FORUM was inherited from the Department's predecessors in 1984 and went on to cover Central Computing Department's activities and some of those of the Informatics Department. It ran until the end of 1988 and was issued six times per year, typically with 8 or 12 pages per issue, with occasional supplements on particular topics.
The Advanced Research Computing Newsletter was started at the end of 1986 as an additional publication covering just the new Cray supercomputing service, and was aimed at an audience from all the Research Councils. Following a competition to find a snappier title it became ARCLIGHT from June 1987, coinciding with the inauguration of the Cray service. Like FORUM it appeared six times per year, typically with eight pages per issue.
When the IBM joint study agreement on supercomputing came into effect in 1988 FORUM and ARCLIGHT were replaced by a single new publication FLAGSHIP so as to avoid unnecessary duplication on supercomputing topics. FLAGSHIP also appeared six times per year, typically with about 24 pages per issue and was a glossier publication with more pictorial content than the earlier newsletters. It continued until 1996.
