The last operational ICT 1301Roger Holmes is custodian of the last operational ICT1301 in existence (known as Flossie) and is working with the computer conservation society to maintain and operate the machine - link.
Flossie ICT 1301 console (Picture by Roger Holmes) - click photo for higher resolution.
Flossie ICT 1301 tape drive (Picture by Roger Holmes) - click photo for higher resolution. Tasmanian anecdote: Cadbury ICT 1301
By Trevor Robinson":
In 1962 ICT were running late delivering their 1301 to Cadbury in Tasmania and were being threatened with contract cancellation and giving the order to IBM for a 1401.
To avoid this, ICT shipped the machine that was, in effect, incomplete with parts still being shipped from the UK to Claremont for about 8 weeks after the machine first arrived in order to allow us to finish building the system on site.
To add to the problem of late hardware, the software did not work reliably (MAC (Manchester Auto Code) which was an assembler language and "Rapidwrite" which was a COBOL look alike).
To avoid a looming conflict with Cadbury, four of us (3 engineers and 1 analyst) burnt the midnight oil and wrote the main invoicing application in absolute machine code as well as trying to get the hardware running. As it turned out we managed to get this all working within about 10 weeks of the machines arrival and narrowly avoided the cancellation of the contract.
This invoicing program ran 3 invoices across a page and ran 2 shifts a day. Cadburys at that time invoiced every retail outlet, including every corner milk bar in Australia directly as they did not use distributors for their products at that time.
RGB 22 July 2007
ICT 1301 simulator for OS XA simulator has been developed for the ICT1301 which runs on Macintosh PowerPC OS X, contact Roger Holmes (Microspot UK) for details.
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