Elliott 803 - History

History

The 800 series started with the 801, a one-off test machine built in 1957. The 802 was a production model but only seven were sold between 1958 and 1961. The short-lived 803A was built in 1959 and first delivered in 1960; the 803B was built in 1960 and first delivered in 1961. Elliott subsequently developed the much faster Elliott 503 computer to be software compatible.

Over 200 Elliott 803 computers were delivered to customers, at a price of about £29,000 in 1960 (Comparative cost in 2010 is £520,877 assuming an average inflation rate of 5.9% per year), the majority of sales being the 803B version (with more parallel paths internally, larger memory and hardware floating-point operations). In 2010, two complete Elliott 803 computers survive. One is owned by the Science Museum (London) but it is not on display to the public. The second one is owned by The National Museum of Computing (TNMoC) at Bletchley Park and is fully functional. Both machines are the subject of a Computer Conservation Society restoration and maintenance project which currently concentrates on the machine at TNMoC. Consequently this machine can regularly be seen in operation by visitors to that museum. An incomplete third Elliott 803 was found decaying in a scrap yard. Where possible, parts were removed for use as a source of spares for the machine at TNMoC.

The Elliott 803 was the computer used in ISI-609 process control system. The ISI-609 was the world's first process control system; the Elliott 803's role in this system was a data logger and it was used for this purpose at the world's first dual-purpose reactor (N-Reactor).