__NOTOC__ Digico was a British computer company founded in 1965 by Keith Trickett and Avo Hiiemae, two ex-

ICL ICL may refer to: Companies and organizations * Idaho Conservation League, environmental organisation in the United States * Imperial College London, a UK university * Indian Confederation of Labour * Indian Cricket League * Inorganic Chemistry ...

electronics engineers. Former MP

Eric Lubbock Eric Reginald Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury (29 September 1928 – 14 February 2016), was an English politician and human rights campaigner. He served as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Orpington from 1962 to 1970. He then served in the House ...

became chairman in 1969. The company was based in

Letchworth Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2021 census was 33,990. Letchworth ...

initially, moving to a new factory in

Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevenage w ...

in 1973 and employing about 90 staff. Digico's first product was a laboratory data-logging and spectrum analyser hardware system named DIGIAC. This product had been developed before Digico was formed, so was an immediate source of income. Digico soon developed a 16-bit

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a type of general-purpose computer mostly developed from the mid-1960s, built significantly smaller and sold at a much lower price than mainframe computers . By 21st century-standards however, a mini is ...

series, the Micro 16, for which it was best known for.

Digico Micro 16

Digico quickly started developing a general purpose single accumulator 16-bit minicomputer, the Micro 16, which became available in 1966. Digico was assisted by the

Ministry of Technology The Ministry of Technology was a department of the government of the United Kingdom, sometimes abbreviated as "MinTech". The Ministry of Technology was established by the incoming government of Harold Wilson in October 1964 as part of Wilson's am ...

and the

National Research Development Corporation The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) was a non-departmental government body established by the British Government to transfer technology from the public sector to the private sector. History The NRDC was established by Attlee's La ...

in this development. The first version produced was the Digico Micro 16S (1968), followed by the 16P (1970), then the 16V in 1972. The Digico Micro 16V had a standard memory of 4k words with 950 nano second cycle time, expandable to 64k words, and able to support up to 64 external interfaces. It had an optional microprogrammed

floating-point unit A floating-point unit (FPU), numeric processing unit (NPU), colloquially math coprocessor, is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating-point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multip ...

. The Micro 16V was supported by a simple and flexibly sized

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that could optionally support

multiprogramming In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result ...

, disc files and teletypes. The Micro 16V used

semiconductor memory Semiconductor memory is a digital electronic semiconductor device used for digital data storage, such as computer memory. It typically refers to devices in which data is stored within metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) memory cells on a si ...

, rather than

magnetic-core memory In computing, magnetic-core memory is a form of random-access memory. It predominated for roughly 20 years between 1955 and 1975, and is often just called core memory, or, informally, core. Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magneti ...

as in the previous models. Digico primarily sold into the data logging market until 1969, when it expanded into areas like process control, stock control and front-end processors for the

ICL 1900 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 ...

mainframe. In 1974 Digico had a turnover of over £1 million (equivalent to £ million in ) and in 1977 well over £1 million. In 1978 the Digico Micro 16E stackable minicomputer, which was well suited to an office environment, won a

Design Council The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom Charitable trust, charity incorporated by royal charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instr ...

Award for Engineering Products.

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Digico Micro 16V
Time-Line Computer Archive (with extensive photos) 1965 establishments in England Companies based in Herefordshire Computer companies established in 1965 Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies Minicomputers

Digico Micro 16

See also

References

External links