INTRODUCTION

It occurred to me, when I retired in May 2002, that I had been involved with computers in some shape or form for 33 years and that much had changed in those thirty odd years. Much of the computing equipment and techniques I had experience of in my early days, mostly ICL mainframes, have ended up in museums or worse have disappeared without trace. In July 2001 came the news that the ICL brand name would disappear by March 2002.

Much has written about the computing past but most has been from the viewpoint of either sales personnel or application developers. It is the intention of the following narrative to capture and record something of the ICL equipment, software, training, a typical installation and commissioning period and methodology, everyday experiences, locations and the people I worked with from a hardware engineer's viewpoint. I have attempted to validate my memory with the aid of photographs (courtesy of Marconi ) and original manuals and sales brochures etc. If errors in detail are detected they are unintentional and due to an imperfect memory combined with lack of supporting documentation.

This is very much a work in progress and will be developed as time goes on.