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Ferranti-Packard Ltd. was the
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
division of
Ferranti Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...
's global manufacturing empire, formed by the 1958 merger of Ferranti Electric and Packard Electric. For several years in the post-war era, the company underwent a dramatic expansion and had several brushes with success in the computer market, but eventually shed various divisions and returned to being an electrical grid supplier once again. The company was purchased in 1998 by the
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n company, VA TECH. On July 23, 2005 Siemens PTD purchased VA Tech's Transmission and Distribution Division (T&D) group for transformers and switchgear.


History


Early years

Packard Electric had first been set up in 1894 in order to supply
transformer A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer' ...
s during the
Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Fall ...
hydroelectric developments. Ferranti Canada had first been set up in 1912, acting primarily as a sales and distribution arm for their British designed electrical products.


World War II

Prior to
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, Canada's economy was primarily agricultural. While this allowed it to raise a fairly large army with relative ease, it also meant that it was unable to arm itself. C.D. Howe, Minister of Armaments, started an ambitious plan to heavily industrialize the country, turning it almost overnight into what is today a G8 nation. Canada had entered World War II completely unprepared, and in the post-war era decided they would not allow this to happen again. However, as the art of war turned increasingly technical, it was clear that Canada did not have the wherewithal to support a full program of research on its own. In 1947, the Defense Research Board (DRB) was formed, and sent out a letter outlining their ideas for sharing research between the armed forces, industry and academia.


Vincent Ziani de Ferranti

The letter made its way to the desk of
Vincent Ziani de Ferranti Sir "Gerard" Vincent Ziani de Ferranti, CBE MC (16 February 1893 – 20 May 1980) was the second son of Dr Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti. As chairman of ''Ferranti'' from 1930 to 1963, he was responsible for evolving the company into a diverse mult ...
, the then-current CEO of the family-held British company. At the time, Ferranti in the UK was involved in a similar commercial/academic development project with
Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
to build the
Manchester Mark 1 The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest stored-program computers, developed at the Victoria University of Manchester, England from the Manchester Baby (operational in June 1948). Work began in August 1948, and the first version was oper ...
computer, so it seemed that their Canadian division would naturally be able to do the same. In October 1948, he flew to Canada to meet with the DRB. He was disappointed to learn that the DRB did not have the financial resources to fund any sort of program, but Ferranti remained interested, even though it appeared the only way to work with the DRB would be for free.


Jim Belyea

Just such a project started soon after, when word of the Ferranti meeting reached Lt Jim Belyea, a researcher in the
Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack submar ...
's electrical labs (Electrical Engineer-in-Chief's Directorate). He had been proposing a completely automated system for ships to pass around tactical data from
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
and
sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...
, to help organize the defence of a convoy under attack by submarines. Belyea presented his ideas to Ferranti, who agreed to start development of the technologies needed. By 1950, they had successfully developed a PCM-based radio system for passing digital data between ships, and the DRB started to become very interested. Full-scale development of the system, known as
DATAR DATAR, short for ''Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving'', was a pioneering computerized battlefield information system. DATAR combined the data from all of the sensors in a naval task force into a single "overall view" that was then transmi ...
, started in February 1951 and underwent trials in late 1953. However, the cost of developing a production version was well beyond what the Royal Canadian Navy was able to afford. They attempted to sell the system to the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, but they were uninterested and the Canadians were forced to end the project. The US Navy later decided that they needed just such a system, having a rather unhappy experience with their
Naval Tactical Data System Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was a computerized information processing system developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s and first deployed in the early 1960s for use in combat ships. It took reports from multiple sensors on different sh ...
in 1958.


Experimental computer

During this period, some time in 1951, Ferranti Canada also considered commercializing the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
's experimental
UTEC UTEC (University of Toronto Electronic Computer Mark I) was a computer built at the University of Toronto (UofT) in the early 1950s. It was the first computer in Canada, one of the first working computers in the world, although only built in a pro ...
computer, which seemed considerably less complex than the Mark I being developed in England. This effort also ended when in 1952, the University purchased a surplus Mark I originally intended for the UK's
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s program which had suffered massive budget cuts with a change of government.


Electronic mail sorting

In 1956, the company received a contract from the Canadian Post Office to develop an electronic mail sorting system, which they delivered later that year. The system used a hard-wired transistorized computer that stored a table of
postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...
s on a
magnetic drum Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory of ...
. Operators were presented with envelopes and typed in the postal code, which their typewriter printed onto the envelope as a
bar code A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
in fluorescent ink. The sorting system would then read the bar code and automatically route it sort it. The system was a complete success. This system so impressed visitors from the
US Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U. ...
that they decided they needed one of their own. They also decided to develop their own system instead of simply buying the Ferranti one, delaying their entry into automated sorting until 1960. A Canada-wide expansion using Ferranti's existing system soon ended in the 1957 election, whose main issue was rampant Liberal spending, including Ferranti's "million dollar monster".


Cheque sorting

Oddly, the system was later adapted for cheque sorting by the
Federal Reserve Bank A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve ...
in New York, who took delivery of an almost identical machine in 1958, based on reading
MICR Magnetic ink character recognition code, known in short as MICR code, is a character recognition technology used mainly by the banking industry to streamline the processing and clearance of cheques and other documents. MICR encoding, called the ' ...
digits instead of bar codes. This MICR-based concept was originally developed by
SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
in 1952 for their similar ERMA project, but they did not manage to actually deliver their machine until 1959. There was some talk of developing the Ferranti system into a commercial line, but it became clear that as general purpose computers fell in price, a single mass-produced model would soon be able to outperform a custom-built design, even on cost.
Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
started shopping around for just such a system at about this time.


ReserVec

Another brush with success came in 1959 with the ReserVec on-line reservation system developed for
Trans-Canada Air Lines Trans-Canada Air Lines (also known as TCA in English, and Trans-Canada in French) was a Canadian airline that operated as the country's flag carrier, with corporate headquarters in Montreal, Quebec. Its first president was Gordon Roy McGreg ...
. This product suffered from stiff competition from IBM's
SABRE A sabre ( French: sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...
system in the US, but there was nothing similar in the UK, whose own airlines were in the market for such a system. Apparently due largely to not-invented-here problems, Ferranti in the UK decided to develop an entirely new system to fill this need, instead of using the Canadian version.


Ferranti Orion computer

But by this time, Ferranti's UK computer divisions were themselves in turmoil. Their attempt to commercialize the
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geograp ...
design was dragging on, and meanwhile sales of their older Mercury were drying up. In order to address this, as well as move into a new market segment, they decided to launch a newer system aimed at the low-end of the market. The result was the
Ferranti Orion The Orion was a mid-range mainframe computer introduced by Ferranti in 1959 and installed for the first time in 1961. Ferranti positioned Orion to be their primary offering during the early 1960s, complementing their high-end Atlas and smaller syst ...
, which used an entirely new circuitry system known as "Neuron". This proved to be somewhat of a disaster, and only 12 Orion I machines ever shipped (the first went to AB Turitz and Co., of Gothenburg, Sweden, in March 1963).


Orion II

Meanwhile, Ferranti-Packard decided they should set up production for the Atlas machine as well, but after successfully securing loans from the government they were astounded to learn that the UK division refused to allow them access to the design. Many of the company's engineers resigned in disgust, although some were later convinced to stay on. The UK division then asked several Canadian engineers to move to England in an attempt to re-engineer the Orion based on ReserVec's transistorized circuits. Known as Orion II, the project ran in parallel to the original Orion for some time. (Orion II was much more successful, both technically and commercially, than its predecessor. Nearly 40 machines were delivered by the end of 1964.)


Ferranti-Packard 6000

With the experience gained during Orion II the engineers returned to Toronto convinced that ReserVec's design sold into the Orion's marketplace would be a commercial success. Once again approaching the Federal Reserve Bank, they proposed to build a new machine to replace the earlier post-office-derived system. The Bank accepted the proposal, and work on what would become the Ferranti-Packard 6000 started in late 1961. This joint venture with
Pitney-Bowes Pitney Bowes Inc. is an American technology company most known for its postage meters and other mailing equipment and services, and with expansions into e-commerce, software, and other technologies. The company was founded by Arthur Pitney, who i ...
was one of five MICR trials at various FRB districts. The system was delivered in early 1963 and removed a year later. In order to differentiate themselves from the numerous models in this performance range, the FP-6000 would directly support multitasking, then known as ''multiprogramming'', as well as be highly modular. The prototype machine was completed in 1962, and was delivered to the FRB in early 1963. Further sales proved difficult however. One was purchased by the DRB's station in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, another by the
Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in the ...
, one by Saskatchewan Power, and a final machine by a research facility in Dalkeith, bringing the total to five sales.


International Computers and Tabulators

Meanwhile, unknown to Ferranti-Packard, Ferranti in the UK had decided to cut their losses and exit the commercial computer business. In early 1963, they approached
International Computers and Tabulators International Computers and Tabulators or ICT was a British computer manufacturer, formed in 1959 by a merger of the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and Powers-Samas. In 1963 it acquired the business computer divisions of Ferranti. It ...
with the proposal to sell off their commercial division. Perhaps unsurprisingly, ICT found the proposal unattractive. When they learned of the FP-6000 their attitude changed, and they eventually agreed to the purchase under the stipulation that rights to the FP-6000 would be transferred from Canada. The FP-6000 then became the basis for
ICT 1900 series ICT 1900 was a family of mainframe computers released by International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) and later International Computers Limited (ICL) during the 1960s and 1970s. The 1900 series was notable for being one of the few non-American c ...
machines, which eventually sold into the thousands. After the ICT takeover, Ferranti-Packard proposed that they manufacture several models of the 1900-series, as well as serve as a gateway into the North American market. ICT, however, was interested in Europe only. Most of the FP-6000 engineers soon left the company, forming ESE Limited and
Teklogix Teklogix International Inc., or Teklogix, was a tech company founded in 1967 by engineers working at Ferranti-Packard. The company focused on mini computer applications. It designed and built complete systems based upon DEC's PDP-8 computer, DEC's ...
. The programmers founded I. P. Sharp Associates in December 1964.


Flip-disc display

One of the Canadian company's developments was the
flip-disc display The flip-disc display (or flip-dot display) is an electromechanical dot matrix display technology used for large outdoor signs, normally those that will be exposed to direct sunlight. Flip-disc technology has been used for destination signs in ...
, which creates a large display out of a grid of small disks, painted black on one side and some bright color (typically yellow) on the other. A small magnet glued to the disk responded to a magnetic pulse from a coil which surrounded the disk. The direction of current through the coil determined the side to display. A display system was sold to the Montreal and Canadian stock exchanges in 1964. The UK headquarters gave the invention little note, but it became somewhat successful in spite of this, and HQ eventually used it as a way to try to sell off the Canadian division in the 1970s. In addition Air Canada commenced use at all its baggage claims, but also used for Flight information displays, starting with its new terminal at the Kennedy Terminal in New York. Today, these displays can commonly be found in outdoor use, notably on highway signage and in the automotive application of destination signs for public service vehicles. It was also used as the game board display on ''
Family Feud ''Family Feud'' is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson. It features two families who compete to name the most popular answers to survey questions in order to win cash and prizes. The show has had three separate runs, th ...
'' from 1976 to 1995. A later patented development was the first barcode scanner. Originally developed for Simpsons Sears catalog center in Toronto in 1968, the bar code was developed to minimize any increase in Customer picking ticket area. Sears Toronto was then printing 360,000/day. The system used two large pre-printed red bars which could carry normal text with the barcode printed between them. The scanner searched for the bars in green light where the red appears as black. The red bars allowed electronic re-orientation of the scanning system to set-off a white flash which temporarily burned the barcode image unto the photosurface of the scanner. This system was then combined with an electronic tilt tray controller, then produced by Speaker Motion Systems of Milwaukee. The system could read labels passing at 500 ft/minute, 360 degrees of horizontal rotation and +/- 25 degrees of vertical slope. Sears took the first system but it was later sold to most of the major catalogue centres including Sears-Roebuck US - 11 centers, J.C. Penneys - 3 centers, Montgomery Wards, Aldens etc. A single workstation version model, the Datatriever 1000, with integrated electronic US post-office certified attached weigh scales and a label printer, sold 400 units including controlling computers (DEC PDP-8) to Spiegels on one contract for 1.5 times FPs total annual income. A slightly later development used hand held scanners to read the same patented bar-codes. The volume of business was too big for FP to handle and the entire business was sold off to a new US company, Identicon, who eventually sold many more of these systems. All of the models were incorporated into the Simpson-Sears Montreal Fashion Center.


Purchase by VA Tech

With the electronics division empty, Ferranti-Packard was once again a major electrical vendor only. Over the years, many other specialty divisions were sold off or closed, and eventually all that was left was the original Packard transformer division. It was this that VA Tech purchased, and which later came to be part of Siemens.


Corporate Archives

The Archives of Ontario holds numerous Ferranti-Packard records that were transferred by Rolls-Royce in 1991, including textual records, photographs, technical drawings, audio reels, films and videocassettes. It also holds material donated in 2002 by Mr. Paul Coleman and in 2006 by Siemens Canada. The St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre also holds a collection of material about Ferranti-Packard.


References


External links


From DATAR to the FP-6000
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060116063849/http://ieee.ca/millennium/fp6000/fp6000_datar.html , date=2006-01-16
Time-sharing on the Ferranti-Packard FP6000 Computer SystemThe Ferranti Orion Computer System
Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies Computer companies of Canada Ferranti Electrical engineering companies