Background
During the late 1950s English Electric embarked on two major computer projects. Firstly, as a result of a long-standing technical arrangement with the RCA company of America, English Electric built a version of the RCA501 computer which was known as the KDP10 (KDP for Kidsgrove Data Processing). This was a machine intended for commercial data processing applications, with fixed length instructions, but powerful capabilities for processing variable-length numeric and alpha-numeric data. The KDP10 was first delivered in 1961, after which it was upgraded and re-designated in 1964 as the KDF8; about ten machines were sold.
The second large computer to emerge from development work at Kidsgrove was the KDF9, primarily designed for scientific work.
One KDF8 was installed at the Kidsgrove (Staffordshire) site of The English Electric Company's computer bureau. Over the years, and a succession of mergers, this organisation became English Electric Leo Marconi, {EELM}, International Computing Services Limited {ICSL}, and finally under a joint arrangement between ICL and Barclay's Bank, Baric). The description following describes this machine and its use.
Read more about this topic: English Electric KDF8
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