I will be putting up my pictures of ICT 1301 computers, which are very interesting because:

° They were introduced in 1962

° They were one of the 'Germanium Giants'.

° They weighed about 5 1/2 tons.

° They took up 500-700 square feet of floor space.

° The used 13kVA of three phase electical power.

° They were second generation computers, so mainly discrete transistors rather than the thermionic valves of the first generation or the integrated circuits of the third generation and onward.

° They were made by ICT (International Computers and Tabulators), formerly BTM (British Tabulating Machine Co) who made the production models of the machines which broke the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park, shortening World War 2 by two years.

The photos were mostly taken during the approximately 35 years that I owned one of these remarkable machines before I donated it to TNMoC (The National Museum of Computing) at Bletchley Park. It was called 'Flossie' and bore the serial number 6 and was a prototype model but the first one delivered to a customer. In this case the University of London where it analysed O-Level and A-Level exam results to set the pass marks for each grade, then assigned students their grade, printed the pass slips and finally printed the certificates. It was also used for undergraduate matricultion and general administration of the University. The University waited a long time for it and told the government that if it was not delivered, there would be no undergraduates in 1962. The government 'pursuaded' ICT to deliver a prototype, which was upgraded many times over the months as the design was tweaked.

There are also picture of a second ICT1301 which I also owned for about 25 years which was called 'Arthur' and it was serial number 75.

Probably over 200 of these machines were made and for a while about a quarter of all the computers in Britain were ICT 1301s.

For the technically minded, they are rare, possibly unique in not having a program counter as such.