110-441: TME may refer to: TME (operating system) , Transaction Machine Environment , former ICL computer operating system TME (psychedelics) , drugs Transmisogyny exempt Tencent Music Entertainment Group , music distribution company Total mesorectal excision , removal of cancerous bowel tissue Toyota Motor Europe Transmissible mink encephalopathy Trimethylolethane ,
220-544: A magnetic drum as an intermediate random access device. The machine went on to have some success and sold in small numbers in Canada ( Saskatchewan Power Corporation retired serial number 0004 in early 1982) and the United States. In 1964, ICT purchased the computer division of Ferranti in another government-forced merger. Ferranti had been building a small number of scientific machines based on various university designs since
330-410: A 24-bit word, divided up into 6-bit characters. Lower case and control characters were provided for by "shift" characters. The early machines (1904/1905 with hardware floating point) had only 15-bit addressing. Later machines (1904E, 1905E, 1906A) had extended addressing modes, up to 22 bits. The operating systems (Executives) were A later development was GEORGE3 , remembered with great affection by
440-461: A Labourite of Wilson's generation, given its role in both opening up opportunities for ambitious youth from working-class backgrounds and enabling Britain to seize the potential benefits of scientific advances. Under the first Wilson government, for the first time in British history, more money was allocated to education than to defence. Wilson continued the rapid creation of new universities, in line with
550-399: A broad range of reforms during its time in office, in such areas as social security, civil liberties, housing, health, education, and worker's rights. It is perhaps best remembered for the liberal social reforms introduced or supported by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins . Notable amongst these was the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality and abortion , reform of divorce laws,
660-538: A combined degree of philosophy, politics, and economics at Jesus College, Oxford . He was later an Economic History lecturer at New College, Oxford , and a research fellow at University College, Oxford . Elected to Parliament in 1945, Wilson was appointed to the Attlee government as a Parliamentary Secretary ; he became Secretary for Overseas Trade in 1947, and was elevated to the Cabinet shortly thereafter as President of
770-517: A detailed personal interest in every aspect of VME/K design. To quote historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, "Mack had a good deal more autonomy than was good for the company." Not only was too much resource going into VME/K at the expense of the VME/B system that ICL's biggest customers were actually using, but the development of mainframe systems was also diverting expenditure from small business systems such as
880-407: A devaluation would disproportionately harm low-income Britons with savings and poorer Commonwealth of Nations countries in the sterling area . The government instead opted to deal with the problem by imposing a temporary surcharge on imports, and a series of deflationary measures designed to reduce demand and therefore the inflow of imports. In the latter half of 1967, an attempt was made to prevent
990-650: A generation of British programmers. A series of smaller machines were developed by the ICL Stevenage operation, consisting initially of the 1901 / 1902 / 1903 systems running E3 series executives (e.g. E3RM) and versions of the GEORGE operating system (initially GEORGE1). Later developments were the 1901A / 1902A / 1903A with their own Executives and GEORGE2. At a time (in the 1960s and 1970s) when IBM/360 series programs had to be recompiled to run in different machine and/or operating system environments, one significant feature of
1100-541: A much-reproduced photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street . At the age of ten, he went with his family to Australia, where he became fascinated with the pomp and glamour of politics. On the way home, he told his mother, "I am going to be prime minister." Wilson won a scholarship to attend Royds Hall Grammar School , his local grammar school (now a comprehensive school) in Huddersfield , Yorkshire. His father, working as an industrial chemist,
1210-584: A pathway to growth, embodied in the DEA and Mintech, was at the time by no means confined to the Labour Party. Wilson built on foundations that had been laid by his Conservative predecessors, in the shape, for example, of the National Economic Development Council (known as "Neddy") and its regional counterparts (the "little Neddies"). Government intervention in industry was greatly enhanced, with
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#17328522621171320-427: A priority to reduce wartime rationing , which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls". Wilson decided that the massive number of wartime controls was slowing the conversion to peacetime prosperity and he was committed to removing them as fast as possible. He ended rationing of potatoes, bread and jam, as well as shoes and some other clothing controls. In November 1948 Wilson announced his Board of Trade had removed
1430-520: A purpose-built factory at Ashton-under-Lyne .Ashton under-Lyne's team was noted for working on numerous mechanical innovations in the field of computer engineering. A state of the art printed circuit board plant was built in Plymouth Grove, Manchester in 1979, however financial troubles within the company forced its closure in 1981. Other offices included a facility at Bridgford House in Nottingham which
1540-532: A research fellow at University College . On the outbreak of the Second World War , Wilson volunteered for military service, but was classed as a specialist and moved into the civil service instead. For much of this time, he was a research assistant to William Beveridge , the Master of University College, working on the issues of unemployment and the trade cycle. Wilson later became a statistician and economist for
1650-420: A round of competitive devaluations, and concern about the impact price rises following a devaluation would have on people on low incomes. The government's decision over its first three years to defend sterling's parity with traditional deflationary measures ran counter to hopes for an expansionist push for growth. The National Plan produced by the DEA in 1965 targeted an annual growth rate of 3.8%, however, under
1760-503: A time when unemployment stood at around 400,000. It still stood at 371,000 by early 1966 after a steady fall during 1965, but by March 1967 it stood at 631,000. It fell again towards the end of the decade, standing at 582,000 by the time of the general election in June 1970. Despite the economic difficulties faced by Wilson's government, it was able to achieve important advances in several domestic policy areas. As reflected by Wilson in 1971: It
1870-504: A triol, an organic compound Tumor microenvironment Tickle Me Elmo Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title TME . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TME&oldid=1138925536 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1980-492: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages TME (operating system) International Computers Limited ( ICL ) was a British computer hardware , computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English Electric Computers (EEC) and Elliott Automation in 1968. The company's most successful product line
2090-492: Is still disputed in historiography. Some scholars praise his unprecedented electoral success for a Labour prime minister and holistic approach to governance, while others criticise his political style and handling of economic issues. Several key issues which he faced while prime minister included the role of public ownership, whether Britain should seek the membership of the European Communities, and British involvement in
2200-626: The 1900 Series of mainframes , and from English Electric Computers (EEC) the System 4 , a range of IBM System/360 -compatible mainframe clones, based on the RCA Spectra 70 . As of 1971 , the United Kingdom was unusual in Europe for IBM not having more than 50% of the computer market, although an observer stated that the company constrained the size of its British subsidiary to keep ICL alive. Although still
2310-623: The 1945 general election , Wilson won his seat in the Labour landslide. To his surprise, he was immediately appointed to the government by Prime Minister Clement Attlee as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works . Two years later, he became Secretary for Overseas Trade , in which capacity he made several official trips to the Soviet Union to negotiate supply contracts. The boundaries of his Ormskirk constituency were significantly altered before
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#17328522621172420-456: The 1964 election . His first period as prime minister saw a period of low unemployment and economic prosperity; this was however hindered by significant problems with Britain's external balance of payments . His government oversaw significant societal changes, abolishing both capital punishment and theatre censorship , partially decriminalising male homosexuality in England and Wales, relaxing
2530-559: The Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for the Series 39 in 1988. At the inception of New Range development, two operating systems were planned: System B for the large processors, and System D for the mid-range. System B was subsequently renamed VME/B . A third operating system, System T , was subsequently targeted at small machines. System D was dropped in order to focus efforts on VME/B and System T, renamed to VME/K (Confusingly, VME/B
2640-562: The Soviet Union , as the sale and installation of IBM computers (and other American technologies) there was politically sensitive and commercially restricted during the Cold War . The following remained with Elliott Automation and were never included in the formation of ICL: The 900 series were 18 bit binary computers. The 90x series were commercial machines. The 920x series were built to military specifications and used in military aircraft, mobile field deployed air defence systems and tanks. ICL
2750-551: The Vietnam War . His stated ambitions of substantially improving Britain's long-term economic performance, applying technology more democratically, and reducing inequality were to some extent unfulfilled. Wilson was born at Warneford Road, Cowlersley , in the western suburbs of the mill town of Huddersfield , in the West Riding of Yorkshire , England, on 11 March 1916. He came from a political family: his father James Herbert Wilson
2860-559: The Westrex teletype as console, this was a major advance. The printers abutted to the wing and were initially integrated; they were soon replaced by the CPI shuttle printer and PBS . The printers ran at 300 or 600 lines per minute, selected by a hidden link. Harold Wilson [REDACTED] James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British statesman and politician who twice served as Prime Minister of
2970-510: The divorce laws , limiting immigration, outlawing racial discrimination , and liberalising birth control and abortion law . In the midst of this programme, Wilson called a snap election in 1966 , which Labour won with a much increased majority. His government armed Nigeria during the Biafran War . In 1969, he sent British troops to Northern Ireland . After losing the 1970 election to Edward Heath 's Conservatives , Wilson chose to remain in
3080-712: The general election of 1950 . He stood instead for the new seat of Huyton near Liverpool, and was narrowly elected; he served there for 33 years until 1983. Wilson was appointed President of the Board of Trade on 29 September 1947, becoming, at the age of 31, the youngest member of a British Cabinet in the 20th century. Initially Wilson favoured a more interventionist policy, seeking requirements for government officials to be seated on private boards of directors , further price controls , and nationalisations of private industries which opposed government policy. However, he abandoned these plans after his colleagues disagreed. He made it
3190-412: The 1900 series was that programs would function unaltered on any 1900 system, without the need for recompilation. Unfortunately ICT, and later ICL, were unable to capitalise on this advantage to make significant inroads into IBM's customer base. During the same period, LEO was struggling to produce its own machines that would be able to compete with IBM. Its parent company, J. Lyons and Co. , did not have
3300-504: The 1930s and 1940s during the punched card era: British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and Powers-Samas . ICT had thus emerged with equipment that would process data encoded on punched cards with 40, 80 or 160 columns, compared to the 64 or 80 columns used by IBM and its predecessors. In 1962, ICT delivered the first ICT 1300 series computer , its first transistor machine and also the first to use core memory . A small team from Ferranti's Canadian subsidiary, Ferranti-Packard , visited
3410-499: The 1950s. None of these could be considered commercially successful, however, and Ferranti always seemed to be slow bringing its designs to market. Meanwhile, ICT management in England was looking to rejuvenate their line-up; their latest developments, the ones used to develop the FP 6000, were still not on the market. Management looked at the FP 6000 as well as licensing the RCA Spectra 70. In
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3520-407: The 2903, whose sales were growing much more rapidly. ICL's finances deteriorated during the late 1970s, leading to the appointment of a new management team led by Robb Wilmot and Peter Bonfield . One of their first actions was to end VME/K development. This happened just at the time that VME/K had finally reached a level of performance and reliability that made it saleable; however, the customer base
3630-562: The Board of Trade . Following Labour's defeat at the 1955 election , Wilson joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chancellor , and was moved to the role of Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1961. When Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died suddenly in January 1963, Wilson won the subsequent leadership election to replace him, becoming Leader of the Opposition. Wilson led Labour to a narrow victory at
3740-941: The British Tabulating Company) and Croydon . The company had a large research, operating system and software development and support centre in Bracknell , another smaller one at Dalkeith in Scotland and a software development centre in Adelaide, South Australia, between 1970 and 1973, application development in Reading , and training centres at Moor Hall ( Cookham ), Beaumont College ( Old Windsor ) (sales, support and software) and Letchworth (Hertfordshire) (manufacturing & field engineering). The company also had manufacturing facilities in Park Road Mill, Dukinfield ; later replaced by
3850-583: The Exchequer Stafford Cripps having gone to Switzerland in an attempt to recover his health, Wilson was one of a group of three young ministers, all of them former economics dons and wartime civil servants, convened to advise Prime Minister Attlee on financial matters. The others were Douglas Jay ( Economic Secretary to the Treasury ) and Hugh Gaitskell ( Minister of Fuel and Power ), both of whom soon grew to distrust him. Jay wrote of Wilson's role in
3960-553: The Exchequer in 1955, and he proved to be very effective. One of his procedural moves caused a substantial delay to the progress of the Government's Finance Bill in 1955, and his speeches as Shadow Chancellor from 1956 were widely praised for their clarity and wit. He coined the term " Gnomes of Zurich " to ridicule Swiss bankers for selling Britain short and pushing the pound sterling down by speculation. He conducted an inquiry into
4070-472: The Labour Party's organisation following its defeat in the 1955 general election ; its report compared Labour's organisation to an antiquated " penny farthing " bicycle, and made various recommendations for improvements. Unusually, Wilson combined the job of Chairman of the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee with that of Shadow Chancellor from 1959, holding that position until 1963. Gaitskell's leadership
4180-512: The Labour leadership, and resumed the role of Leader of the Opposition for four years before leading Labour through the February 1974 election , which resulted in a hung parliament . Wilson was appointed prime minister for a second time ; he called a snap election in October 1974, which gave Labour a small majority. During his second term as prime minister, Wilson oversaw the referendum that confirmed
4290-542: The Manchester University MU5 . It ran the VME operating systems , and supported emulation of both the earlier architectures (1900 Series and System 4), either standalone (DME, Direct Machine Environment ) or concurrently with native-mode operation (CME, Concurrent Machine Environment). In the early 1980s ICL struck a deal to acquire semiconductor technology from Fujitsu, on whom they became increasingly dependent as
4400-512: The National Economic Development Office greatly strengthened and the number of "little Neddies" was increased, from eight in 1964 to twenty-one in 1970. The government's policy of selective economic intervention was later characterised by the establishment of a new super-ministry of technology, a connexion not always publicly grasped, under Tony Benn . The continued relevance of industrial nationalisation (a centrepiece of
4510-513: The Open University. Money was also channelled into local-authority run colleges of education. Wilson's record on secondary education was motivated by growing pressure for the abolition of the selective principle underlying the " eleven-plus ", and replacement with Comprehensive schools which would serve the full range of children (see the article ' grammar schools debate '). Comprehensive education became Labour Party policy. From 1966 to 1970,
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4620-473: The Opposition . At the party's 1963 annual conference, Wilson made his best-remembered speech, on the implications of scientific and technological change. He argued that "the Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated measures on either side of industry". This speech did much to set Wilson's reputation as a technocrat not tied to
4730-652: The RCA Spectra 70 (the design ICT rejected). The result was the System 4 series. While there were a number of models in the range, the smaller 4/10 and 4/30 were seen as underpowered, and the more successful variants were the larger 4/50 and 4/70 models. A model 4/75 was also supplied to the EELM (later Baric) Bureau subsidiary and installed at Winsford , Cheshire as the hardware for a bureau-developed commercial system for interactive use by bureau customers. Although several multi-user commercial packages (e.g. sales and purchase ledger systems) were developed and tried with customers, this
4840-577: The UK's membership of the European Communities . In March 1976, Wilson suddenly announced his resignation as prime minister. He remained in the House of Commons until retiring in 1983 when he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Wilson of Rievaulx. While seen by admirers as leading the Labour Party through difficult political issues with considerable skill, Wilson's reputation was low when he left office and
4950-454: The United Kingdom , from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, Leader of the Opposition twice from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1970 to 1974, and a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1983 . Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed administrations following four general elections. Born in Huddersfield , Yorkshire, to a politically active middle-class family, Wilson studied
5060-602: The United States from the Singer merger, and a variety of former Nokia Data sites in Sweden and Finland. ICL and its customers often referred to these locations by the Site Code, especially where multiple sites might exist in a town, for instance with the Putney headquarters building (now Putney Wharf Tower ) being LON11 (London 11), the training college at Beaumont being WSR01 (Windsor 01) and
5170-488: The abolition of theatre censorship and capital punishment (except for a small number of offences — notably high treason ) and various pieces of legislation addressing race relations and racial discrimination . His government also undertook the easing of means testing for non-contributory welfare benefits, the linking of pensions to earnings, and the provision of industrial-injury benefits. Wilson's government also made significant reforms to education , most notably
5280-506: The category of Peel , Gladstone , Asquith , and no one else. But...he lacked originality. What he was superb at was the quick assimilation of knowledge, combined with an ability to keep it ordered in his mind and to present it lucidly in a form welcome to his examiners. He continued in academia, becoming one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21. He was a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and
5390-625: The coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at the Ministry of Fuel and Power in 1943–44 and was made an OBE for his services. He was to remain passionately interested in statistics, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1943. As President of the Board of Trade , he was the driving force behind the Statistics of Trade Act 1947, which is still the authority governing most economic statistics in Britain . He
5500-420: The day when a new Act would make it the right of a student, on leaving school, to have a place in an institution of further education. In 1966, Wilson was created the first Chancellor of the newly created University of Bradford , a position he held until 1985. Housing was a major policy area under the first Wilson government. During Wilson's time in office from 1964 to 1970, more new houses were built than in
5610-408: The debates over whether or not to devalue sterling that "he changed sides three times within eight days and finished up facing both ways". Wilson was given the task during his Swiss holiday of taking a letter to Cripps informing him of the decision to devalue, to which Cripps had been opposed. Wilson had tarnished his reputation in both political and official circles. Although a successful minister, he
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#17328522621175720-412: The devaluation, as economists had predicted. The devaluation, with accompanying austerity measures which ensured resources went into exports rather than domestic consumption, successfully restored the trade balance to surplus by 1969. In retrospect Wilson has been widely criticised for not devaluing earlier, however, he believed there were strong arguments against it, including the fear that it would set off
5830-568: The early 1980s, culminating in Fujitsu becoming sole shareholder in 1998. ICL was rebranded as Fujitsu in April 2002. Fujitsu (UK) as the hardware and software supplier has been implicated in the British Post Office scandal , which has extended from the 1990s to the 2020s The ICL brand is still used by the former Russian joint-venture of the company, founded in 1991. International Computers Limited
5940-581: The effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes and enabling more people to become owner-occupiers. In addition, house owners were exempted from capital gains tax. Together with the Option Mortgage Scheme, this measure stimulated the private housing market. Wilson in a 1967 speech said: ''..the grime and muddle and decay of our Victorian heritage is being replaced. The new city centres with their university precincts, their light, clean and well-spaced civic buildings, will not merely brighten
6050-550: The election was called, and was therefore compelled to resign from his position in the Civil Service. He served as Praelector in Economics at University College between his resignation and his election to the House of Commons. He also used this time to write A New Deal for Coal , which used his wartime experience to argue for the nationalisation of the coal mines on the grounds of the improved efficiency he predicted would ensue. In
6160-571: The end it was decided to go with the FP 6000 as the basis for a small line of small-to-midrange machines. The result was the ICT 1900 series , which would eventually go on to sell into the thousands. The 1900 Series, which derived from the Canadian Ferranti-Packard 6000, competed successfully in the UK with the IBM System/360 range from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. The design was based on
6270-462: The expansion of comprehensive education and the creation of the Open University . Wilson's government put faith in economic planning as a way to solve Britain's economic problems. The government's strategy involved setting up a Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) which would draw up a National Plan which was intended to promote growth and investment. Wilson believed that scientific progress
6380-756: The financial demands imposed by the Korean War . At this time, Wilson was not yet regarded as a heavyweight politician: Hugh Dalton referred to him scornfully as "Nye [Bevan]'s dog". After Labour lost the 1951 election , he became the Chairman of Keep Left, Bevan's political group. At the bitter Morecambe Conference in late 1952, Wilson was one of the Bevanites elected as constituency representatives to Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC), whilst senior right-wingers such as Dalton and Herbert Morrison were voted off. Wilson had never made much secret that his support of
6490-469: The financial might to develop a new line of machines. Not wanting to see its work go to waste, it sold its computer division to English Electric . English Electric had developed a series of machines over the years, notably the famous KDF9 and the commercially oriented KDF8 , but never had much commercial success. Now with serious financial backing at its disposal, the new company nevertheless decided not to come up with its own design, and instead licensed
6600-599: The initial optimism. Upon coming to power, the government was informed that they had inherited an exceptionally large deficit of £800 million on Britain's balance of trade . This partly reflected the preceding government's expansive fiscal policy in the run-up to the 1964 election. Immediately the pound came under enormous pressure, and many economists advocated devaluation of the pound in response, but Wilson resisted, reportedly in part out of concern that Labour, which had previously devalued sterling in 1949, would become tagged as "the party of devaluation". Wilson also believed that
6710-454: The largest European computer company, in 1971 ICL had a poor reputation. When the companies were first merged the EEC order books were full, while ICT (which had twice as many employees) was struggling, perhaps because it was already obvious that the 1900 series was incompatible with the rest of the industry, with an architecture based on a 24-bit word and 6-bit character rather than the 8-bit byte that
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#17328522621176820-561: The last six years of the previous Conservative government. The proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total, while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970, To encourage homeownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments). This scheme had
6930-463: The latter a recent merger of Elliott Automation with English Electric Leo Marconi computers, which itself had been a merger of the computer divisions of English Electric , LEO and Marconi . Upon its creation, the British government held a 10% stake in the company and provided a $ 32.4 million research-and-development grant spread across four years. ICT was itself the result of a merger of two UK companies that had competed with each other throughout
7040-545: The left-wing Aneurin Bevan was opportunistic. In early 1954, Bevan resigned from the Shadow Cabinet (elected by Labour MPs when the party was in opposition) over Labour's support for the setting-up of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Wilson, who had been runner-up in the elections, stepped up to fill the vacant place. He was supported in this by Richard Crossman , but his actions angered Bevan and
7150-399: The need for over 200,000 licences and permits. By March 1949 he promised to remove the need for another 900,000, although meat remained in short supply and was still rationed, as was petrol. Henry Irvine argues that Wilson's success with the bonfire of controls established his reputation as a modernizing specialist, with both the general public and the political elite. Irving also argues that
7260-418: The other Bevanites. Wilson's course in intra-party matters in the 1950s and early 1960s left him neither fully accepted nor trusted by the left or the right in the Labour Party. Despite his earlier association with Bevan, in 1955 he backed Hugh Gaitskell , the right-wing candidate in internal Labour Party terms, against Bevan for the party leadership election . Gaitskell appointed him Shadow Chancellor of
7370-770: The party's left-wing by renationalising the steel industry under the Iron and Steel Act 1967 (which had been denationalised by the Conservatives in the 1950s) creating the British Steel Corporation . One innovation of the Wilson government was the creation in 1968 of the Girobank , a publicly owned bank which operated via the General Post Office network: As most working-class people in the 1960s did not have bank accounts, this
7480-565: The position of Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1961, before he challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962 but was defeated by George Brown . Gaitskell died in January 1963, just as the Labour Party had begun to unite and appeared to have a very good chance of winning the next election, with the Macmillan Government running into trouble. Timothy Heppell has explored how Wilson won the Labour Party leadership election . Wilson had alienated
7590-538: The post-War Labour government's programme) had been a key point of contention in Labour's internal struggles of the 1950s and early 1960s. Wilson's predecessor as leader, Hugh Gaitskell , had tried in 1960 to tackle the controversy head-on, with a proposal to expunge Clause Four (the public ownership clause) from the party's constitution, but had been forced to climb down. Wilson took a characteristically more subtle approach: No significant expansion of public ownership took place under Wilson's government, however, he placated
7700-458: The prevailing class system. Labour's 1964 election campaign was aided by the Profumo affair , a ministerial sex scandal that had mortally wounded Harold Macmillan and hurt the Conservatives. Wilson made capital without getting involved in the less salubrious aspects. (Asked for a statement on the scandal, he reportedly said "No comment ... in glorious Technicolor !"). Sir Alec Douglas-Home
7810-530: The proportion of children in comprehensive schools increased from about 10% to over 30%. Labour pressed local authorities to convert grammar schools into comprehensives. Conversion continued on a large scale during the subsequent Conservative Heath administration, although the Secretary of State, Margaret Thatcher , ended the compulsion of local governments to convert. Wilson's first government reluctantly decided it could not fulfil its long-held promise to raise
7920-553: The recession in activity from going too far in the form of a stimulus to consumer durable spending through an easing of credit, which in turn prevented a rise in unemployment. After a costly battle, market pressures forced the government to devalue the pound by 14% from $ 2.80 to $ 2.40 in November 1967. Wilson was much criticised for a broadcast soon after in which he assured listeners that the "pound in your pocket" had not lost its value. Economic performance did show some improvement after
8030-519: The recommendations of the Robbins Report , a bipartisan policy already in train when Labour took power. Wilson promoted the concept of an Open University , to give adults who had missed out on tertiary education a second chance through part-time study and distance learning . His political commitment included assigning implementation responsibility to Baroness Lee , the widow of Aneurin Bevan . By 1981, 45,000 students had received degrees through
8140-441: The requirements. Even before the merger that created ICL was complete, a working party had recommended that the new company should develop a new range of machines offering "acceptable compatibility with the current ranges of both companies". This was also seen as a way to help "achieve company unity" for the newly formed organization. The resulting 2900 Series was launched on 9 October 1974. Its design drew on many sources, one being
8250-469: The rest of the marketplace. ICL initially thrived, but relied almost wholly on supplying the UK public sector with computers. The 1900s were sold in several countries worldwide, but the largest slice of the market was always in the UK, and the largest part of that in government, local authorities, and nationalised industries. Until the 1970s launch of the 2900 Series , the UK government had a single-tender preferential purchase agreement wherever ICL could meet
8360-485: The restrained circumstances the actual average rate of growth between 1964 and 1970 was a far more modest 2.2%. The DEA itself was wound up in 1969. The government's other main initiative Mintech did have some success at switching research and development spending from military to civilian purposes, and of achieving increases in industrial productivity, although persuading industry to adopt new technology proved more difficult than had been hoped. Faith in indicative planning as
8470-421: The right wing of the party by his angry attempts to defeat Gaitskell in 1960 for the leadership, and George Brown in 1962 for the deputy leadership. These misadventures gave Wilson a reputation for disloyalty and divisiveness. Heppell identifies three factors whereby Wilson overcame these disadvantages. Firstly, he had united the party's left wing behind him and they showed no willingness to compromise. Secondly,
8580-451: The right wing, although more numerous, was deeply split between Brown and James Callaghan . Wilson took the lead on the first ballot and gained momentum on the second. Finally, Brown proved a poor campaigner, emphasizing divisive factors rather than his own credentials, allowing Wilson to emerge, surprisingly, as the unity candidate, thus becoming the Leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of
8690-417: The same essential architecture as 2900 series, but was a dramatic step forward in hardware technology. It was the first commercial mainframe to exploit optical fibres for central interconnect, and also introduced a multi-CPU (multinode) architecture transparent to the applications. The series included: The training video for the Series 39 featured the comedy duo Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry . ICL received
8800-440: The school leaving age to 16, because of the investment required in infrastructure, such as tens of thousands of new classrooms and teachers. Overall, public expenditure on education rose as a proportion of GNP from 4.8% in 1964 to 5.9% in 1968, and the number of teachers in training increased by more than a third between 1964 and 1967. The percentage of students staying on at school after the age of sixteen increased similarly, and
8910-417: The selection timing and especially the publicity Wilson devoted to the bonfire represented the emerging skills of a brilliant young politician. While each major bonfire was justified in terms of technical economic advantages, it was selected and publicised widely to reach the largest possible audience so that everybody could understand that their bread and jam became free again. In mid-1949, with Chancellor of
9020-527: The social services, health, welfare and housing, unparalleled in our history. Several liberalising social reforms were passed through parliament during Wilson's first period in government. These dealt with the death penalty, homosexual acts, abortion, censorship and the voting age . There were new restrictions on immigration . Wilson personally, coming culturally from a provincial non-conformist background, showed no particular enthusiasm for much of this agenda. Higher education held special significance for
9130-503: The southern System Support Centre (SCC) at Bracknell, Berkshire being BRA01 (Bracknell 01). BRA05 was the new headquarters of ICL (UK) Ltd, the company's UK sales and customer service division which moved from its original base at Putney Bridge House (LON13) in Fulham, London to a new building in Bracknell in the late 1980s. On its formation, the company inherited two main product lines: from ICT
9240-474: The student population increased by over 10% each year. Pupil-teacher ratios were also steadily reduced. As a result of the first Wilson government's educational policies, opportunities for the working-class were improved; overall access to education in 1970 was broader than in 1964. As summarised by Brian Lapping, The years 1964–70 were largely taken up with creating extra places in universities, polytechnics, technical colleges, colleges of education: preparing for
9350-469: The term superstructure to refer to the compilers, data management tools, and transaction processing software sitting above the operating system but below the user application – a category now often labelled middleware . The 2903 range was a rapid development to produce a small business computer to replace the 1901A. As far as possible it was developed from existing hardware and software, but configured for an office environment without underfloor cabling. It
9460-513: The various Ferranti computer labs and saw their work on a next-generation machine. On their return home they quickly produced the Ferranti-Packard 6000 , developing the machine, compilers and an operating system (before these were common) and putting it on the market by 1963. A feature of the Executive operating system was its ability to multitask , using dynamic memory allocation enabled with
9570-501: The years progressed. The term "New Range" was used during development for the product line that was eventually launched as the 2900 Series , the operating system being known initially as VME/B and later simply as VME . Models included: These ran the VME and DME (emulation) operating systems, and were available in both single and multi-processor configurations, the later being known as Duals and SuperDuals (2966 and 2988 only). The company also developed: Series 39 followed
9680-495: The youngest person to hold that office since Lord Rosebery 70 years earlier. During 1965, by-election losses reduced the government's majority to a single seat; but in March 1966 Wilson took the gamble of calling another general election. The gamble paid off, because this time Labour achieved a 96-seat majority over the Conservatives, who the previous year had made Edward Heath their leader. The 1964–1970 Labour government carried out
9790-462: Was David Pearson (computer scientist). VME/K development continued independently for several reasons. Early VME/B customers suffered significant performance and reliability problems, and the existence of an alternative product provided a safety net. Perhaps more significantly, VME/K was the brainchild of Ed Mack, who had been brought in by managing director Geoff Cross as ICL's head of research and development. Despite his wide responsibilities, Mack took
9900-409: Was a government which faced disappointment after disappointment and none greater than the economic restraints in our ability to carry through the social revolution to which we were committed at the speed we would have wished. Yet, despite those restraints and the need to transfer resources from domestic expenditure, private and public, to the needs of our export markets, we carried through an expansion in
10010-514: Was a works chemist who had been active in the Liberal Party , serving as Winston Churchill 's deputy election agent in a 1908 by-election, but later joined the Labour Party . His mother Ethel ( née Seddon) was a schoolteacher before her marriage; in 1901 her brother Harold Seddon settled in Western Australia and became a local political leader. When Wilson was eight, he visited London and
10120-433: Was an aristocrat who had given up his peerage to sit in the House of Commons and become prime minister upon Macmillan's resignation. To Wilson's comment that he was out of touch with ordinary people since he was the 14th Earl of Home , Home retorted, "I suppose Mr. Wilson is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson". Labour won the 1964 general election with a narrow majority of four seats, and Wilson became prime minister , at 48
10230-474: Was becoming the industry norm. The new board decided that the 1900 should be phased out in favour of the System 4, but shortly afterwards reversed their decision. It is probable that this was due to union and political pressure from the Wilson government. In any event, most of the original EEC board resigned over the interference as they believed that the 1900 series was doomed from the outset, being incompatible with
10340-781: Was concentrated in the United Kingdom, with its corporate headquarters in Putney in the London borough of Wandsworth. At the time of the original merger, the company inherited extensive engineering and manufacturing facilities in West Gorton , Manchester; Castlereagh in Belfast , Stevenage and Croydon from ICT, and from English Electric in Kidsgrove , Staffordshire and Winsford , Cheshire. Manufacture and assembly also took place at several factories in Letchworth Garden City (the original home of
10450-434: Was designed to serve their needs, as such it was billed as the "people's bank". Girobank was a long-term success, surviving until 2003. Wilson's government presided over a rate of unemployment which was low by historic (and later) standards but did rise during his period in office. Between 1964 and 1966 the average rate of unemployment was 1.6%, while between 1966 and 1970 the average stood at 2.5%. He had entered power at
10560-490: Was developed in Kidsgrove , VME/K in Bracknell .) The first large machines (the 2980 and 2970) were launched with VME/B. VME/K first saw service on the 2960. The chief architect of VME/B was Brian Warboys , who subsequently became professor of software engineering at the University of Manchester . VME/B was developed using the pioneering software engineering system CADES as the development environment. The architect of CADES
10670-511: Was dominated by large contracts from the UK public sector, including Post Office Ltd , the Inland Revenue , the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence . It also had a strong market share with UK local authorities and (at that time) nationalised utilities including the water, electricity, and gas boards. The company had an increasingly close relationship with Fujitsu from
10780-702: Was formed in 1968 as a part of the Industrial Expansion Act of the Wilson Labour Government. ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn , the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM ; the formation of the company was the last in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950s. The main portions of ICL were formed by merging International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) with English Electric Computers,
10890-516: Was instrumental as prime minister in appointing Claus Moser as head of the Central Statistical Office , and was president of the Royal Statistical Society between 1972 and 1973. As the war drew to an end, he searched for a seat to contest at the impending general election. He was selected for the constituency of Ormskirk , then held by Stephen King-Hall . Wilson agreed to be adopted as the candidate immediately rather than delay until
11000-707: Was made redundant in December 1930, and it took him nearly two years to find work; he moved to Spital , on the Wirral Peninsula , to do so. Wilson continued his education in the Sixth Form at the Wirral Grammar School for Boys , where he became Head Boy . Wilson did well at school and, although he missed getting a scholarship, he obtained an exhibition ; this, when topped up by a county grant, enabled him to study at Jesus College, Oxford , from 1934. At Oxford, Wilson
11110-613: Was moderately active in politics as a member of the Liberal Party but was strongly influenced by G. D. H. Cole . His politics tutor, R. B. McCallum , considered Wilson to be the best student he ever had. He graduated in PPE ( Philosophy, Politics and Economics ) with "an outstanding first class Bachelor of Arts degree, with alphas on every paper" in the final examinations, and a series of major academic awards. Biographer Roy Jenkins wrote: Academically his results put him among prime ministers in
11220-452: Was not commercially successful, and the service was soon withdrawn. The System 4 series ran the J (for Job) operating system. This was a batch operating system, although there was a variant that allowed interactive access called MultiJob. Under a framework called Driver, J was a successful operating environment for high volume commercial real time systems. Programming languages used were assembler and COBOL and Fortran (an Algol 60 compiler
11330-539: Was provided but not used much, if at all). The system was controlled from a console composed of a mechanical printer and keyboard – very like a Teletype. The assembly language (known as Usercode) non-privileged instruction set was identical to IBM System 360 Assembly Language; in privileged mode there were a few extras. System 4's compatibility with the IBM 360 made it particularly attractive to customers in Eastern Europe and
11440-473: Was regarded as self-important. He was not seriously considered for the job of Chancellor when Cripps stepped down in October 1950—it was given to Gaitskell—possibly in part because of his cautious role during devaluation. Wilson was becoming known in the Labour Party as a left-winger, and joined Aneurin Bevan and John Freeman in resigning from the government in April 1951 in protest at the introduction of National Health Service (NHS) medical charges to meet
11550-518: Was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers. In later years, ICL diversified its product line but the bulk of its profits always came from its mainframe customers. New ventures included marketing a range of powerful IBM clones made by Fujitsu , various minicomputer and personal computer ranges and (more successfully) a range of retail point-of-sale equipment and back-office software. Although it had significant sales overseas, ICL's mainframe business
11660-493: Was the headquarters of Rushcliffe Borough Council, but has since been converted into apartments. For some years ICL maintained a training and presentation facility for senior management at Hedsor House , near Taplow , Berkshire. Outside the UK, ICL's offices around the world were mainly sales and marketing operations, with some application development for the local market. The exceptions were development and manufacturing sites arising from acquisitions, such as Utica, New York in
11770-469: Was the key to economic and social advancement, as such he famously referred to the "white heat of technology", in reference to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through a new Ministry of Technology (shortened to "Mintech") which would coordinate research and development and support the swift adoption of new technology by industry, aided by government-funded infrastructure improvements. In practice, however, events derailed much of
11880-472: Was urgently needed to generate a cashflow that would support continuing 2900 development. The hardware was based on the 2900 DFC (Disk File Controller), and used the MICOS engine. The 2903/4 system cabinet housed the MICOS engine, Drico FEDS disk storage and a punched card reader. A wing attached at 45 degrees carried the operator's console which was a visual display unit ( VDU ): for 1900 users who were accustomed to
11990-506: Was very small, and by this time VME/B (which was renamed VME 2900) had also matured sufficiently to give confidence that it would meet the future requirements for the entire mainframe range. VME 2900 subsequently became simply VME and then Open VME , and continued to evolve. In 1980 it was marketed as "Your system for the 80s", and indeed that decade proved to be its heyday. It continued to give service to many loyal and demanding users, but has attracted few new users since 1990 or so. ICL used
12100-528: Was weakened after the Labour Party's 1959 defeat , his controversial attempt to ditch Labour's commitment to nationalisation by scrapping Clause Four , and his defeat at the 1960 Party Conference over a motion supporting unilateral nuclear disarmament . Bevan had died in July 1960, so Wilson established himself as a leader of the Labour left by launching an opportunistic but unsuccessful challenge to Gaitskell's leadership in November 1960 . Wilson would later be moved to
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