ICL Reunited - Letters Special

We discovered that there are a lot of nostalgic ex-ICL employees among you, proving that the former flagship of the UK IT industry will be sorely missed by many. Here are the best of your ICL Reunited letters.

On 2 April, the IT community mourned the passing of ICL, one of the most famous names in UK technology.

Thirty-four years after ICL was created by the then technology minister Tony Benn, current chief executive Richard Christou presided over the company's metamorphosis into Fujitsu Services.

Computing invited readers to write in with their memories of working for or with the company during its long (by IT industry standards) history.

We discovered that there are a lot of nostalgic ex-ICL employees among you, proving that the former flagship of the UK IT industry will be sorely missed by many.

Here are the best of your ICL Reunited letters.

SMOKING DAMAGES YOUR SERVERS

The location was a state in the former Soviet Bloc. The airport was littered with blown-up Migs and the terminal building was a large wooden shed with trestle tables for passport control. Order was being kept by nervous young soldiers pointing Kalashnikovs at anybody who so much as cleared their throat.

The customer was the newly created State Bank, which had been granted European money to get computerised. Wisely they chose to buy ICL servers, and stupidly we sold to them.

The main servers failed within 48 hours of being switched on and would not power up. I was dispatched with instructions to meet a Finnish engineer who had a grasp of the Russian language.

We both arrived late at night at the only hotel in town which had not been burned down, although the top three floors had no windows left.

A taxi collected us and took us to a grim-looking building with armed guards at the doors.

The bank told us that the equipment we sold them was a disgrace, and that we were guilty of shoddy workmanship, which would never be allowed in this country.

The servers were wired to an ancient two-pin wall socket with cotton-covered twin-core flex. But our jaws dropped when we saw a roaring coal fire and the amount of smoke it was billowing out across the room.

The only evidence that the servers were on was the humming of the large cooling fans in the base sucking the smoke in and blowing it out the top vents.

With barely concealed horror we opened the cases and revealed a thick layer of soot covering every surface within the poor machines.

The bank officials asked what all the black powder was. We pointed out, as carefully and calmly as possible, that the soot was carbon, carbon is conductive, electricity likes conductors and will play happily with them all day.

And by the way your warranty is void, and your servers are dead. Please take us to the airport now!

Paul Honor

A LITTLE BEDTIME READING

I started using ICL equipment in 1988 when I worked at the Regional Health Authority in Bristol. I worked with some really old equipment that I suspect you now only see in history books.

I have some very fond memories of my tape librarian and operating days. I think these are largely due to the variety the job offered at the time - scheduling and all the peripheral activities involved.

Has progress made it better? I don't know, but I do know I got far more out of my work in those days than I do now.

One thing about the engineers' room was that they had a brilliant stash of 'educational' magazines. Probably not very politically correct, but still fantastic when you're an 18-year-old lad.

Jon Salter

IF ONLY THEY HAD LISTENED ...

In 1973 I moved from working with ICL equipment to IBM. At the ICL site the machinery was so loud that the operators made up their own sign language.

I told my friends that I was leaving because I wanted to earn more money and buy a better motorcycle, but what really clinched it for me was the comparative quiet of the IBM computer room. If only ICL could have listened ...

Nicholas Blackmore,
Somerset

DATABASES: THEY'LL NEVER LAST

In the early 1970s it was my job to introduce new products to the ICL sales force.

They introduced a new concept called a 'database', which was met with little enthusiasm.

After one particularly hostile meeting, a senior sales manager took me aside and said: "I don't know why you waste our time with this rubbish, databases will never catch on!"

Barry Mason,
Ebusiness manager,
English Partnerships

OF COURSE, SHE WAS THREE TIMES A LADY

I worked at Beaumont, ICL's training centre near Windsor. In those days the systems analysis and systems design courses were both two weeks, and as anyone who has worked at Beaumont will confirm, it was well known that wedding rings came off as the students came through reception.

On one occasion a lady arrived on the systems analysis course and proceeded to work her way though all the lads on the course.

When the same lady's name appeared on the systems design course list, we all expected a repeat performance.

Surely enough, the first night passed as expected. On the second and subsequent nights, however, she stayed with the same lad for the rest of the fortnight.

I've always wondered what he had that the rest of us didn't have.

Martin James

SENT ON A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Some readers may remember the One per Desk (OPD), an all in one desktop phone, organiser and contact management system.

A few months after the product was launched in 1985, I was sent on a top secret mission. I and a small team were deployed to Moscow, where we had to demonstrate the product to an academic institution.

After the demonstration we were, without warning, whisked off to another part of the building to show the product to an unknown government official. It appeared that the OPD was being considered for deployment in various government establishments.

On top of this, I nearly never left the country because passport control said I didn't looked like my passport photo.

It was all rather sinister, being involved in an undercover operation, but it really was an unforgettable experience.

Ginette Gower,
Marketing manager

ORIGINAL SOFTWARE

It's all too easy nowadays: I learned to program on an ICL 1901 running an operating system called George. The operator had the job of taking the paper tape source code, reading it in at the console and kicking off the compile process.

He could tell whether George was happy with the code by the sound the disk drives were making. He could also read punched paper tape with the naked eye and make corrections with a widget that punched individual holes.

All today's technical support staff have to do is understand how NT works - dumbing down, I'd say.

Pete Birrell,
IS manager,
Scottish Environment Protection Agency

MANY MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

I have many pleasant memories of working at ICL. For all its failings, it was a good company to work for. It is sad to recall how many great opportunities were missed.

Mike Johnson