British Commercial Computer Digest

359 Pages·1970·10.522 MB·English

by  Computer Consultants (Auth.)

BRITISH COMMERCIAL
COMPUTER DIGEST
ELEVENTH EDITION
Published for and on behalf of
Computer Consultants Limited
PERGAMON PRESS
OXFORD · NEW YORK · TORONTO
SYDNEY · BRAUNSCHWEIG
Pergamon Press Ltd., Headington Hill Hall, Oxford
Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523
Pergamon of Canada Ltd., 207 Queen's Quay West, Toronto 1
Pergamon Press (Aust.) Pty. Ltd., 19a Boundary Street, Rushcutters Bay,
N.S.W. 2011, Australia
Vieweg & Sohn GmbH, Burgolatz 1, Braunschweig
Copyright © 1970
Computer Consultants Ltd.
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 79-118026
The contents of this book must not be reproduced by
any process without the prior knowledge and consent
of the copyright holders and publishers
Printed in Great Britain by
EYNSHAM TECHNICAL PRESS (OXFORD) LTD.
08 016279 7
PREFACE
There is now a tremendous volume of information, with several
degrees of reliability, concerning computers and associated equipment,
and the skill of the professional computer consultant is needed more
than ever to decide which information is pertinent and which is not.
He also has to take into consideration the fact that information
which is pertinent in February, 1970, will probably be completely
useless before the end of the year, and not only useless since the
material concerns computers, but actually misleading.
The British Commercial Computer Digest, as its name suggests,
relates only to computers in Great Britain, and while it may seem
unnecessary to say this, it is, in fact, not the case. At least
one reviewer of the previous edition commented that the book only
referred to computers in Great Britain and entirely neglected computers
manufactured and used elsewhere. He was not aware, of course, that
Computer Consultants Limited publish other books covering other
geographical and operational areas.
The time has arrived when, as well as being discriminating
in the content of a publication such as the Digest, one also has to
apply a certain amount of common sense to the mathematical content of
the book. It is almost impossible to say when a computer is installed,
or when it has been discarded, and which computers are on order,
installed or no longer used, although they may not physically have
been removed from the site, and to try and pontificate and be over-
precise on this can be very misleading.
It will be noticed, therefore, by the discerning reader that the
list of computers given in Section 7 does not tally with the figures
quoted in tables elsewhere in the book. This is largely because not
all the names of the installations are known. Some computer
manufacturers very jealously guard this information, and some computer
users are shy about disclosing what equipment they have, so as not to be
unduly troubled by high-pressure salesmen operating in the rapidly
expanding field of computer users' support sales - that is, the direct
sales of magnetic tape, paper tape, ribbons, stationery etc., and
computer hardware not supplied direct from the original computer
manufacturer.
What Computer Consultants Limited have tried to do is produce a
sensible book, which gives sensible guidance on a particular situation,
vie./ed through professional eyes, under increasingly complex conditions.
February, 1970 H.H. Williams
Managing Director
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