, which had been founded in 1968, was steeped in IBM mainframe technology. It offered consultancy, implementation services and training to Ireland’s largest user installations. By the mid-1970s its clients were requesting support for minicomputers as well and System Dynamics came to accept that these had become legitimate machines for business computing.

Its work in this field began with projects on the Data General Nova for bookseller Eason, clothing manufacturer Jack Toohey and construction materials supplier Brooks Thomas. It subsequently shifted its allegiance to the Digital Equipment PDP-11, undertaking assignments for University College Dublin, the ESB engineering division and wine merchant Gilbeys.

System Dynamics never attempted to package any of this software for wider sale or distribution. Under managing director Tom McGovern, it preferred to position itself as a supplier of skills than a seller of products. By the late 1970s, moreover, the company grew frustrated with the limited technical knowledge in most minicomputer sites and renewed its focus on larger platforms.

Read John McEneaney’s testimony

June

Coláiste Choilm in Swords installed a Digital Equipment PDP-8, making it the first Irish school to obtain its own computer. The only precedents were in Northern Ireland, where some second-level schools had terminals that accessed computers elsewhere over dial-up connections.

The new resource in Swords enabled the Computer Education Society of Ireland (CESI) to run a course in summer 1975 that introduced teachers to programming. The voluntary group ran more courses in the succeeding years and advised its members how to offer extracurricular computing classes in their schools. The CESI also persuaded some user installations to process the code written by school students.

July

A breakaway group from Aer Lingus-owned Cara Data Processing, led by its former managing director Aidan McKenna, formed Memory Ireland.

The new venture was initially a bureau operator, competing against Cara for processing contracts. In subsequent years, however, Memory sold minicomputers and desktop systems and became an applications software developer. It entered the hardware business in 1976 as a reseller for California-based Jacquard Systems.

October

Hewlett-Packard’s first employee in Ireland was a calculator engineer. Ted Hearne, who had worked in this capacity for HP UK since 1973, relocated to Dublin in October 1975 and initially worked from home.

HP’s minicomputer business was growing internationally but its electronic calculators were much better known in Ireland. These were critical tools for engineering and manufacturing organisations and were often sold with printers or plotters, data storage devices and application specific software.

Hewlett-Packard had around a dozen calculator customers in Ireland in 1975. Until then it had supported them by flying in technical staff when required, but its business had grown to the point that it made more economic sense to base Ted Hearne inside the country. In the expectation of future sales, the company gave him product training so that he would be able to maintain HP computers as well.

Noel Slattery, who had worked at IBM Ireland’s computer bureau, set up Software Development Services in Dublin. The company focused on providing applications for IBM midrange systems.

London-based software company Altergo established a subsidiary in Dublin, where it installed a PDP-11 system. The company offered contract software development and computer training courses.

Altergo Ireland evolved into a software services exporter, mainly to customers in the Middle East. It was notably successful in Libya. The Irish operation closed in 1984.

Digital Equipment launched an international partnering strategy for the PDP-11. The system vendor would henceforth collaborate with third party companies to deliver applications based on PDP hardware and the RSTS operating system.

This approach delivered an assortment of software that enabled DEC to gain commercial advantages over other minicomputer vendors in subsequent years.

March

At the end of December 1975 the Singer Corporation announced its intention to dispose of its loss-making computer subsidiary. Less than three months later it signed a sale agreement with ICL. The British company took over Singer Business Machines, including its manufacturing and development operations in the US and its sales and support organisations in seventeen countries.

Singer’s principal product became the ICL System Ten and the new owner proceeded to develop enhancements to the machine.

The acquisition deal gave ICL Ireland a suitable minicomputer for businesses that were smaller than its existing customers. The company proceeded to expand its sales organisation, hiring people who had previously sold office equipment such as photocopiers.

When ICL took over the product, there were nine System Tens in operation or on order in Ireland. University College Dublin had recently installed one for use by its commerce students.

Telex Computers Ireland introduced the Telex System III – a computer that was compatible with the IBM System/3 but carried a considerably lower price tag.

The company was run by Rod McGahon and David Fitzgibbon in Dublin with Peter Ainscough in Cork as regional manager for Munster. They signed up customers in both cities.

Its American associate, Telex Corporation, was best known for selling computer peripherals that were ‘plug compatible’ with IBM’s midrange systems.

June

Gamma Data Systems, an affiliate company of Gamma Associates in Britain, commenced operations in Dublin. Both businesses were Digital Equipment partners.

In July 1977 Gamma launched a bureau service based on a PDP-11. It also became a reseller for DEC minicomputers and supplied a PDP-11/34 to retail group Superquinn.

Drinks supplier Gilbeys commissioned System Dynamics to develop business applications on a Digital Equipment PDP-11 running the RSTS time-sharing operating system.

Dennis Jennings, who was working for System Dynamics and assigned to this project, recalls: ‘We worked through the hottest summer on record (and missed the summer). We employed a number of the programmers from AIB during the bank strike that year. We were also the earliest tasters and testers (every lunchtime) of a new drink that the sole scientist employed by Gilbeys was trying to concoct – a mixture of cream and whiskey that was in due course produced and branded as Baileys. We were the key tasters and influenced the texture and taste of the product.’

Texas-based Datapoint Corporation appointed Aer Lingus subsidiary Cara Data Processing as its distributor in Ireland.

Datapoint was best known as a developer of computer terminals that could be connected to remote computers in place of the teletype machines that were used for this purpose in the 1960s. By 1976 its Datapoint 2200 terminal could also be configured as a rudimentary personal computer.

Cara bundled the Datapoint 2200 with the Datapak-B range of applications software and promoted this combination as a minicomputer for general business use. The company subsequently announced sales of the Datapoint equipment to Evode Industries, Asahi Chemicals and Pat O’Donnell & Co.

The European Space Agency (ESA) supplied a node in its computing network to the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards in Glasnevin. This involved the installation of a PDP-11 computer with a leased line connection to Italy. It represented an early example of Irish participation in an online information service and enabled researchers to access ESA’s scientific databases. All of the enabling software had been developed by the space agency.

Read Barry Mahon’s testimony

November

Construction materials supplier Chadwicks ordered a Data General Nova system with point-of-sale terminals to run Accusale, a sales and accounting software package that it had sourced from the US.

The Dublin-based company computerised its branches around the country during 1977, uploading sales data to the Data General machine over dial-up connections every night.

February

The Local Government Computer Services Board (LGCSB) nominated the ICL 2903 as the standard computing platform in Ireland’s county councils.

The LGCSB had been established in 1975 to co-ordinate the selection of computers for local authorities and to develop software that could be rolled out on the chosen hardware. Its agreement with ICL excluded some of the larger councils, which had already introduced their own computers.

ICL delivered 2903s to 22 local government installations between 1977 and 1982. This contract had significant publicity value for the computer vendor because, in many locations around the country, the council’s new system was the first computer in town. ICL organised special launch events when its systems went live.

March

Hewlett-Packard Ireland Limited was incorporated and the company opened its first Dublin office at 2C Avonbeg Industrial Estate off the Long Mile Road. The building provided much-needed space for its Dublin-based engineer, Ted Hearne, who previously had to store products and parts in his own house.

The Avonbeg premises also served as a sales, marketing and administration base for the Hewlett-Packard UK personnel who had built up the company’s business in Ireland. HP hired more local staff and expanded the responsibilities of the Dublin office in the second half of 1977. Its first Irish salesperson, Frank Cole, arrived in January 1978.

Hewlett-Packard logged its first computer installation in Ireland in 1977. Measurex, whose industrial control systems were primarily used in paper production, installed an HP 1000 system at its facility in Waterford. The company required a real-time computer to monitor the speed of paper passing through its machines and the performance differences related to weight, thickness and colour.

Read Frank Cole’s testimony

Nixdorf launched the 8870 multi-terminal minicomputer, which was based on the Data General Nova. Nixdorf had made this system available in the US in 1976 but delayed its release in Europe until the following year.

The company announced the Comet software suite in conjunction with the European introduction of the 8870. Comet eventually expanded into a collection of more than 180 applications for designated lines of business.

Nixdorf targeted the 8870 at small to medium installations, positioning it as an alternative to to Digital Equipment’s PDP-11 and the IBM System/32. In addition to marketing Comet, Nixdorf offered custom programming services for the new system.

The Irish League of Credit Unions soon became the first customer in Ireland for the 8870. A Nixdorf software group in Dublin developed an industry-specific administration system and the company subsequently delivered systems to more than 20 credit unions around the country.

Read Peter Byrne’s testimony

April

IBM introduced the System/34 – a multi-user, multi-tasking addition to its minicomputer family. It promoted this machine as a successor to the single-user System/32.

Like its predecessors, the System/34 ran applications developed with RPG II. This product launch also introduced System Support Program (SSP), a new command-based operating system for IBM midrange computers.

Users that installed System/34s in Ireland included the Braun electrical appliance factory in Carlow, the Cork Examiner newspaper and the JS Lister group of engineering companies.

April

Nixdorf Computer announced the establishment of a hardware assembly operation in Bray.

According to the IDA, this project had been under negotiation for some years and had been deferred in 1974 – a time of international recession brought on by higher oil prices.

Read Declan Murphy’s testimony

British computer vendor Systime opened a sales office on Molesworth Street in Dublin. The company assembled clones of Digital Equipment minicomputers under licence from DEC and claimed price-performance advantages over the originals.

The Irish office focused initially on Systime’s Series 5000, which was derived from the PDP-11, selling it as a general-purpose business system with accounting applications.

Its first customers in Ireland were the Irish Times, which used Systime hardware for typesetting, and construction materials supplier Heiton McFerran.

Brendan Supple, who had previously led Cara Consulting, set up Supple Software to develop a package for insurance brokers on the Data General Nova. His Dublin-based company exported this application to 28 installations in Britain.

Supple Software wrote its insurance software with the Meditech Interpretive Information System. This was a faster version of the Mumps programming language, which originated at Massachusetts General Hospital and attracted developers in other organisations because it incorporated database functions.

IBM introduced the first version of its Manufacturing, Accounting and Production Information Control Systems (Mapics) software, which ran on its midrange platforms. The application proved to be particularly well-suited to the management of batch assembly operations.

This product was sold as Maapics in Europe where IBM found itself unable to use the Mapics name for legal reasons.

June

Digital Equipment wrote bespoke software for broadcaster RTE to use in its presentation of the 1977 general election results. It also provided a PDP-11 to run this application on the day of the count.

The experiment failed to meet the developers’ expectations due to usability issues that arose during the broadcast. The big story was, instead, the Fianna Fáil party’s overwhelming victory over the incumbent coalition government.

July

Amsterdam-based engineering firm Holland Automation set up a subsidiary in Dublin to undertake software development for minicomputers. Holland Automation Ireland operated until the mid 1980s.

An Chomhairle Oiliúna (AnCO), the national training authority, had been a long-standing user of computer bureau services. It changed this strategy in 1977 when it installed its own Digital Equipment PDP-11. A second PDP-11 followed soon afterwards.

These computers, which ran the RSTS operating system, enabled AnCO to develop and implement forms-based applications. The agency and its successors were major users of DEC systems for many years.

September

Dublin-based Computer Organisation Programming & Systems – better known as COPS – started operations. The company rolled out a full suite of computer services based on IBM midrange systems. These included an online bureau service, consulting, training, bespoke software development and packaged applications for accounting and financial modelling.

In 1979 a new subsidiary, COPS Europe, was established to focus on software exports.

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’

January

The Industrial Development Authority launched a business support scheme that would bring significant benefits to the first generation of Irish software product developers. The agency designed its enterprise development programme to assist experienced managers to establish new companies. The initiative subsequently supported around 25 start-ups a year.

1978 was also the foundation year for the Irish Computer Services Association (ICSA) – a representative group under the umbrella of the Confederation of Irish Industry. The computing services industry in Ireland, as it was defined at this time, involved some 30 companies with about 300 employees. Another 200 people worked for data preparation firms that converted business records into formats that computers could read. Software development was a relatively small element in the services landscape, but the ICSA could nonetheless claim to be the first association of software businesses.

All of the companies in the nascent applications trade at this time focused on minicomputer software. The enterprise development programme and the ICSA show how a framework to support their efforts was starting to take shape.

ICL Ireland contracted Scottish software company MA Systems to develop banking applications for a System Ten that it had sold to Waterford Savings Bank.

The development firm opened a branch office in central Dublin, headed by James Galvin, and hired a small team of software developers. MA Systems took its name from the initials of its owner Matthew Aird.

The consulting division of Cara Data Processing teamed with BTI Computer Systems, a California-based company founded by former HP engineers.

BTI had a background in timesharing services and partnerships with applications software developers in the US.

Cara installed BTI equipment to run a timesharing service, Caralink, that allowed customers to submit their data online. It also sourced hotel management software that ran on BTI hardware and won orders from hotels in London and Hong Kong.

Read David Little’s testimony

Hewlett-Packard-Packard launched the HP 250 minicomputer and promoted it as a user-installable system. The first version was a single-user computer with data storage on floppy disks. Multi-user options were added later.

Unlike the earlier HP 1000, which was best suited to engineering applications, HP positioned the HP 250 as a low-cost platform for commercial computing.

Deliveries into Ireland began during 1979 with Esso and Belleek Pottery among the first customers. Sales of the HP 250 accelerated in 1980/81. Most of the shipments went to manufacturing facilities and distribution firms.

Minicomputer and process controller manufacturer Computer Automation established a production facility in Clonshaugh, Dublin. This location became its European headquarters.

Computer Automation was best known for its ‘Naked Mini’ – a single-card 16-bit system that was usually configured for industrial control applications.

Data General opened a sales office in Baggot Street, Dublin, headed by Dick Staveley who had previously worked at Honeywell.

He recruited a sales team that included Peter McNamara, Michael Gavin and Brian Kelly – a former sales executive at Rank Xerox and ICL who was promoted to general manager in 1980.

Read Brian Kelly’s testimony

Mike Peirce, a senior engineering lecturer in Trinity College Dublin, established Mentec with support from the IDA’s enterprise development programme. The company initially specialised in integrated computer solutions for manufacturing management and production control.

It started out as a Data General partner, but soon switched its allegiance to Digital Equipment. One of its early wins was at Eason, where it delivered a newspaper distribution system on a PDP-11. Mentec brought in Gordon Clarke, a veteran of both ICL and Cara, to develop this application.

Mentec grew to become an international partner for DEC. The company also designed its own hardware products in later years.

The Department of Education went out to tender to select a common computing platform for all of the country’s regional technical colleges.

Digital Equipment won the contract with its PDP-11 minicomputers. The company was already the predominant system supplier to the universities, so this deal cemented its strong position in third level education.

September

Digital Equipment’s facility in Ballybrit, Galway, marked the assembly of its first VAX central processing unit with an official photograph. Some of its technicians had been retrained in the US to work on this new generation of computer hardware.

Shipments of the VAX 11/780 from Galway commenced in November. The CPU in this picture, indeed, was part of the first configuration delivered to a European customer.

(Photograph source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Photographer unknown.)

Read John Eyres’s testimony

October

IBM announced System/38, the successor to the System/3. The new machine introduced functions previously associated with larger computers into the IBM midrange world. Its integrated database system was a significant innovation.

Shipments of the System/38 were, however, slow to begin. Deliveries to customers in Ireland commenced in late 1980. Insurance Corporation of Ireland, which had also been an early adopter of the IBM System/3, placed one of the first orders.

December

The first deliveries of Digital Equipment’s VAX 11/780 in Ireland went to two universities.

One of these systems arrived at University College Cork in late 1978. It sat unused in a basement for weeks because of a strike in the company that maintained the university’s lifts.

Because of this delay the computer science department at Trinity College Dublin became the first customer with an installed, working VAX in early 1979.

The Ordnance Survey, the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and the National Institute for Higher Education in Limerick were also early adopters of the VAX 11/780.

Read Vic Saunders’s testimony

Amdahl’s European manufacturing facility in Dublin became the first HP 3000 user in Ireland when it installed a model with punched card peripherals. This HP 3000, which was sourced as part of an international transaction, ran Hewlett-Packard’s MM/3000 software package for manufacturing management. Amdahl also acquired half a dozen HP 1000s to support the assembly process for its IBM-compatible mainframes.

Hewlett-Packard had released the HP 3000 back in 1972, positioning it as a platform for mainstream business applications. The company’s earlier minicomputers had generally supported scientific and industrial users. The HP 3000 was slow to take off but achieved commercial success in the late 1970s.

The first HP 3000 to be sold by the company’s Irish sales organisation went to the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) in 1979. This deal was struck without a software partner and, with no applications to run, the system lay idle at the CIF.

HP Ireland changed its HP 3000 strategy after the difficulties at CIF. It decided to involve local software suppliers, along with their software and services, in its sales proposals. These partners would then guide new users through the implementation process.

Vector Software, a sister company to Applied Management Systems (AMS), created Insight, a financial planning application for the IBM System/34. Insight used the principles of a general ledger to create alternative profit and loss projections. It attracted international attention and achieved sales worth more than $10 million by the mid-1980s. This made it the most successful Irish-developed software product to date in terms of export value.

AMS had developed bespoke business management applications before it recognised the benefits of reusing common features and functionality for multiple customers. Its early products included packages for the distribution trade, vehicle management and plant maintenance.

Vector Software was led by Tony McGuire, who had obtained database software qualifications and experience in Canada. He agreed to team up with AMS if it formed a separate company as its development arm. Vector took charge of the existing AMS packages and went on to produce new applications for financial control and database management.

AMS opened a sales office in the City of London in November 1979, focusing on the Insight package. The company changed its name to Insight Software in 1983.

The Department of Social Welfare installed a Digital PDP-11/70 on which to develop a new generation of transaction processing software. It was not long before Social Welfare upgraded this system to a VAX.

The government department became a showcase user of the VAX. Its long relationship with Digital Equipment culminated in the 1990s with a joint venture that offered software and support to social security services in other countries.

Read Frank Brennan’s testimony

Hewlett-Packard Ireland named Rod McGahon, who had previously headed Telex Computers Ireland, as its first general manager. He held this role for no more than nine months.

Derek Smorthit from HP UK oversaw the Irish operation on a caretaker basis from 1980 to 1982. Peter Linkin, who held responsibility for computer sales, was the senior staff member at the Dublin office during this interregnum.

Rod McGahon subsequently relocated to Connemara, where he formed Declan Computers – a company that sold the Commodore PET as a business microcomputer in the early 1980s.

Triple A Systems, a Dublin-based sister company to MA Systems, developed a banking administration application on the ICL System Ten for an Irish subsidiary of Ansbacher Bank. This software evolved into a package called Bankmaster, which supported multi-currency bank accounting, management information and regulatory reporting functions.

In the early 1980s ICL took notice of Bankmaster and concluded that it was well suited to the operations of financial institutions in developing countries. The systems vendor assisted Triple A Systems to promote its software in Africa and Asia. By 1990 the accumulated sales of the product had risen above USD 50 million.

Triple A Systems became the Kindle Group which, in turn, spun off other banking software ventures. The Bankmaster package thus initiated a long run of development activity in Dublin for bank applications.

June

Sandycove-based Online Computing launched a timesharing service on a Digital Equipment PDP-11/34 and began to deliver accounting applications that it sourced from MCBA in Los Angeles.

Denis McMahon, the company’s founder, was previously the group sales manager at Cara Data Processing and, prior to that, worked for bureau services UCC in Shannon and ICBS in Dublin.

Co-founders Frank Waters and Ted Murphy had previously worked for ICS and Cara respectively. This management team was not only experienced in the bureau business, but was also aware of the potential for bureau clients to make the transition to in-house computing. For example, it targeted users of Olivetti accounting machines and offered them a desktop version of the PDP-11.

Read Ted Murphy’s testimony

Dublin-based Control Systems became the distributor in Ireland for Massachusetts-based Wang Laboratories. In 1979 the computer vendor also announced its intention to establish a European manufacturing facility at Plassey Technological Park in Limerick.

Control Systems was led by Gerry Carmody and staffed by a technical team that had previously worked at Singer Business Machines. They had established Control Systems to support Singer’s data capture equipment customers after ICL took over Singer’s computer business in 1976.

As a Wang partner Control Systems initially focused on the 2200 range of small business computers, sourcing applications software from Barrett Computer Sales. It subsequently started to sell Wang’s standalone word processing equipment, then took on its OIS office information system and the VS minicomputer. Wang had launched the VS, its most powerful computer, in 1977 and marketed it as an alternative to Digital Equipment’s VAX.

Read Pat O’Donoghue’s testimony

October

Guinness 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.

Rainsford forged a partnership with Data General in early 1980. It subsequently developed order processing, stock control and transport route planning applications on DG minicomputers.

Hewlett-Packard teamed up with Booterstown-based Computer Company of Ireland (CCI) to grow its minicomputer business.

CCI grew out of the US-owned University Computing Company Ireland, which ran bureau services on Univac systems. Lister Machine Tools acquired and renamed this business in 1972.

Under the terms of its partnership with Hewlett-Packard CCI transferred its bureau operations onto an HP 3000. It also bought fifteen HP 250 minicomputers for resale. HP assisted the company to source software packages from the US for these machines.

Malcolm Banks, who had previously worked at Cara, became managing director of CCI in 1980 and promoted it as a turnkey system specialist. The company subsequently traded as CCI Business Machines.

Redifon Computers, which was headquartered in Crawley, England, opened a sales office in Dublin.

The company designed and sold the R range of minicomputers. It was also starting to differentiate itself as a videotex specialist. For example, Redifon advocated the use of television sets with videotex information retrieval features as computer terminals. These, it argued, were particularly well suited to executive offices.

ICS Computing set up a sister company in Belfast, Software Ireland, which initially offered development and consulting services.

Software Ireland subsequently achieved international success as a specialist in application migration tools. Its Sibol product, which later evolved into the Unibol family, enabled users to transfer applications from IBM midrange computers to Unix-based open systems.

April

Data General announced its first 32-bit minicomputer – the Eclipse MV/8000 – featuring backward compatibility with existing 16-bit Eclipse systems.

This computer was also widely known as the Eagle, the codename used by company engineers while it was under development. The name stuck following the publication of an influential book about the project – ‘The Soul of a New Machine’ by Tracy Kidder.

Bord na gCapall installed a Wang VS minicomputer and became the first Irish user of the platform. Wang’s distribution partner Control Systems sold the VS as the replacement for an IBM System/32.

Boart Hardmetals (Europe) in Shannon, which manufactured drilling equipment, was the first commercial organisation in Ireland to install a VS. Its VS 80, running software from Dublin-based applications developer Mike Butler, went live in 1981.

In the same year the Department of Justice ordered two Wang VS computers. – one for Dublin Metropolitan District Court and another for the Land Registry. Both ran PROMIS software, a case management application from the US.

September

Hewlett-Packard and the consulting arm of Cara Data Processing established a sales and marketing partnership that led to several new HP 3000 implementations.

These included installations at aircraft engine maintenance company Airmotive Ireland, battery supplier Lucas and paint maker Walpamur.

Massachusetts-based Prime Computer established a facility at Clonshaugh Industrial Estate in Dublin for assembling and testing its medium size computer systems.

The company’s first customer in Ireland was Dublin-based Leo Laboratories, which decided to introduce a software package that required Prime hardware and then imported a system to run it.

December

A new company, Nixdorf Computer Software Limited, was formed in Dublin to undertake development projects. Pat O’Reilly managed the subsidiary, which produced operating system and communications software for the parent Nixdorf organisation in Germany.

December

Maurice Spillane founded Real Time Software (RTS) to develop applications for IBM midrange computers. Initially based in Carlow, RTS soon relocated to central Dublin.

The new firm drew on Spillane’s experience as data processing manager at the Braun electrical appliance factory in Carlow. Braun had implemented IBM’s Mapics suite on a System/34 with add-on elements that AMS developed on its behalf. RTS set out to create additional multi-currency enhancements for the accounting and order entry functions in Mapics.

The company signed up Its first customer in Iceland and soon found buyers in several other countries. The broad geographic spread of its user base came to differentiate RTS from other Irish software exporters.

Computer Automation sold one of its Syfa computers to Amalgamated Wholesalers – the first customer organisation in Ireland for a manufacturer that had established its European base in Dublin three years earlier.

Ulster Bank’s ICS Computing expanded its activities into hardware maintenance and added another company to its group. Computer Maintenance Ireland focused on third party support services for Digital Equipment’s systems.

The new business was headquartered in Belfast and subsequently opened branches in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

Perkin-Elmer Corporation’s data systems group set up a production facility in Cork to assemble its ‘superminicomputers’ for international customers. This US company was primarily a scientific instruments supplier, but had entered the computer trade through its acquisition of Interdata in 1973. It proceeded to launch one of the first 32-bit minicomputers in the following year.

Trinity College Dublin was the vendor’s first customer in Ireland. The university’s department of mechanical engineering used an Interdata Model 70 for industrial boiler monitoring, analysis and control experiments.

In 1981, at around the same time as Perkin-Elmer landed in Cork, the company accredited FBD Computer Services to install and support its systems in Ireland. Its sales partner was a new subsidiary of FBD Insurance Group, which managed customer policies with a Perkin-Elmer computer.

June

ICL unveiled its System 25 as a program-compatible successor to the System Ten.

Like the earlier machine the System 25 was designed as a general purpose business minicomputer. In the years that followed, however, ICL concentrated on selling the product to retail companies.

Prime Computer accredited Dublin-based services company Memory Ireland as a sales and support partner.

Memory recruited a group of sales and software specialists from Digital Equipment, headed by Pat O’Sullivan who had established DEC’s Dublin office. It hoped to capitalise on their knowledge of the minicomputer trade and on Prime’s manufacturing presence in Ireland. Memory also migrated its bureau service to run on Prime hardware.

Digital Equipment Ireland named Derek MacHugh as its new managing director in succession to Pat O’Sullivan. He had joined DEC’s sales organisation in Dublin five years earlier, having previously worked at ICL.

Read John Gray’s testimony

The Industrial Development Authority, which promoted Ireland as a location for inward investment, installed a Digital Equipment VAX 11/780. The agency used this system to hold a databank of information on its existing and prospective clients.

Hewlett-Packard chose Amos Clarke as its general manager in Ireland, filling a slot that had been vacant since 1980. He moved into the Irish subsidiary from a senior sales role at HP in Britain.

The HP 3000 user base grew steadily in 1982. Packard Electric – a General Motors company that was unrelated to the systems vendor – chose one to run production management software at its car components facility in Tallaght. Magnetic media producer Verbatim installed another at its operation in Limerick.

October

Wang Laboratories opened a sales and marketing subsidiary in Dublin with Ken Bond as its managing director.

Wang Ireland inherited the staff and resources of Control Systems, the vendor’s former distributor. The directors of Control Systems had decided to sell the business after the death of managing director Gerry Carmody in early 1982.

Demand for dedicated word processors was waning when the new sales organisation began trading. Wang Ireland therefore focused on attracting more users to the VS minicomputer.

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.