Story
Hardware
Software
(People)
Engineers
Programers
Operators
GEC Years
Project
Honour Roll
Media
Support
Future
Links-
The ICT 1301 Resurrection Project.
Programmer or
Operator or
Engineer or
GEC Factory
and The Role of Honour
People
For each group of people who were associated with a mainframe computer, the roles
were well defined. However as usual some people crossed the boundries and did a little
of everything. Here we have the roles of the most important people, it is no accident that the first three skills are identical. It just typified the people who worked in this industry. Follow the links for information about the seperate roles and those who worked in these roles and who have contacted us since the start of the project.
The Programmer.
With a mountain of manuals on one side of the desk and a wadge of specification sheets
weighing down the other side of the desk. It was the job of the programmer to create
a working program to deliver the working task. Skills required:-
Creativity
Determination to deliver
A flair for taking a short cut
by duplication of previous effort
Ability to write the hand coded sheets
for prepartion in the form of punched cards.
Click here to meet the Programers.
The Operator.
Skills required:-Creativity
Determination to deliver
A flair for taking a short cut
by duplication of previous effort
Ability to understand the hand written instructions to run the program,
and allow for mistakes in coding, duff data packs, missing and incomplete files.
An ability to time share between keeping the machine working non stop to produce output and
talk on the phone at the same time.
Click here to meet the Operators.
The Engineer.
With a Cupboard full of manuals, another cupboard full of spares, some quite high tech test gearAn abilty to adapt to working on electronics one moment, Pnumatics the next and Mechanics in
between both. The engineers survived on not quite knowing what he was going to be doing next
but somehow adapting to each problem, and above all solving it !
Skills required:-
Creativity
Determination to deliver
A flair for taking a short cut
by duplication of previous effort
Ability to think themselves into anothers shoes and see the problem from that point of view
so the 'Problem' could be understood. Then and only then could the solution be found.
Click here to meet the Engineers.
The GEC Factory.
With a whole factory, parts of which were dedicated to producing Printed Circuit boards,test rigs and building the prototype machines. Many stories have been collected from people
who remember these day at the SPON Street Works in Coventry. So with a different take on
the world we celebrate the stories of those years when a computer which was called the
GEC Computer was turned into, the ICT 1301 mainframe.
Skills required:-
Creativity
Determination to deliver
A flair for creating a brand new Idea
and adapting it to the ' NEW ' problem
The ability to think themselves into a brand new area and solve problems
in a way that would in time prove to be a world beating solution.
Click here to meet the GEC staff.
The Roll of Honour.
So many people have given time and help with this project we have created a Roll of Honour to ensure nobody is forgotten !
The Roll
