Computing Services Archives

The ICL 1906S was installed in the newly-built Computer Centre in June 1976 and ran until the beginning of December 1985. The Computer Centre was officially opened almost three years later on 29th March 1979 by the chancellor Sir Fred Dainton; by then the carpets were already beginning to display the famous holes that we were to grow to love over the next decades.

This set of colour slides shows the brand new 1906S in the computer room in July 1976. This machine had 256k words of plated wire memory (equivalent to 768k bytes) and 5 x 60Mb disc drives. It ran the George 4 operating system, and filestore was automatically offlined to magnetic tape when not used.

Click on any of the images to see an enlarged version.

A general view of the computer room with Mike Nicpon, the shift leader, at the operators' console. In the background are 9-track 1600 bpi tape drives and a rack of tapes.

The 1933 line printer

Unloading paper from the dynamic stacker at the back of the line printer

Jean Orme, a Data Preparation operator, at work punching cards on an IBM card punch

A user going online using Maximop on a Teletype 33 terminal

A Tektronix graphics terminal. This was one of the earliest types of graphics terminal available, with a persistent screen that could only be erased in total. Only later graphics termianls with more power had a dynamic display that could be updated locally.

These photos were taken around November 1985, just before the 1906S was decommissioned.

The blue ICL boxes

An array of power supplies

The starter unit

The starter motors. Yes, big computers used to have starter motors. When the 1906S was powered on, these motors would operate one after another to power up different sections of the hardware in sequence to make it come up in an orderly fashion.

Plated wire memory

60Mb disc drives.

Tim Sanders, ICL engineer, at the operators' console.

Jeff Martin and Dave (Spook) Elwis.

Ian McArthur, an ICL engineer.

Wilf Webster getting over-excited at the thought of losing the 1906S.

Tim Sanders in the engineers room.

The leaving do for the ICL engineers, in the Hornblower

Spook, Christine (Jim) Marsden, Denise Jordan Christine, Denise, Tim Sanders The ICL engineers

Tim Sanders, Bob Sandon, Ian McArthur Glynis Hulme, Jeff Martin, Sue Thompson Tim Sanders saying goodbye to the barmaids

Tim Ian Lowman, Roger Richards, Ian Duckenfield

Return to index

	A general view of the computer room with Mike Nicpon, the shift leader, at the operators' console. In the background are 9-track 1600 bpi tape drives and a rack of tapes.
	The 1933 line printer
	Unloading paper from the dynamic stacker at the back of the line printer
	Jean Orme, a Data Preparation operator, at work punching cards on an IBM card punch
	A user going online using Maximop on a Teletype 33 terminal
	A Tektronix graphics terminal. This was one of the earliest types of graphics terminal available, with a persistent screen that could only be erased in total. Only later graphics termianls with more power had a dynamic display that could be updated locally.

	The blue ICL boxes
	An array of power supplies
	The starter unit
	The starter motors. Yes, big computers used to have starter motors. When the 1906S was powered on, these motors would operate one after another to power up different sections of the hardware in sequence to make it come up in an orderly fashion.
	Plated wire memory
	60Mb disc drives.
	Tim Sanders, ICL engineer, at the operators' console.
	Jeff Martin and Dave (Spook) Elwis.
	Ian McArthur, an ICL engineer.
	Wilf Webster getting over-excited at the thought of losing the 1906S.
	Tim Sanders in the engineers room.


Spook, Christine (Jim) Marsden, Denise Jordan	Christine, Denise, Tim Sanders	The ICL engineers

Tim Sanders, Bob Sandon, Ian McArthur	Glynis Hulme, Jeff Martin, Sue Thompson	Tim Sanders saying goodbye to the barmaids

Tim	Ian Lowman, Roger Richards, Ian Duckenfield