Forgotten Voice

As a graduate trainee, my first project was to assess the performance of some code that had been written by Hursley Special Engineering for the Italian Social Security (INPS). We were part of the Systems Communication Division (SCD) and the platform was a distributed controller for individual social security offices that processed transactions on their way to a head office mainframe. Because the Italian Lira was worth so little (as I recall there were about 1500 to the pound), the integer processing capability of the controller was inadequate to handle the large numbers involved, and IBM Special Engineering had been charged with implementing a double precision arithmetic in microcode. A very bright student from Imperial College had implemented the arithmetic using optimising algorithms and the new code in many cases performed better than the single precision arithmetic that it replaced.

It was only possible to make this product change without changing the hardware because IBM had widely adopted the “microcode” architecture invented by Maurice Wilkes of Manchester University. This was a protected layer of code inserted between computer hardware and the machine language interface available to application programmers. Microcode allowed IBM to offer a range of different computers with the same programming interface from the smallest and slowest to the largest and fastest. This feature revolutionised the economics of software development and led to the emergence of a packaged software industry.

My second project was to attach magnetic card typewriters from the Office Products Division (OPD) to the same controller, which was largely about converting the word processing language of the typewriter (with tabs, margins, backspaces etc) into much simpler IBM 3270 codes. Other projects going on at the same time in Special Engineering included a touch screen display terminal for abattoirs that could be hosed down after each shift, language customisations for right to left languages and one of the first cash dispensers for Lloyds bank.

My first business trip abroad was to La Hulpe in the South of France. A project had been proposed to create a computer system to record voice messages. Howard Rankin sent Pete Woods and me to IBM’s telecommunications laboratory to make contact with their engineers. As I recall, nothing came of the project at the time although much later in my career I was to work with the IBM DirectTalk team on IBM’s products in that space. I recall some excellent evening meals on that trip including a spit-roast leg of lamb and an oven baked pizza. Our host was a French salesman so I should have expected nothing less.