GEC Computers Ltd. in Borehamwood (later Dunstable) was formerly Elliott Automation until their products were transferred to ICL in 1968. The main product became the GEC 4000 series of 16 and 32 bit mini-computers in the 1970s with the OS4000 multi-user operating system.
Some general information about GEC-4000 system computers mentioning Daresbury as a customer is on Wikipedia.
There is a GEC-4400 in Jim Austin's computer collection.
Some more pictures of GEC-4000 computers at Daresbury in the 1970-80s.
More in 1981. These are in the main computer hall. Daresbury and Edinburgh were two of the last sites running these systems, the ones at Daresbury with the OS6000 operating system.
The room was first put into use in May 1978. The Data Handling Group had a network of six GEC 4070 computers.
Photo shows operators Brian Blackwell and Jim Finlay at the main console of the NSF. The accelerator was controlled by a complex computer system developed in the Laboratory. This used an infra-red light link to communicate with devices inside the accelerator. All of the operations are performed from this console using interactive colour graphics screens.
Recently, thanks to Matt Russell, a set of colour photographic negatives has been discovered which show the early days of construction and operation of the NSF. More information will be provided as we explore these.
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