Christchurch Firm’s Computer

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 10

Christchurch Firm’s Computer

The Mayor (Mr G. Manning) pressed a button yesterday which started the logical “thought” processes of the first third-generation computer to be ordered by a New Zealand company. It is a series 360, model 90, 1.8. M. computer installed at a cost of about £150,000 by Gough, Gough, and Hamer, Ltd., which has the New Zealand agency for Caterpillar earth-moving machinery. A third-generation compu-

ter is one which uses miniaturised transistor chips and operates in nano-seconds—-one thousandth of a millionth of a second. The first-genera-tion- computers used radio valves and worked in milliseconds; the second-genera-tion models used conventional transistors and worked in microseconds.

The company will use its computer to handle such tasks as parts invoicing, parts inventory throughout the country, factory orders of parts, bookkeeping, costing, payrolls, and sales analysis. “The speed at which this sort of computer works opens new horizons to any company

with the volume of work to justify its installation,” said Mr L. S. Johns, the firm’s general manager, at the inauguration ceremony yesterday. He said that in a trial run on parts invoicing the computer had been able to produce 507 invoices in 30 minutes. The company held 45,000 parts items at 13 places in New Zealand, and the computer would continually review the position, decide what was needed, and print the requisitions. Mr W. J. Wills, general manager of the 1.8. M. World Trade Corporation in New Zealand, said the computer

was the first of its type to be installed by a commercial organisation in the country. It was a medium-range computer, and was completely compatible, which meant that as the firm’s requirements increased the computer could be built up to the point where it was one of the most powerful in existence.

Mr Wills said that if Gough, Gough, and Hamer wanted its computer to “talk” to the Caterpillar company in the United States it would be possible to link it.

He said the work schedule for the computer could be fed into it at the beginning of the day, and it would go ahead automatically, changing from one job to the next and warning the operator when one job was coming to an end.

The equipment comprises a central processor with its memory unit, a card-reader, a printer, and a magnetic disc file unit capable of storing up to 7,250,000 characters of information. The photograph shows the Mayor starting the computer. Watching are Mrs T. T. Gough, managing director, and Mr Wills.