I. P. Sharp Associates
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I. P. Sharp Associates (IPSA) was a major
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
computer
time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...
, consulting and services firm of the 1970s and 1980s. IPSA is well known for its work on the
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
APL, an early
packet switching In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping Data (computing), data into ''network packet, packets'' that are transmitted over a digital Telecommunications network, network. Packets are made of a header (computing), header and ...
computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
named
IPSANET {{No footnotes, date=November 2020 IPSANET was a packet switching network written by I. P. Sharp Associates (IPSA). Operation began in May 1976. It initially used the IBM 3705 Communications Controller and Computer Automation LSI-2 computers as n ...
, and a powerful
mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
-based
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
system named 666 Box, stylized as 666 BOX. It was purchased in 1987 by
Reuters Group Reuters Group plc was a British multinational media and financial information company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was acquired by the Thomson Corporation in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters, and moving its head office to Toronto. ...
, which used them until 2005 as a data warehousing center for business data.


History

The company's founders worked as a team at the
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division of
Ferranti Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...
,
Ferranti-Packard Ferranti-Packard Ltd. was the Canadian division of Ferranti's global manufacturing empire, formed by the 1958 merger of Ferranti Electric and Packard Electric. For several years in the post-war era, the company underwent a dramatic expansion and ...
, which sold many products to the Canadian military and large businesses. The team worked on
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
and
compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...
design for the company's range of mainframe computers, the
Ferranti-Packard 6000 The FP-6000Ferranti Packard: Pioneers in Canadian Electrical Manufacturing Norman R Ball, John N Vardalas was a second-generation Mainframe computer, mainframe computer developed and built by Ferranti-Packard, the Canadian division of Ferranti, ...
. In 1964 Ferranti sold off its computing division to
International Computers and Tabulators International Computers and Tabulators or ICT was a British computer manufacturer, formed in 1959 by a merger of the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and Powers-Samas. In 1963 it acquired the business computer divisions of Ferranti. It ...
, which almost immediately closed the Toronto office. Ian Sharp, the chief programmer, founded I. P. Sharp Associates in December 1964 with the other members of the team (
Roger Moore Sir Roger George Moore (14 October 192723 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 19 ...
, Ted McDorman, Don Smith, David Oldacre, Brian Daly, and James McSherry) and David Butler shortly after. The firm began with contract programming on
IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
series mainframes, and to some degree took over Ferranti's former military work. It became particularly well used by the
Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack submar ...
, setting up an office in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
near DND headquarters. Ted McDorman and Jim McSherry were lead players in this. At one point IPSA could claim to have played a part in every computer system onboard Canadian Navy ships. In the early years, IPSA collaborated with its sister company
Scientific Time Sharing Corporation Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (STSC) was a pioneering timesharing and consulting service company which offered APL from its datacenter in Bethesda, MD to users in the United States and Europe. History Scientific Time Sharing Corporation ( ...
(STSC) of Bethesda, Maryland, USA, each retailing the same services in their respective countries. IPSA and STSC jointly developed their software. Eventually they devised separate product names. They separated as Sharp APL and APL*Plus. Initially, IPSA served STSC's customers from its Toronto datacenter. In 1972, STSC built its own datacenter. Afterward, both firms provided disaster recovery for each other: if one of the datacenters could not function, the other datacenter would accommodate both vendors' users.


Timesharing and IPSANET

IPSA sold time on its mainframes by the minute to customers across Canada, and rapidly developed into a major time sharing service in the 1970s. Long before the Internet, IPSA developed IPSANET to provide cheap telecommunications between the Toronto data center and IPSA clients across North America and Europe. Packet-switching also made their transatlantic links much more usable, since on previous equipment, frequent "line hits" would produce user-visible errors. As the network grew, and as Sharp APL was available on in-house computers, Sharp clients with their own mainframes could join the network, access their own or the Toronto mainframe from anywhere on IPSANET, and transfer data accordingly. The network eventually provided "Network Shared Variables" that allowed programs running on one mainframe to communicate in realtime with programs on another mainframe. This was used for
file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protocol ...
and email services. I. P. Sharp Associates offered timesharing users access to a variety of databases, plus sophisticated packages for statistical analysis, forecasting, reporting, and graphing data. Databases included historical stock market time series data, econometric data, and airline data. All of these were available from the ''39 MAGIC'' workspace, an easy-to-use time series, query, and reporting language, which among other things featured integrated high-quality business graphics from ''Superplot''. In 1982, IPSA produced its first printed catalog of all online databases and proceeded to document for its customers the content and use of single databases or sets of databases.


APL implementors

IPSA was heavily involved in the development of the APL language, eventually employing APL's inventor, Ken Iverson, in the early 1980s.
Roger Moore Sir Roger George Moore (14 October 192723 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 19 ...
, a company co-founder and vice-president, won the 1973 Grace Murray Hopper Award for the development of APL\360 (along with Larry Breed and Dick Lathwell). APL\360 was later greatly enhanced and extended to become Sharp APL, stylized as SHARP APL. IPSA employed a team of expert APL implementors and contributors at its head office in
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
: including Ian Sharp, in his role as enabler, Roger Moore, Dick Lathwell, Brian Daly in his role as marketing guy in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, Bob Bernecky, Leigh O. Clayton, Doug Forkes, Dave Markwick, and Peter Wooster. This group was headed by Eric B. Iverson, Ken Iverson's son. It was affectionately termed the "Zoo" and was well-respected inside and outside the firm. The term "Zoo" is attributed to a visitor from
The Establishment ''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant social group , group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific ...
who witnessed the long hair, beards, and unconventional dress of some in the team. Sharp APL and APL Plus, and variants, were all based on the XM6 IBM program. Further extensive APL development was done in Toronto and elsewhere. Later, in the 1980s, a branch office in
Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
, managed by Paul L. Jackson, made significant contributions to APL and later J. This office included Joey Tuttle, Roland Pesch, and Eugene McDonnell. 666 Box, written in APL, was one of the first commercial
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
services, known colloquially by its users as the "Sharp Mailbox". The original 666 Box was written by Larry Breed of STSC. It was later rewritten for higher security by a student hacker from
Lower Canada College Lower Canada College (LCC) is an English-language elementary and secondary level independent school located in Montreal, Quebec. The school offers education from Kindergarten through Grade 11. Students graduate from Grade 11 and then have the opt ...
, Leslie H. Goldsmith. Eventually it was extended to support transferring email among multiple domains (mainframes) over the IPSANET.


Rise of the personal computer

The profitable timesharing business started to deteriorate in mid-1982, as some key timesharing clients moved their operations from timesharing to in-house Sharp APL. Around that time, IBM started offering smaller mainframes, such as the
IBM 4300 The IBM 4300 series are mid-range systems compatible with System/370 that were sold from 1979 through 1992. They featured modest electrical and cooling requirements, and thus did not require a data center environment. They had a disruptive effect ...
series, which could be leased for less than the cost of using external services. Clients who did not depend on the network were the first to migrate to small mainframes. Initially, the presence of the
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
posed little threat to the timesharing industry as the computing power and storage capacity offered by these small machines was insufficient. A major part of Sharp's business was buttressed by database business, which had the beneficial effect of delaying the eventual downslide. STSC started to feel the effects of the deteriorating timesharing market one or two years earlier. Sharp was active in the field of developing APL interpreters for the IBM PC and other computers. Their IBM PC implementation was based on a software
IBM System/370 The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path f ...
emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...
, written by Roger Moore, which ran the mainframe Sharp APL executable on the PC. This product was only used by users exposed to mainframe Sharp APL, never enjoying the commercial success of STSC's APL*Plus/PC product. Sharp also offered their APL interpreter for PC-XT/370 hardware, essentially an IBM PC/XT with IBM 370 hardware emulation cards, but the PC/370 hardware never caught on. Later, Sharp released the SAX (Sharp APL for Unix) interpreter, based on STSC's APL*Plus UNX interpreter, which was a much more complete implementation of Iverson's APL extensions. As of 2016, SAX is available from
Soliton Incorporated Soliton Incorporated is a Canadian company formed in 1993 to continue supporting and developing the programming language Sharp APL, and related products and services, originally developed by Canadian company I. P. Sharp Associates. History Sol ...
. Reuters purchased I. P. Sharp Associates in 1987, partly for the historic financial data. Ian Sharp continued as president until 1989, when he retired. In 1993, IPSA's ''APL Software Division'' was purchased by its employees from Reuters and renamed
Soliton In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium ...
. Reuters closed the Toronto facility in 2005.


People

IPSA served an important role as an incubator for entrepreneurs and technologists, including: * Bob Bernecky – founded Snake Island Research * Clarke Bruce – founded Soliton Inc. * Gitte Christensen – founded Insight Systems ApS; CEO of Dyalog Ltd. * Lib Gibson – launched
Sympatico Bell Internet, originally and frequently still called Sympatico, is the residential Internet service provider (ISP) division of BCE Inc. As of May 3, 2012, Bell Internet had over 3 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec, making it the larges ...
ISP; CEO of Raft Mobile Systems; CEO of Bell Globemedia Interactive * Leslie Goldsmith – founded Affinity Systems * Rob Hodgkinson – co-founded Financial Market Software Consultants with Paul Phillips (below) * Roger Hui – developed the programming language J with Ken Iverson * Hugh Hyndman – founded Affinity Systems * Eric Iverson – founded Jsoftware Inc. * Rohan Jayasekera – founded the
Sympatico Bell Internet, originally and frequently still called Sympatico, is the residential Internet service provider (ISP) division of BCE Inc. As of May 3, 2012, Bell Internet had over 3 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec, making it the larges ...
Internet service * Morten Kromberg – founded Insight Systems ApS; CTO and CXO of Dyalog Ltd. * W.H. Lidington – founded Beyond 20/20 Inc. * Jane Minett – founded the
Sympatico Bell Internet, originally and frequently still called Sympatico, is the residential Internet service provider (ISP) division of BCE Inc. As of May 3, 2012, Bell Internet had over 3 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec, making it the larges ...
Internet service * Roland Pesch – principal at
Cygnus Solutions Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software. Its tagline was: ''Making free software affordable''. For years, employ ...
* Paul Phillips - co-founded Financial Market Software Consultants with Rob Hodgkinson (above) * Richard Proctor – founded APL Borealis Inc. * Scott Remborg – founded the
Sympatico Bell Internet, originally and frequently still called Sympatico, is the residential Internet service provider (ISP) division of BCE Inc. As of May 3, 2012, Bell Internet had over 3 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec, making it the larges ...
Internet service * Morgan Smyth – founded Braegen Inc. * Stephen Taylor – writer, editor, poet, founder of the Iverson College conferences * Arthur Whitney – founded
Kx Systems KX is a data analysis software developer and vendor. It is a business unit of AIM-listed technology and services group FD TechnologiesLON: FDP. Its KX Insights platform is built upon the proprietary time series database kdb+ and its programming ...
; developed the programming languages A+, k, and q


Timeline

* 1964 – I. P. Sharp Associates formed * 1970 – Dominant player in timesharing business * 1978 – Arrival of
Amdahl Amdahl may refer to: People * Einar Amdahl (1888-1974), Norwegian theologist * Bjarne Amdahl (1903-1968), Norwegian pianist and composer * Douglas K. Amdahl (1919–2010), American lawyer and judge from Minnesota * Gene Amdahl (1922–2015), for ...
V8, high performance IBM 370 alternative * 1980 – Sharp APL available as an in-house product * 1984 – Sharp APL for the PC available * 1987 – Acquisition by Reuters * 1993 – Soliton formed * 2005 – Reuters closes Toronto facility


See also

* STSC: US APL timesharing company *
Soliton Incorporated Soliton Incorporated is a Canadian company formed in 1993 to continue supporting and developing the programming language Sharp APL, and related products and services, originally developed by Canadian company I. P. Sharp Associates. History Sol ...
: Continuation of I. P. Sharp software business


References

{{Authority control Ferranti Technology companies of Canada Time-sharing companies