The standard ICL remote job entry station was the ICL 7020. With Atlas receiving a 20% share of the 360/195 at the Rutherford Laboratory, there was an interest in developing a remote job entry station that could access both machines. The Rutherford Communications Group under John Burren was looking at providing a HASP workstation based on the GEC 2050. In 1972, negotiations were had with GEC with a view to supplying five RJE terminals based on the 2050 computer to provide 7020 emulation with the aim of having them delivered by April 1973. At that time, the Laboratory also looked at the possibility of a GEC 2050 as a front end to the 1906A, effectively replacing the ICL 7903 for high speed communications.
Frankie Sims did the initial design work and some code was written using a 2050 emulator before the first 2050 arrived in 1973. One machine arrived in February and a second in March. By mid-1973, the 7020 emulator was working and an initial system was tested at RGO followed by another at Southampton University.