GEC Computers

GEC Computers Limited was the computer manufacturing company under the GEC holding company.

Starting life as Elliott Automation, the data processing computer products were transferred to ICT/ICL and non-computing products to English Electric as part of a reorganisation of the parent company forced by the British Government.

Elliott Automation retained the real-time computing systems, the Elliott 900 series computers, and set about designing a new range of computer systems to carry them forward long-term. The rules of the reorganisation disallowed Elliott Automation to continue working on data processing computing products for some years after the split (and similarly, disallowed ICT/ICL to work on real-time computing products). Three new computer ranges were identified, known internally as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha became the GEC 2050 8-bit minicomputer, and beta became the GEC 4080 16-bit minicomputer with its unique Nucleus feature. Gamma was never developed, so a few of its enhanced features were consequently pulled back into the GEC 4080.

The main company product was the GEC 4000 series minicomputers, which were used by many other GEC and Marconi companies as the basis for real-time control systems in industrial and military applications, and development of many new computers in the series continued through most of the life of the company. Other products manufactured in the earlier years were the GEC 2050, computer power supplies, and high resolution military computer displays, as well as the Elliott 900 series for existing 900 series customers. GEC Computers also found that some of the software applications it developed for its own use were salable to other companies, such as its salary payment services, its multi-layer printed circuit board design software, and its project management software.

In the mid-1970s, GEC Computers was working on OS4000, a more advanced operating system for the GEC 4000 series. This opened up the GEC 4000 series computers to more customers, including many in the academic and research communities. A number of collaborative projects ran, some of which resulted in applications which GEC Computers developed further and sold, in addition to the sales of the computers themselves. One of the largest of these were X.25 packet switch systems, which resulted from a research collaboration with NERC.

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