Research

Welcome to SciconConnect - an online presence of the company that started out as C-E-I-R in 1960, then was known as Scientific Control Systems during the 1970's and then Scicon until 1988. The name "Scicon" is used in this site, and in most cases refers to all of these legal entities. This website aims to provide both an historical and informative insight into Scicon. The current site is very young and will undergo both content and structural changes as it grows, hopefully driven by contributions and ideas from ex-Scicon employees. The site will also provide information about the Scicon reunion that is held each November in London. This will facilitate email correspondence about the reunion as well as general online information about the event.

Early Counting Tools A computer is a machine that works with data and information in the form of numbers. People from the beginning of time, and throughout the years, have invented and continue to invent things that help them count.

• abacus • access time • Ackermann function • address • Aiken, Howard (1900–1973) • algorithm • algorithmic complexity • analog computer • analog-to-digital converter • android • arithmetic logic unit (ALU) • artificial intelligence • artificial life • ASCII

The Abacus has a rich history dating back over 800 years in China and with roots extending back over 2000 years in Rome, India and Mesopotamia.

Overview The Japanese soroban (or abacus) is the descendent of ancient counting devices and has been evolved over centuries to provide the most advanced computations possible on a manual device. The soroban also provides advantages in mathematical education both from theoretical principals and through anecdotal experience especially in Japan. This document will discuss the history of the soroban as well as describe the beneficial role it can play in educational settings.

These pages contain a fairly brief technical history of Acorn Computers. I have decided to focus on the technology because that is where my interests lie. Only very major non-technical events in Acorn's history have been included.

The goal of this project is to collect, preserve, and present source code, design documents, and other materials concerning the original LISP I/1.5 system, and as many of its follow-ons as possible. LISP was one of the earliest high-level programming languages and introduced many ideas such as garbage collection, recursive functions, symbolic expressions, and dynamic type-checking; it is still in use. This is a project of the Computer History Museum's Software Preservation Group.

The DEUCE was an early British Computer manufactured by the ENGLISH ELECTRIC COMPANY over 50 years ago. This website has been established for the benefit of those interested in studying computer history of the early 1950s. The full text of the original DEUCE Logical Design Manual and Programming Manuals are presented here together with the memories of those who built, programmed, operated and fixed the DEUCE when it broke down. There are photos of DEUCE program sheets, input media, component parts, of DEUCE itself and the people who worked on, and in, this historic computer.

This website is a nostalgic remembrance (ie a failing memory) of times spent as a member of EMI Computing Services Division in the late 1960s, working on the Emidec 1100 computer (later badged as the ICT 1101). [Google sadly renders little beyond name-dropping about Godfrey Hounsfield, who helped develop the Emidec and then went on to make a name for himself inventing scanners.]

These three families of machines were produced by a range of different companies that were generally known as BCL - Business Computers Ltd.