Service in Informatics and Analysis
Encyclopedia
Service in Informatics and Analysis (SIA), was one of the pioneering time-sharing
service bureau companies in the late 1960s, Later known as SIA Computer Services. Its head office was located at Lower Belgrave Street, close to Victoria Station in London, and the company had branch offices in Edinburgh, Manchester, the West-End, Paris and (much later) in Hong Kong. SIA offered terminal services via the Post Office telephone network at speeds of 10, 15, 30, 60 and 120 characters per second for Teletype-style terminals
and of 1200 baud
, 2400 baud and 4800 baud for Remote Job Entry
terminals. Later with the release of the IBM PC
, systems were developed to emulate the Remote Batch and interactive terminals.
Clients could also visit the head or branch offices to submit their jobs personally or have them accepted and supervised by the production department.
In 1968 the company installed a Control Data Corporation
CDC 6600
mainframe computer – the first CDC 6600 installed in the United Kingdom. It was generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times. It remained the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600
. By 1974 SIA added more processing power by installing a Control Data Cyber-72 at Victoria.
SIA had assembled a comprehensive library of proven software packages drawn from all over the world. They covered a range of disciplines:
electronics, management science, integrated survey and statistical, integrated cluster analysis, segmentation analysis, simulation, financial planning,
production planning and control systems, civil and structural engineering, finite element stress analysis, box girder
bridge design, highway engineering, business systems, business data processing, database management and many others.
, BASIC
, COBOL
, or Fortran
. They provided training in all user aspects of the Kronos-75 service and on operating various types of terminal.
Applications covered included invoicing, sales ledger, sales analysis, stock control, bill of material processing,
library information retrieval and a wide range of database implementations characterised by the need to store quantities of data and
to retrieve from it in a number of differing ways.
Production scheduling, warehouse siting, cash flow modelling and survey analysis are typical applications.
towing studies and stability problems are also covered.
Examples are drawn mostly from mechanical engineering-from nuclear power stations through aircraft and satellites to diesel engines.
Programs developed by this team have helped British and foreign consultants to win highway design contracts in the Middle East
since the design timescale is dramatically shortened by their use.
, Cyber-72 and later Cyber-175 included SCOPE, Kronos and later NOS
.
The source code was heavily modified for the business needs of the company by a team of systems programmers.
Many of the ground-breaking ideas developed at SIA were incorporated in Control Data's later systems.
SIA was a member of J.U.N.K (Joint Users of NOS and Kronos), a user group formed to share ideas and experiences using Control Data's software.
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
service bureau companies in the late 1960s, Later known as SIA Computer Services. Its head office was located at Lower Belgrave Street, close to Victoria Station in London, and the company had branch offices in Edinburgh, Manchester, the West-End, Paris and (much later) in Hong Kong. SIA offered terminal services via the Post Office telephone network at speeds of 10, 15, 30, 60 and 120 characters per second for Teletype-style terminals
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
and of 1200 baud
Baud
In telecommunications and electronics, baud is synonymous to symbols per second or pulses per second. It is the unit of symbol rate, also known as baud rate or modulation rate; the number of distinct symbol changes made to the transmission medium per second in a digitally modulated signal or a...
, 2400 baud and 4800 baud for Remote Job Entry
Remote Job Entry
Remote job entry is the term used to describe the process of sending jobs to Mainframe computers from remote workstations, and by extension the process of receiving output from mainframe jobs at a remote workstation....
terminals. Later with the release of the IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
, systems were developed to emulate the Remote Batch and interactive terminals.
Clients could also visit the head or branch offices to submit their jobs personally or have them accepted and supervised by the production department.
In 1968 the company installed a Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation was a supercomputer firm. For most of the 1960s, it built the fastest computers in the world by far, only losing that crown in the 1970s after Seymour Cray left the company to found Cray Research, Inc....
CDC 6600
CDC 6600
The CDC 6600 was a mainframe computer from Control Data Corporation, first delivered in 1964. It is generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times...
mainframe computer – the first CDC 6600 installed in the United Kingdom. It was generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times. It remained the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600
CDC 7600
The CDC 7600 was the Seymour Cray-designed successor to the CDC 6600, extending Control Data's dominance of the supercomputer field into the 1970s. The 7600 ran at 36.4 MHz and had a 65 Kword primary memory using core and variable-size secondary memory...
. By 1974 SIA added more processing power by installing a Control Data Cyber-72 at Victoria.
SIA had assembled a comprehensive library of proven software packages drawn from all over the world. They covered a range of disciplines:
electronics, management science, integrated survey and statistical, integrated cluster analysis, segmentation analysis, simulation, financial planning,
production planning and control systems, civil and structural engineering, finite element stress analysis, box girder
Box girder
A box or tubular girder is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, rather than an or H-beam. Originally constructed of riveted wrought iron, they are now found in rolled or welded steel, aluminium extrusions or pre-stressed concrete....
bridge design, highway engineering, business systems, business data processing, database management and many others.
Technical services
Supported clients writing and running their own programs, whether written in ALGOLALGOL
ALGOL is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in the mid 1950s which greatly influenced many other languages and became the de facto way algorithms were described in textbooks and academic works for almost the next 30 years...
, BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
, COBOL
COBOL
COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....
, or Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
. They provided training in all user aspects of the Kronos-75 service and on operating various types of terminal.
Commercial team
Supported the SIA sales accounting package and the database management system SYSTEM 2000. They also developed computer systems to meet various business applications to meet the individual needs of client organisations.Applications covered included invoicing, sales ledger, sales analysis, stock control, bill of material processing,
library information retrieval and a wide range of database implementations characterised by the need to store quantities of data and
to retrieve from it in a number of differing ways.
Management sciences team
Supported the statistics, linear programming, depot location and financial modelling packages offered.Production scheduling, warehouse siting, cash flow modelling and survey analysis are typical applications.
Engineering
Civil and structural support packages for bridge and building design and detailing, for soil mechanics and for other civil engineering applications.Offshore engineering
Concentrated on the business of designing structures for use in offshore oil production. Waveloading, static and dynamic analyses,towing studies and stability problems are also covered.
Advanced structural analysis
Supported clients tackling problems with the help of finite element techniques and other analyses.Examples are drawn mostly from mechanical engineering-from nuclear power stations through aircraft and satellites to diesel engines.
Chemical engineering
Assisted process designers to use a powerful flowsheet simulator program, arguably the best in the world.Highway engineering and mapping
Supported and developed a range of programs for use in highway design and in ground modelling and mapping,Programs developed by this team have helped British and foreign consultants to win highway design contracts in the Middle East
since the design timescale is dramatically shortened by their use.
Transportation
Developed and maintained the TFA suite of programs for transportation planning studies and provide consultancy services.Systems
The operating systems running on the Control Data 6600CDC 6600
The CDC 6600 was a mainframe computer from Control Data Corporation, first delivered in 1964. It is generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times...
, Cyber-72 and later Cyber-175 included SCOPE, Kronos and later NOS
NOS (software)
NOS was an operating system with time-sharing capabilities, written by Control Data Corporation in the 1970s....
.
The source code was heavily modified for the business needs of the company by a team of systems programmers.
Many of the ground-breaking ideas developed at SIA were incorporated in Control Data's later systems.
SIA was a member of J.U.N.K (Joint Users of NOS and Kronos), a user group formed to share ideas and experiences using Control Data's software.
History
- December 1967 — The company formed a subsidiary of the French-owned Metra Group of consultancy companies.
- September 1968 — Doors opened for business on a Control Data 6600, the largest and most powerful computer installed in the U.K.
- February 1969 — Installation of first RJE terminal linked by private Post Office telephone line - the beginning of SIA's long experience in remote computing.
- May 1970 — Manchester branch office opened
- December 1970 — Turnover for the year exceeded £1 Million.
- March 1972 — Introduction of INTERCOM service for users with Teletype-style terminalsTeleprinterA teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
. - March 1972 — West End branch office opened.
- May 1973 — Edinburgh branch office opened.
- December 1974 — Second major computer (Cyber-72) installed, Turnover tops £2 Million.
- April 1975 — Launch of Kronos-75 integrated remote computing service, offering users Timesharing, Batch processing (local and remote) or a mixture of the two in one computer installation.
- August 1978 — SIA ordered a CDC CyberCDC CyberThe CDC Cyber range of mainframe-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation during the 1970s and 1980s. In their day, they were the computer architecture of choice for scientific and mathematically intensive computing...
-175, to be installed early 1979. - May 1979 — Installs a high-speed link to CISI's IBM Network in France.
- 1988? — Installed a DEC VAX 8000VAX 8000The VAX 8000 was a family of minicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation using processors implementing the VAX instruction set architecture .- VAX 8600 :...
, model 8550