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Further reading: □ IBM machines □ IBM 360/195Maintaining the IBM 360/195Operating the IBM 360/195IBM 3032IBM 3081 □ Other machines and technologies □ Ferranti OrionICL Atlas 10NetworkingDigital Data Processing (DDP)
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Further reading

IBM machines
IBM 360/195
Maintaining the IBM 360/195
Operating the IBM 360/195
IBM 3032
IBM 3081
Other machines and technologies
Ferranti Orion
ICL Atlas 10
Networking
Digital Data Processing (DDP)

Technology -- Overview

1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 IBM 360/195 Units 1 x ORION 1 x 75 1 x 195 2 x 195 3032 + 2 x 195 3032 + 195 + 3081 3032 + 3081 3081 + Atlas 10 75 0.5M 75 1M 195 2M 195 3M 195 3M 195 1M 195 2M 195 2M 195 2M 195 2M 3032 4M 3032 6M 3081 16M 3081 32M Atlas10 24M

Evolution of Rutherford Mainframes 1964-1988

This section gives some information on the computers and related hardware installed by the Rutherford Laboratory in the period 1963 to 1985. The main ones were:

The IBM 3032 and 3081 were standard members of the IBM range and are of less interest than the IBM 360/195 which was one of the two fastest machines in the world at the time.

The Ferranti Orion was Ferranti's successor to the Ferranti Mercury aimed at both the scientific and commercial markets. The Ferranti Atlas was the top of the range machine under development at much the same time. The Orion was not a commercial success and eventually Ferranti sold its computer activities to ICT which later became part of ICL.

The ICL Atlas 10 was ICL's attempt to get into the IBM-compatible market by rebadging the top-end of the Fujitsu range. At the time, ICL had just concluded a joint marketing and technology development agreement with Fujitsu. Later ICL were taken over by Fujitsu and the UK stopped being a major player in the computer market.

Throughout the period, the Rutherford and Atlas Laboratories were providing a computer service to UK universities. Initially this was via users coming to Chilton and spending time at the site running jobs. Later star networks were introduced providing Remote Job Entry and terminal access from the university departments throughout the UK. With the coming of packet switching networking, this evolved into SERCnet which later merged with other regional university networking activities to form the UK academic network. In consequence, networking was an important area of development at Rutherford and Atlas throughout this period.

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