Ferranti-Packard

Ferranti-Packard was the Canadian division of Ferranti's global manufacturing empire, formed by the 1958 merger of Ferranti Electric and Packard Electric. Packard Electric had first been set up in 1894 in order to supply transformers during the Niagra Falls 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. For several years in the post-war era the company underwent dramatic expansion and repeatedly almost became a major computer supplier, but eventually shed various divisions and returned to becoming an electrical grid supplier once again. The company was purchased in 1998 by the Austrian company, VA TECH.

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 wherewithall to support a full program of research on it's 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 acadamia.

The letter made its way all the way to the desk of Vincent Ziani de Ferranti. At the time Ferranti in the UK was involved in a similar project with Manchester University to build the Manchester Mark I computer, so it seemed like a natural fit. In October 1948 he flew to Canada to meet with the DRB. He was dissappointed to learn that the DRB did not have the financial resources to fund any sort of program, but remained interested even though it appeared the only way to work with the DRB would be for free.

Just such a project started soon after, when word of the Ferranti meeting reached Jim Belyea, a researcher in the Canadian Navy's electrical labs. He had been proposing a completely automated system for ships to pass around tactical data from radar and sonar, 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, started in February 1951 and underwent trials in late 1953. However the Canadian Navy was unsuccessful in attempting to sell the system to the US Navy, and unable to continue development with their own funds alone they eventually withdrew funding.

During this period, some time in 1951, Ferranti Canada also considered commerciallizing the University of Toronto's experimental UTEC computer, which seemed considerably less complex than the Mark I being developed in England. Ironically, in 1952 the University purchased a Ferranti Mercury, a development of the Mark I, ending their own research.

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 codes on a magnetic drum, reading the codes off letters using a bar code. Operators were presented with letters and simply typed in the code, the machine would then read it and sort it. The system was a complete success.

In fact it was so impressive to visitors from the US Post Office that they decided they needed one of their own. Oddly they also decided to develop their own system instead of simply buying the Ferranti one, and it did not go into operation until 1960. Even the Canadian operations were soon ended in the 1957 election, who's main issue was rampant Liberal spending, including Ferranti's "million dollar monster".

In 1958 Ferranti Canada purchased Packard Electric and changed their name to Ferranti-Packard. Ferranti had long been a major electrical supplier, and Packard fit nicely into their existing product lines.

Oddly the system was later adapted for cheque sorting by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, who took delivery of an almost identical machine in 1958, based on reading MICR digits instead of bar codes. This system was originally developed by SRI in 1952, but they did not manage to actually deliver their ERMA machine until 1959. There was some talk of developing the 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, especially on cost. Honeywell started shopping around just such a system at about this time.

Another brush with success came in 1959 with the RESERVEC I on-line reservation system developed for Trans-Canada Air Lines. This product suffered from stiff competition from IBM's SABRE system in the US, but there was no similar system in the UK, who's own airlines were already looking for a similar system. Due largely to not invented here reasons, Ferranti decided to develop an entirely new system in the UK to fill this need.

But by this time Ferranti's UK computer divisions were themselves in turmoil. Their attempt to commercialize the Atlas 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, which used an entirely new circuity system known as "Neuron". This proved to be a disaster, and the Orion never shipped.

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 it. Many of the company's engineers resigned, 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 for some time before both were eventually cancelled later in 1961.

With the experience gained during Orion II the engineers returned to Toronto convinced that the combination of RESERVEC's design and 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. They accepted, and work on what would become the Ferranti-Packard 6000 started in late 1961.

In order to differentiate themselves from the numerous models in this performance range, their machine would directly support multitasking, then known as multiprogramming, as well as be highly modular. The prototype machine was completed in 1962, and the first delivery to the FRB took place in early 1963. Further sales proved difficult however. One was purchased by the DRB's station in Dartmouth, NS, and another by the Toronto Stock Exchange, and a final machine by Saskatchewan Power, bringing the total to five machines (including the prototype).

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 with the proposal to sell off their commercial division, but ICT found the proposal unattractive. When they learned of the FP-6000 their attitude changed, and they eventually agreed under the stipulation that rights to the FP-6000 would be transfered from Canada. The FP-6000 then became the basis for ICT 1900-series of machines, which eventually sold into the thousands.

After the ICT takeover, Ferranti-Packard proposed that they manufacture several 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 Ferranti-Packard soon left the company, forming I. P. Sharp Associates, among others.

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.