3 Sep
2007
3 Sep
'07
8:57 a.m.
I was going to ask about Irish machines and see that
James got there
first; did Ireland ever make any micros?
Several multinationals had or have a presence in Ireland including:
Amdahl
Apple
Dell
Digital
EMC
Fujitsu Siemens
Gateway
HP
IBM
Memorex
Many of these built computers or peripherals here for the European market.
However, it is pretty much the same as equipment thats found everywhere else
in the world. I am not aware of anything that could be regarded as being
uniquely Irish in the same way that for example Acorn kit could be regarded
as being British.
Intel also have a large manufacturing presence here as have/had Analog Devices
and Motorola (although I think Motorolas operation here was more involved in
mobile phones) so unfortunately we're responsible for the production of lots
of x86 type microprocessors. I hope none of them were designed here,
especially the ones that couldn't divide accurately :-)
Many an Apple was made in their factory in Cork.
I was disappointed to find that my Mac SE from Cork doesn't have any
signatures inside the case so I guess they didn't copy the case moulds used in
the US.
Regards,
Peter.
5 Sep
5 Sep
7:01 a.m.
On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 01:57:12PM +0100, Peter Coghlan wrote:
Several multinationals had or have a presence in
Ireland ...
Many of these built computers or peripherals here for the European market.
However, it is pretty much the same as equipment thats found everywhere else
in the world. I am not aware of anything that could be regarded as being
uniquely Irish in the same way that for example Acorn kit could be regarded
as being British.
I'd be inclined to count the Mentec PDP-11s, even though they didn't
create them to start with.
--
David Cantrell | Godless Liberal Elitist
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life
-- Samuel Johnson
8:07 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, David Cantrell wrote:
On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 01:57:12PM +0100, Peter
Coghlan wrote:
In terms of British minis there were at British Gas in Leeds (England)
in the 80s a system made by Cossor Electronics (also made scopes and
valve radios etc) that was based around a TMS9900, finished in a very
fetching orange with flicky-switches operator panel. It had Pertec disk
drives each with a separate 19" 2U 'formatter' unit (controller?), remote
graphics heads that had some kind of controller (kb in, and RGB
out to big 20 inch or so CCTV-style monitors) hooked-up to the CPU by
extended serial links. It also had banks and banks of modems, and operated
in some sort of dual config with hardware watchdogs. It performed 'grid
control' for the distribution of gas in the North East of England, via
UHF radio links to inhouse designed (hw+sw) telemetry 'outstations' that
could open and close valves, control compressors etc, and report back
temp, pressure and so on.
When I arrived at British Gas as a trainee it was sat uncoupled in the
corner of the workshop, and had been replaced by a VAXserver cluster with
satellite VS2000 nodes as workstations. I used to get in early to hook-up
the Cossor and play around with it. It made a real racket as the bearings
were gone in a Pertec drive, and so my elders and betters would throw
tools at me on arrival until I powered it all down!
Never seen or heard of a Cossor computer since, but I did hear at the time
(early 90s) that Heathrow airport had the same systems still in use.
This has also just reminded me of another very cool device we had at BG. A
thing called a 'Radac' that was essentially a metal drum a bit smaller
than a can of coke. With tracks of mag tape inside, a motor attached to
the outside, and a mechanical selector to move the heads. These were part
of alarm systems that had a mechanical dialler, and would dial you up if
at a remote radio site a burglar was detected, fire alarm went off, or
backup genny kicked in etc. You'd get a call with "ALARM! GARROWBY HILL!
FIRE!" or something... I wish I'd hung on to some Radacs when the system
was replaced!
Andrew
Several multinationals had or have a presence in
Ireland ...
Many of these built computers or peripherals here for the European market.
However, it is pretty much the same as equipment thats found everywhere else
in the world. I am not aware of anything that could be regarded as being
uniquely Irish in the same way that for example Acorn kit could be regarded
as being British.
I'd be inclined to count the Mentec PDP-11s, even though they didn't
create them to start with. 
7:11 p.m.
Andrew Back wrote:
In terms of British minis there were at British Gas in
Leeds (England)
in the 80s a system made by Cossor Electronics (also made scopes and
valve radios etc) that was based around a TMS9900, finished in a very
fetching orange with flicky-switches operator panel. It had Pertec disk
drives each with a separate 19" 2U 'formatter' unit (controller?),
remote graphics heads that had some kind of controller (kb in, and RGB
out to big 20 inch or so CCTV-style monitors) hooked-up to the CPU by
extended serial links.
That's interesting; we were given a few 19" 3U instrument cases the other week
with video out (PC-style VGA), keyboard in (PC-AT type connector, but no
guarantee that's what they actually require), and a serial port on them. No
other I/O, and no idea what they were originally used for. Very
professionally-built circuitry inside.
I'll have to dig up some model details; I can't remember who they were made by
now. Seems a bit weird if someone went to that much trouble to re-implement a
dumb serial terminal, so it may be they do a similar job to what your gadgets did.
Never seen or heard of a Cossor computer since
Sounds like a pretty interesting crate. Sadly lots of manufacturers seemed to
sideline into computing in the 70s and 80s and have now all but forgotten
their computing past (if the company still exists at all) :-(
This has also just reminded me of another very cool
device we had at BG.
A thing called a 'Radac'
Very interesting... I'll have to keep an eye out for one; I've never heard of
anyone putting the data surfaces on the inside before.
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andy＠smokebelch.org -
david＠cantrell.org.uk -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
pcoghlan+cctech＠vms.eurokom.ie