Talk:Computer Technology Limited

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Untitled[edit]

Wasn't Information Technology PLC the same company (renamed)? Should mention, if so. — Johan the Ghost seance 00:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, Information Technlogy was a holding company that also held Office Technology Ltd (OTL) and Network Technology Ltd (NTL). 87.252.36.225 (talk) 12:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC)John Blackburn (Ex CTL design engineer) 07/03/2013[reply]

OEM use of CTL Computers[edit]

This isn't mentioned anywhere in the article. That seems odd, as ICL certainly shifted quite a few modular one systems - first in the form of the ICL 7905 communication processor (based on the 1.11) and later in the form of 7904 and 7906 (these two based on the later processors - 1.15 if I recall correctly), and for a while most of the mainframes shipped by ICL had one of these included inthe configuration; they were also shipped by ICL as free-standing comms nodes to several ICL customers, including PO TOLD at Heathrow and CEGB. I got the impression some time in 1974 (from Bob Finch, I think; but possibly from someone else) that the company regarded supplying it on OEM basis as an important activity at that time, and certainly ICL continued to use it for several years after that (ICL P-Series support for it was first shipped in Jan 1977, and S series support some time in 1978 I think; it was still regarded as a crucial requirement for ICL mainframes at that time). (I know this stuff because I ran ICL's 7905/4/6 development for a while, and later on was in charge of VME/B comms development while the P-series and S series support was being done; it was important enough that we tore the VME/B support for the 790x up because it was based on a deprecated comms architecture and did a complete replacement in the late 70s; but I have no references to validate it). Michealt (talk) 03:54, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Late History of ITL[edit]

First off, when I was there (1987 - 1990), the company was definitely known as ITL. All our letterhead, document titles, and as I recall the logo on the building were "ITL". So it seems to me the article title should reflect that, or at least the opening section should mention the name. As an example, here's my offer of employment from 1986:

 ITL Letterhead 1986

Secondly, wasn't ITL basically the UK's last home-grown computer manufacturer? After ICL was bought out by Fujitsu, weren't we basically it apart from PC assemblers and the like? I seem to remember one or two trade rags picking up on the fact that the UK had just got out of the computer business in any serious way, but no large outcry. Which was pretty tragic, really.

And finally... a tiny mention of re-badged Sequoia systems, but none of our own in-house designed successor! This was our single-cabinet, 68030-based, fully fault-tolerant mini running Sequoia's brand of Unix. We got it working to the point where you could yank out any part and it would keep going. We did a couple of demos and then the whole of R&D got shut down. I guess it's not very signiicant in the grand scheme of things, but it would be nice to see a mention of the fact that we were actually building a modern (for the time!), open fault-tolerant mini. -- johantheghost (talk) 10:57, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]