Mannerisms

In May 1969, SGS, the forerunner of STMicroelectronics, which in those days had a Scottish connection with a facility at Falkirk, held a lunch at the Carlton Tower Hotel to which not only was Miss Scotland invited, but also the Minister of State at the Scottish Office, Dr Dickson Mabon

Christian names are so much the norm for office life these days we find it hard to believe that those ‘Take a letter, Miss Smith’ or ‘Right away, Sir’ exchanges ever took place. But they did, and not so long ago.

“Custom masked ROMs are heading for trouble”, Intersil’s marketing manager, Colin Kidd, was quoted as saying in February 1972, “by next year, the market will have grown to the point where some five semiconductor manufacturers will each need to ship around 100 different ROM patterns a week – and that’s without reckoning programme changes, errors and so on. The costs and delays are going to be horrifying. Everything therefore points to the electrical programming of units – in the field if necessary.”

Surprise, surprise, Intersil was introducing a 1K PROM.

TOMMORROW MORNING: THE TEN BEST LOGIC CHIPS

In February 1972, describing the construction of an MOS IC for use in an electronic calculator at the company’s fab in Glenrothes, Dr Stephen Forte, joint managing director of General Instruments Microelectronics, said that two miles of paper tape were consumed during the design of the chip.

‘A new system to be installed in the near future will use tape cassettes for the input and storage of design data’, says an Electronics Weekly report.

‘This will allow, for example, data for each layer of a complex IC to be held on one cassette’, says the report.

TOMORROW MORNING: The Ten Best Analogue Chips

Charlie Sporck left Fairchild Semiconductor in 1967 to take over as CEO of National Semiconductor and become an industry legend. His impact on the company was pretty immediate as this press report, dated May 1969, observes:

Sixpence (2.5p) per bit is the cost of memory according to Core Memories quoted in the November 26th 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly under the headline: ‘Low-Cost Memory Systems Thrust.’

The first time a US president made a speech to Congress on Science and Technology was 36 years ago, in March 1972, when President Richard Nixon pointed out that government has a crucial role to play in the fostering of a nation’s innovative capabilities.

In 1957, the Royal Air Force started the development of a computerised personnel and pay system. In keeping with the general performance of computers in those days, which added to the gaiety of the nation with their cock-ups, the RAF's computer system came up with some spectacular boobs.

In the issue of Electronics Weekly for February 26th 1969 is a story which starts: "This week is the tenth anniversary of the UK's software industry, and Vaughan Programming Services of Ware, Herts, who started it all, are thriving under the direction of Mrs A St Johnston."

The Electronics Weekly edition of January 26th 1972 reads: ‘Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven are investigating the possible use of magnetic bubbles as information carriers’.

“By 1976, except for big data processing machines, no one will be designing in TTL.”

‘A ‘mystery effect’ in silicon has been harnessed by RCA to produce the most powerful pulses of radio energy in the UHF range yet achieved by a solid state device’, reported Electronics Weekly in its Nov 26 1969 edition.

‘The electronics industry will enter 1973 faced with severe shortages of many kinds of semiconductor devices, and with only limited prospects of an easier situation during the coming 12 months’, starts a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of December 27th 1972.

There have been many fab closures in the UK over the years, NEC, Siemens, Atmel, DEC, to name but a few, but which was the very first fab closure?

‘With Britain’s proposed entry into the EC just over a month away, Plessey has strengthened its European regional organisation in readiness for an expansion of trade’, reported Electronics Weekly in its November 29 1972 edition.

Following the 1968 takeover of English Electric by Lord Arnold Weinstock’s GEC, the Marconi-Elliott Microelectronics Witham operation has been split into four mini-empires with each empire headed up by a product manager responsible for his own diffusion, R&D, production, sales, promotion, and profitability.

Electronics Weekly’s issue of November 29th 1972 reports the presentation of the MacRobert Award, described as the ‘Nobel Prize of Engineering’ to Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI for inventing the X-ray scanner.

Electronics Weekly’s issue of Feb 23 1972 has a story starting: ‘Britain seems to be at last waking up to the fact that its cable television operators, who now turn over a lively £15 million a year by piping TV programmes to nearly two million homes, hold the keys to what could be a vast national information grid, capable of supplying a whole host of specialised services from facsimile newspapers to community television’.

Under the headline: 'Cathode Ray Tube's Rivals Demonstrated', a front page story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of October 25th 1972 starts off: ‘The first commercial versions of Control Data Corp’s plasma display, the flat display panel which promises to rival the cathode ray tube in many alpha-numeric and graphic display applications, were demonstrated in London last week.’

‘With the announcement of Texas Instruments’ first family of medium-scale integrated circuits, the giant has stirred at last’, starts a story in the October 29th 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

“After reaching their lowest low ever during the recession, the semiconductor manufacturers producing TTL devices have now had the pendulum swinging the other way,” wrote Electronics Weekly in its Sept 27th 1972 edition.

A story datelined New York in the September 27th issue of Electronics Weekly, reads: “Texas Instruments has resigned from the US Electronics Industries Association in a dispute over the Association’s inability to take a strong free trade stand.”

'Boeing Didn’t Invent The Aeroplane'

Is the title of an ad running in Electronics Weekly’s edition of September 24 1969.

“Fairchild Semiconductors are taking significant steps to build up their marketing operations in Britain following their June announcement of their entry into the UK”, is how the lead story opens on Electronics Weekly’s front page of September 3rd 1969.

Two years since the first integrated circuits became available from Mullard’s Southampton facility, the groundwork for a ‘Ford type’ mass production unit has been built round that pilot installation. So starts a story in Electronics Weekly’s issue of September 24th 1969.

“As expected, the Post Office has been quick to react to acoustic coupling for use in data transmission and has drawn up ‘detailed standards to guide designers of this kind of apparatus’,” reads a story in Electronics Weekly’s issue of September 3rd 1969.

Colour TVs stole most of the limelight at last week’s radio and TV shows with manufacturers making an all out attempt to get sales moving against the tide of credit restrictions and somewhat alarming customer disinterest. That’s how a story starts in Electronics Weekly’s edition of September 3rd 1969.

In the first five months of this year, the Glenrothes plant of Marconi-Elliott Microelectronics has produced the same number of DTL ICs as they produced in the whole of 1968, and it is expected that this operation will become profitable this year.

“We shall never be able to practise medicine in the future, without exploiting some kinds of magnetic storage device,” said Dr Paul Hall, of the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, in a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of May 28 1969.

‘To ease their customers through the pangs of decimalisation, ICL are offering them file conversion programmes’, begins a story in Electronics Weekly’s issue of May 28th 1969.

Satellites casting all communications barriers aside, and making television and radio available to the world’s most inaccessible settlements are about to become a reality, according to Mr Fred Adler of the Hughes Aircraft Company, who presented the main lecture at the 6th International Television Exhibition and Symposium in Montreux last week.

Hungary is to start production of colour television sets. Plans are underway at the United Incandescent Lamp Factory in Budapest to set manufacture in motion, following the experimental start of colour transmission last March using the Secam system.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's issue of May 28 1969.

'By the 1990s the cost of computing would probably be halved, Lord Hirshfield said during a House of Lords debate.'

This is how a story opened in Electronics Weekly's issue of June 18^th 1969 showing that Their Lordships talked as much balls in the 1960s as they do today.

 'Transitron have reduced by between 25 and 30 per cent the prices of their ceramic packaged Series IV TTL integrated circuits. The ICs are compatible with 74 series devices'.

So starts a story in the June 25 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly. The story continues:

Note the apostrophe: in 'Mobile This was the headline to a story in the June 25^th 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly. It must have been one of the earliest uses of the term 'mobile phone' the apostrophe denoting the abbreviation from 'radiotelephone'. The story starts:

Solid-state techniques are making inroads into one of the few remaining areas where, until now, valves have remained unchallenged - high voltage technology.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's issue of June 25^th 1969. It continues:

This was a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of June 25^th 1969.

Who are Pye? You might ask. Where are they now?

* For the answers - see below*.

The EW story starts:

Microcircuit production at SGS' Falkirk factory will be approaching the level of half-a-million units a month by the end of this year, and plans are now being finalised to bring this capability up to around one million units a month by the end of the year.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of September 24 1969.

All US companies interviewed at the 6^th International Components Show in Milan this month claim that the IC market in Italy should reach boom proportions by 1971.

'Plastic v Ceramic'

'Boys, you can stop fighting'.

'Transitron have removed the price decision on  Series 74TTL.'

'Recent observers to the seething melting pot that is the European computer scene, are a delegation of 14 Japanese computer technologists'.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of July 2^nd 1969.

Hard on the heels of revelations that SSDs don't save much power compared to HDDs, a Fujitsu executive has come out with the view that SSDs are not yet useful for replacing HDDs in laptops or servers.

'The £25m bid by Leasco Data Processing for Pergamon Press makes considerable sense for a number of reasons', starts off an Electronics Weekly report in its issue of June 25^th 1969.

"Minicomputers - the latest section of the electronics industry to succumb to the 'bandwagon effect' - are to be put under the microscope by the Ministry of Technology, writes Steve Liebmann."  

So starts the front page lead story in Electronic Weekly's issue of January 28^th 1970.

Pointing out that the Post Office would be the biggest capital spender in the Government at the rate of £2 million a day, Kenneth Baker (Cons) urged in the Commons last week that, in order to reduce this burden, it would be sensible, to allow the public and industry to buy their telephones direct from the suppliers rather than through the Post Office.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of January 28^th 1970.

Sylvania have signed up the international marketing organisation Impectron to represent their semiconductor activities in this country. As indicated in the January 7 issue, Sylvania are among an increasing number of American semiconductor firms looking to Europe for their growth.

So starts a front page story in Electronics Weekly's edition of Jan 28^th 1970.

'SCIENTISTS AT Mullard's Redhill research laboratories have been able to transmit television pictures by modulating a light beam', starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of January 28th 1970. 

'IN THE LAST two or three years, pulse code modulation has moved from a novel but promising transmission technique to performing a major role in the telecommunications network', writes John Slow, Head of Transmission Systems Division, Plessey BTR Limited, in the January 28th 1970 edition of Electronics Weekly.

THE self-defeating effect of US tariffs and restrictions on trade with Eastern Europe has aroused some resentment among business houses who have witnessed trade diminish to almost zero level and at the same time not having the desired effect of subjugating the Soviet Union.

So starts a story in the July 9 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

"IF THE DISCRETE component manufacturer is dead then we, as a dead company, have only doubled our turn-over' in the last five years."

So starts a story in the July 9 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

WITH THE UNHAPPY experience of Emley Moor's tubular steel mast behind them - it collapsed on March 19 - the Independent Television Authority have picked a self-supporting reinforced concrete structure as the permanent replacement.

So starts a story in the July 9 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

NATIONAL Semiconductor are to open new factories in Scotland and West Germany in the near future, and are to expand rapidly their Santa Clara and Singapore operations to ensure that they become the fourth largest in the world's semiconductor rankings.

So starts the lead story in the July 16 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

Parallel processing came in for considerable attention at last week's IEE meeting on Computer Science and Technology, presented at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

So starts a story in the July 9 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

ACCORDING to the National Economic Development Office's "Annual statistical survey of the electronics industry," published on Monday, the gross output of the UK industry in 1968 exceeded £1,000 million for the first time when the total was 19 per cent up on that for 1967 at £1,047 million.

So starts a story in the July 16 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

This was the headline of a story in Electronics Weekly dated July 16^th 1969. The story starts:

'National Semiconductor is to open new factories in Scotland and West Germany in the near future, and are to expand rapidly their Santa Clara and Singapore operations to ensure that they become the fourth largest in the world semiconductor market ratings.'

'Ampex have been funded by the US government to the tune of over £1.5 million, following their successful prototypes, to deliver a bulk storage system for computers that will give rapid access to around 300,000 million characters of data.'

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of July 23^rd 1969.

'American Microsystems Inc (AMI) who are rated in the USA along with General Instrument as the leading producers of MOS devices, are to enter the European MOS market.'

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's issue of  July 30^th 1969.

'Apollo 11 did not end with the successful splashdown of the three astronauts last Thursday', ran an Electronics Weekly story in its issue of July 30^th 1969, 'equipment for scientific experiments was left on the moon and the samples of rock and dust which were brought back will give scientists unique material for analysis.'

'General Instrument are now on line with a proven new MOS facility at Glenrothes with a new family of MOS devices shortly to roll off the stocks', starts a story in Electronics Weekly's issue of August 20^th 1969.

Under the headline: 'A few hints to businessmen who have trouble with their face powder' TI runs the following ad in the August 6^th 1969 edition of Electronics Weekly.

'A process in information technology, developed by the semiconductor division of Sprague Electric, is being employed for the first time in the time capsule which has been left on the moon', starts a story in Electronics Weekly's issue of August 6^th 1969 (17 days after Apollo 11's moon-landing).

Transitron have added 19 devices to their series IV 54/74 compatible range of TTL silicon integrated circuits', starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of August 6^th 1969.

'A new company, GEC Semiconductors, has been formed to produce the largest wholly UK-owned semiconductor company. This brings together under a single management the semiconductor activities of AEI Semiconductors at Lincoln and those of Marconi-Elliott Microelectronics at Glenrothes and Witham'.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's issue of August 13^th 1969.

Exports of  British transistors and phototransistors in February reached a new high level of over £76,000, a 27 per cent increase of on January's record total of £59,733' starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 26^th 1961.

The future of solid-state devices is rosy, despite some serious problems yet to be overcome, according to several Bell Telephone laboratory speakers at a solid-state devices colloquium at the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena, California.'

So starts a story in the 'American Letter' column of Electronics Weekly's issue of March 22^nd 1961.

'For a number of years microminiaturisation has been promised as just around the corner and now, well into 1961, it is still just around the corner' starts the comment column in Electronics Weekly's edition of March 15^th 1961, continuing 'each year the exhibitions show a crop of experimental devices, but hardly any down-to-earth hardware has been produced.'

'Looking around Racal's modern factory at Bracknell, it seems hardly possible that a mere ten years ago this virile organisation, now with a turnover of some £2 million a year, did not exist,' continues the report.

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 26^th 1961 describing a visit to Racal Engineering -  the company which later spawned Racal Telecom which became Vodafone.

TOMORROW: THE TEN BEST ELECTRICAL INVENTIONS

'Seat reservation offices of British Overseas Airways Corporation throughout the UK and Europe will soon be able to obtain immediate information on the availability of airline seats by direct interrogation of an electronic computer in London.'

So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 12^th 1961.

'Epitaxial transistors very soon . . . .planar devices by early 1962. These are the basic plans of the Ferranti Electronics Department, but they are by no means the only plans,' is how a story starts in the April 19^th 1961 issue of Electronics Weekly.

'The magnificent Soviet achievement in hurtling the first man into space has been heralded throughout the world as the beginning of perhaps the most exciting era in the history of mankind. But it is not the achievement itself which is important, but what it symbolises.'

So starts the Comment piece in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 19^th 1961 -  one week to the day after Major Yuri Gagarin of the USSR became the first man to enter into space on April 12^th.

'The BBC, whose plans for an experimental colour television service were turned down by the Post-Master General last January, are re-opening the matter with him'.

Starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 26^th 1961.

The Japanese electronics industry continued its vigorous advance during the first nine months of  last year', is the start of a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of March 29^th 1961.

'Compared with the corresponding period of 1959, production from January to September 1960 of electronic products was up 31 per cent," adds the story.

The story continues: 'the highest gain was made in electronic computers (a 172 per cent increase). Industrial measuring and control equipment for automation was up by 73 per cent. Production of transmitting and special purpose valves rose by 50 per cent while output of receiving valves increased by 45 per cent. Transistor production was up 34 per cent.'

'The total value of all electronic products manufactured in the first nine months of 1960 was almost exactly £300 million compared with £234 million in the same period of 1959', continues the story, 'the result for the full year, therefore, is likely to reach £400 million, and will probably be higher.'

The story concludes: 'At this level, Japan's overall electronics production is not so far behind the estimated annual output of Britain's electronics industry.'

'The exhibits at Olympia demonstrating the highest levels of electronics technology will undoubtedly be the integrated circuits', started a preview of  the RECMF (Radio and Electronic Components Manufacturers) exhibition, covered in Electronics Weekly's edition of May 14^th 1969.

'Users Still Cautious About Tunnel Diodes' is the headline of a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 19th 1961. The story, wirtten by one of my predecessors as Components Correspondent, starts: 'While at the Footscray works of Standards Telephone and Cables I saw some of the application work which is now going on with the tunnel diode.' 

'After having had an interesting visit to the American IRE show in New York with our sales manager Mr R.E.Gillett, I thought I would write and inform your readers of a new electronic device displayed there which offers some possibilities for British industry,' starts a reader's letter in the April 19^th 1961 edition of Electronics Weekly.

'Ferranti is to launch a microprocessor chip early next year. The F100L , as it is to be called, has now reached the final stage of development and is expected to go into production at the Electronics Division Gem Mill plant in the near future'.

So starts a story in the Oct 22^nd 1975 edition of Electronics Weekly just four years after Intel's Ted Hoff made the first microprocessor, the 4004. 

'During this 25^th anniversary year of the Racal  Electronics Group, Ernest Harrison, the chairman and managing director, has been announcing plenty of surprises for the group's 6,000 employees as part of the celebrations. The have included inscribed tankards and revere bowls for all employees, a special savings scheme, free overseas holidays for 30 members of the staff and their families, and cash prizes in a slogan contest'.

So starts a story in the Oct 22^nd edition of Electronics Weekly about the company which was to morph into Vodafone.

.

'In an attempt to repeat, throughout Europe, the level of market penetration achieved in the UK, Sinclair Radionics have concluded a licence agreement with a Spanish company concerning the Cambridge range of calculators.'

So starts a story in the October 22 1975 edition of Electronics Weekly.

'Closely following upon Electronics Weekly's report that Mullard would soon announce its plans for Signetics in the UK Philips Organisation, the company now says that, from November 1^st Signetics will become a Mullard sales operation, operating under the Signetics name'.

So starts a story in the Oct 29 1975 edition of Electronics Weekly.

'Two new techniques for handling stored information have been announced by IBM. One is a magnetic core memory for computers, which contains built-in 'short-cuts' to stored data, and the other is an experimental punched-card memory unit that electronically reads out punched data at high speed from special IBM cards,' starts a story from Electronics Weekly in April 1961.

'Hughes HS10 series are low cost alloyed junction silicon diodes characterised by good forward conductance and low reverse current at high temperatures', starts an advertisement in the April 5^th 1961 issue of Electronics Weekly.

There was once a visionary called Geoffrey Dummer. Four years before the invention of the IC he described one and how it might be made and, one year before the IC's invention, a non-working model of an IC based on Dummer's concept was fabricated by Plessey and demonstrated at the 1957 International Symposium on Components in Malvern, Worcestershire.

'Compatibility during the change-over period from 405 lines to 625 lines television must be maintained, said Mr Norman Collins, ATV Chairman, when he talked to Electronics Weekly about ATV's recommendations to the Pilkington Committee'.

So starts a story in the April 12^th 1961 issue of Electronics Weekly.

'Six London Borough Councils may jointly purchase and operate a large computer for payroll and other accountancy jobs,' starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of March 8^th 1961.

Under the headline: 'All quiet for Orly' a story on the front page of  Electronics Weekly's edition of March 8^th  1961, reads:

'From time to time there is a resurgence of interest in  machine translation and for a short while both national and international daily papers carry articles which purport either to explain the progress in the field or to debunk the art.'

So starts an article in Electronics Weekly's edition of March 8^th 1961 written by Dr Andrew Booth, head of the Department of Numerical Automation, Birkbeck College, University of London.

'Following the investigation of the disastrous mid-air collision of two aircraft over New York late last year, the Federal Aviation Agency is hoping to speed up installation of altitude-indicating radar.'

So starts the 'American Letter' feature in the edition of Electronics Weekly for March 8^th 1961.