Prime Computer, Inc. was a
Natick, Massachusetts
Natick ( ) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 37,006 at the 2020 census. west of Boston, Natick is part of the Greater Boston area. ...
-based producer of
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
s
from 1972 until 1992. With the advent of
PCs and the decline of the minicomputer industry, Prime was forced out of the market in the early 1990s, and by the end of 2010 the trademarks for both PRIME and PRIMOS no longer existed
The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1MOS" were used as
brand name
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
s or
logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...
s by the company.
Founders
The company was started by seven founders, some of whom worked on the
Multics
Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of ...
project at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
.
* Robert Baron (President)
* Sidney Halligan (VP Sales)
* James Campbell (Director of Marketing)
* Joseph Cashen (VP Hardware Engineering)
* Robert Berkowitz (VP Manufacturing)
*
William Poduska (VP Software Engineering)
* John Carter (Director of Human Resources)
The company started with the motto ''"Software First"''.
Poduska left in 1981, to start
Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer Inc., founded in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo ...
.
[Alfred Dupont Chandler, Takashi Hikino, Andrew Von Nordenflycht ''Inventing the electronic century: the epic story of the consumer electronics and computer industries '', Harvard University Press, 2005, , pages 104,108,118,148,149.] His successor was 27-year IBM executive
Joe M. Henson, although Prime's president,
Kenneth G. Fisher, had briefly been the interim top executive.
[
]
Minicomputer products
The initial offerings by Prime were clones of Honeywell's DDP 316 and 516 minicomputers. Their main competitors were Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
, Data General
Data General Corporation was one of the first minicomputer firms of the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
Their first product, 1969's Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicompute ...
and Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
.[
*1972: Prime 200][
:The first Prime system was similar to the 16-bit DDP 516, but was a ]32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
machine with paging. It ran an operating system called DOS, also referred to as PRIMOS 2 (not to be confused with MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
, PC DOS
PC or pc may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Player character or playable character, a fictional character controlled by a human player, usually in role-playing games or computer games
* '' Port Charles'', an American daytime TV soap opera
* ...
, etc.).
*1973: Prime 100
:The Prime 100 was a stripped down version of the Prime 200 (no memory parity or floating point).
*1974: Prime 300
:The Prime 300 had a main store of 32 KB to 512 KB and from 6 MB of Pertec disc storage. It ran DOSVM operating system, also referred to as PRIMOS 3
PRIMOS is a discontinued operating system developed during the 1970s by Prime Computer for its minicomputer systems. It rapidly gained popularity and by the mid-1980s was a serious contender as a mainline minicomputer operating system.
With ...
, but still used earlier DOS for booting. One of the first minicomputers with microcode-supported virtual memory capability. The virtual memory was simpler than used in later systems. Addresses were 16 bits, with each of up to 32 time-sharing (time slice) users, receiving a virtual 64 K-word address space. It had ''S-mode'' and ''R-mode'' instructions.
:An example of the Prime 300 was installed in the mathematics department of the University of Aston in Birmingham, UK and at the Medical University of Hannover, Germany.
*1976: Prime 400
:The Prime 400 ran at 0.5 MIPS, had a main store of up to 8 MB and 160 MB of disc storage. The name PRIMOS was now used for the operating system, and the P400 ran PRIMOS 4
PRIMOS is a discontinued operating system developed during the 1970s by Prime Computer for its minicomputer systems. It rapidly gained popularity and by the mid-1980s was a serious contender as a mainline minicomputer operating system.
With t ...
. It ran a ''V-mode'' instruction set, along with the S-mode and R-mode instructions. It had a segmented virtual memory architecture, somewhat similar to Multics
Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of ...
.
*1979: Prime 450, 550, 650, 750—the beginning of the 50 series nomenclature
:The Prime 550 was an upgrade in performance over the Prime 400. It ran at 0.7 MIPS, had up 2 MB of memory and 500 MB of disc storage and a 9-track tape unit.
:The Prime 750 was a major upgrade. It ran at 1.0 MIPS, had 2–8 MB of memory and 1200 MB of disc storage and a 9-track tape unit. This was very competitive with a similarly priced DEC VAX-11/780
The VAX-11 is a discontinued family of 32-bit superminicomputers, running the Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) instruction set architecture (ISA), developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Development began in 1976. In ...
and was one of the first 32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
superminicomputer
A superminicomputer, colloquially supermini, is a high-end minicomputer. The term is used to distinguish the emerging 32-bit architecture midrange computers introduced in the mid to late 1970s from the classical 16-bit systems that preceded the ...
s. Prime 750 systems were installed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...
(RPI), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas ...
(RAL), University of Paisley
, mottoeng = Learning is success
, established = 1897 (as Paisley College of Technology) 1992 (granted university status) 2007 (renamed to UWS)
, former_names = Paisley College of Technology, Paisley Co ...
, Leeds University
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of Rhode Island, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for research. On 1 Oct ...
(UMIST), the CADCentre in Cambridge, and Southeastern University in Washington, DC.
PRIMENET and a local area network
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...
ing software product named RINGNET were announced.
*1980: Prime 150 and 250
*1981: Prime 850 (dual CPU machine)
Prime also marketed MEDUSA CAD software.
*1982: Prime 2250 also known internally as "Rabbit"
*1983: Prime 9950[
*1984: Prime 2550, 9650, 9750
*1985: Prime 9955, 9655, 2655
:The 9955 ran at 4.0 MIPS, had 8–16 MB of memory and 2.7 GB of disc storage and a 9-track tape unit.
:Five Prime 9955 computers (uk.ac.salford.sysa to .syse, connected to ]JANET
Janet may refer to:
Names
* Janet (given name)
* Janet (French singer) (1939–2011)
Surname
* Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table
* Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psych ...
) were installed at the University of Salford (along with other systems such as the 2250, 2550, and 750); a Prime 9955 was installed at UMIST and a Prime 9655 at Nottingham University.
*1986: Prime 2350, 2450, 9755, and 9955-II
*1987: Prime 2455, 2755, 6350, and 6550
*1989: Prime 2850, 4050, 6450, and 6650
*1990: Prime 2950, 4150, and 6150
By 1987, Prime Computer had introduced an alternative line of Intel 80386-based computers, the EXL-316 series, running the Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
operating system. A "new line of Unix-based EXL-7000 computers" was announced in late 1990.
The company was successful in the 1970s and 1980s, peaking in 1988 at number 334 of the Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
. In 1985 the company was the 6th largest in the minicomputer sector, with estimated revenues of US $564 million [ Much of this was based on the US Banking industry where the Prime Info database was widely accepted.
As of later 1989, Surrey University had the largest Prime Site in Europe, having multiple copies of virtually every 50 series machine (mostly running Primos 20.x, but some still running 19.x).
]
CAD/CAM Business
Prime was heavily involved with Ford’s internal computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
(CAD) product, Product Design Graphics System (PDGS). Design engineers used PDGS for auto body design, and finite element analysis using NASTRAN
NASTRAN is a finite element analysis (FEA) program that was originally developed for NASA in the late 1960s under United States government funding for the aerospace industry. The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation (MSC) was one of the principal and o ...
. It used a vectorscope
A vectorscope is a special type of oscilloscope used in both audio and video applications. Whereas an oscilloscope or waveform monitor normally displays a plot of signal vs. time, a vectorscope displays an X-Y plot of two signals, which can r ...
from Lundy for a display. At one time in the 1980s, PDGS was the world's largest integrated CAD system, spanning the US, Japan (Mazda was Ford's subsidiary/partner), (Cologne) Germany, (Dunton) England, and (Geelong) Australia. The creators of PDGS, located in building #3 of Ford's Dearborn design headquarters, began working on the concept of parametrically driven geometry, which led to a PRIMEDesign system.
The company also acquired marketing and development rights to the MEDUSA CAD system, initially developed in England by Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS), and having experience in the domain, the company explored transitioning to a CAD company. In 1982, Prime built a development team around the MEDUSA software and subsequently released several enhanced versions of the CAD/CAM system, branded as Prime MEDUSA. Enhancements included support of SunOS (also supported by CIS MEDUSA), a shaded viewer (based on Movie.BYU), and additional 3d visualization. Prime embarked on a project headed by Vladimir Geisberg to build a CAD-CAM system of its own called PRIMEDesign. This product was to compete with the industry leader at that time, CADDS4 from Computervision
Computervision, Inc. (CV) was an early pioneer in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/ CAM). Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Its early ...
. RISC processors from MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies, Inc., formerly MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., was an American fabless semiconductor design company that is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of RISC CPU chips based on it. MIPS provides proc ...
and graphics processors from Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and sof ...
created the platform for PRIMEDesign as well as being the genesis of modern-day SGI SGI may refer to:
Companies
*Saskatchewan Government Insurance
*Scientific Games International, a gambling company
*Silicon Graphics, Inc., a former manufacturer of high-performance computing products
*Silicon Graphics International, formerly Rac ...
. During this period, in 1985, Sam Geisberg left Computervision to found Parametric Technology Corporation
PTC Inc. (formerly Parametric Technology Corporation) is an American computer software and services company founded in 1985 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The global technology company has over 6,000 employees across 80 offices in ...
and produce a parameter driven CAD system called ProEngineer. Computervision acquired Cambridge Interactive Systems in 1983, and Prime independently developed their version of MEDUSA.
Prime subsequently purchased Computervision
Computervision, Inc. (CV) was an early pioneer in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/ CAM). Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Its early ...
, and Vladimir Geisberg, then VP for CAD, tried to merge back together the Prime and Computervision versions of the Medusa CAD system, and launch Prime Design. As time passed, it became clear that Prime Design, while leading edge, in theory, was unsuitable for real engineering design work, and Prime Design was ended.
Decline and end
By the late eighties, the company was having problems retaining customers who were moving to lower-cost systems, as minicomputers entered their decline to obsolescence. Prime failed to keep up with customers' increasing need for raw computing power. By the end, not a single Prime computer was subject to COCOM
The Cocom or Cocomes were a Maya family or dynasty who controlled the Yucatán Peninsula in the late Postclassic period. Their capital was at Mayapan. The dynasty was founded by Hunac Ceel
Hunac Ceel Cauich (fl. late 12th and early 13th centu ...
export controls, as they were insufficiently powerful for the US Government to fear their falling into the hands of hostile powers.
In 1988, financier Bennett S. LeBow attempted a hostile takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...
of Prime, leveraging his much smaller MAI Basic Four
MAI Basic Four (sometimes written as Basic/Four Corporation or Basic 4) refers to a variety of Business Basic, the computers that ran it, and the company that sold them (its name at various times given as MAI Systems, MAI Basic Four Inc., and MAI B ...
company. To stave off LeBow, Prime management organized a $1.3 billion " white knight" leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loan ...
by J.H. Whitney & Company. Various problems dogged this project, the holding company organized by Whitney went bankrupt, and the resulting severe financial distress made it much harder for Prime to deal with the accelerating downturn in its core business.
Prime's 1991 revenues of $1.2 billion were 25% lower than their 1988 revenues of $1.6 billion. Its computer sales were down by more than half ($377 million in 1989, $170 million in 1991), and by 1992 no new Prime Computers were being sold, portending a decline in its lucrative business of servicing computers made by Prime (and other manufacturers), a significant contributor to its already-declining revenues. A planned 1989 layoff of 1,200 employees became much more: over 6,000, thus Prime's workforce dropped by over half, from 12,386 employees in 1988 to 5,900 by the end of 1991.[
After the computer design and manufacturing portions of the company were shut down, the only viable business that remained was the ]Computervision
Computervision, Inc. (CV) was an early pioneer in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/ CAM). Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Its early ...
subsidiary, an early pioneer in CAD
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
/CAM
Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bin ...
, which was acquired in a hostile takeover 1988. Prime was renamed Computervision, which in 1992 sold the declining remnants of its Prime Information subsidiary to VMark Software Inc
Rocket U2 is a suite of database management (DBMS) and supporting software now owned by Rocket Software. It includes two MultiValue database platforms: ''UniData'' and ''UniVerse''. .[
Computervision was subsequently successfully acquired by ]Parametric Technology Corporation
PTC Inc. (formerly Parametric Technology Corporation) is an American computer software and services company founded in 1985 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The global technology company has over 6,000 employees across 80 offices in ...
in 1998, a company founded in 1985 by a former Prime employee.
Operating system
The company operating system, ''PRIMOS
PRIMOS is a discontinued operating system developed during the 1970s by Prime Computer for its minicomputer systems. It rapidly gained popularity and by the mid-1980s was a serious contender as a mainline minicomputer operating system.
With ...
'' was originally written mostly in the Fortran IV programming language with some assembler. Subsequently, the PL/P
The PL/P programming language (an acronym of ''Programming Language for Prime (computers)'') is a mid-level programming language developed by Prime Computer to serve as their second primary system programming language after Fortran IV. PL/P was a ...
and Modula-2
Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...
languages were used in the Kernel. A number of new PRIMOS utilities were written in SP/L which was similar to PL/P.
Phantom, CPL and ED
"Phantoms" were a form of unattended background processes that immediately began to run in the background when initiated by the PHANTOM command. "Conventional" batch jobs were initiated via the JOB command, including the ability to schedule them for a particular time.
CPL, the PRIMOS Command Processing Language was the shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
scripting language
A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.
A scripting ...
.
The PRIMOS text editor '' ED'' was a line editor
In computing, a line editor is a text editor in which each editing command applies to one or more complete lines of text designated by the user. Line editors predate screen-based text editors and originated in an era when a computer operator typic ...
. It could record a command sequence and replay it on different files. EMACS, a full screen editor
In computing, a full-screen writing program or distraction-free editor is a text editor that occupies the full display with the purpose of isolating the writer from the operating system (OS) and other applications. In this way, one should be abl ...
, was also available.
Prime 300 specification
* A microprogrammed 16-bit central processor with floating point hardware, error detection and system integrity checking features.
* 128 KB, 600 nanosecond access MOS main memory.
* 6 MB cartridge disk. 165 cps character printer.
* System software including a disk operating system and FORTRAN, BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
and assembler for assembly language
In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...
.
* Support for up to 31 users for a total purchase price of about US$165,000.
Specialised software
General business
Advent Online Knowledge
Advent Online Knowledge, Inc. was a Schaumburg, Illinois
Schaumburg ( ) is a village mostly in Cook County and partly in DuPage County in northeastern Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 Census, the population was 78,723. Schaumburg is around northwest of the Chicago Loop and northwest of O'Hare I ...
-based producer of software for Prime computers.
Marc Software
Marc Software International, Inc. of 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 ...
produced WordMARC
WordMARC Composer was a scientifically oriented word processor developed by MARC Software, an offshoot of MARC Analysis Research Corporation (which specialized in high end Finite Element Analysis software for mechanical engineering). It ran origi ...
word processing software for Prime computers.
Computer Techniques (Queo)
While Prime's PRIMOS operating system supported one or more compilers/interpreters for COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, RPG and 2 Assemblers
Assembler may refer to:
Arts and media
* Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler
* Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe
* Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of A ...
, Queo was a step up: a procedural language more compact than COBOL, and with additional capabilities.[
It was offered by Computer Techniques, Inc. of Olyphant, Pa.] Queo later was reimplemented for PCs.
Office Automation System
Prime acquired the OAS application from its developer, ACS America Inc., a now-defunct New York City software house.
It competed in the UK DTI Office Automation Pilot, but did not win.
OAS included electronic mail and word processing. Electronic mail use was initially restricted to a single minicomputer. Much later, Prime released email that worked with multiple Prime computers in a network, and a synchronised global directory system. Word processing was available either on dumb terminals like the PT25, PT45 and PST100, or on the partially intelligent PT65 terminal. The PT65 had to download the word processing software from the host minicomputer whenever the terminal was turned on. The terminal allowed the user to work on one page at a time, which was periodically saved to the minicomputer. This "intelligent workstation" concept for word processing was similar to the functions of popular systems from rival Wang Laboratories
Wang Laboratories was a US computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954–1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (1963–1976), and finally in Lowell, Massachuset ...
. Prime's intelligent workstation for word processing was faster because it used RS232C cabling runs instead of the coaxial links that Wang's systems used. Nonetheless, the word processing was not of the highest quality, and the PT65 was subject to software errors that scrambled the documents being worked on.
OAS also had a bilingual language lookup feature, sometimes marketed as machine translation.
Recognising the drawbacks of the downloadable WP workstation, Prime formed an agreement with Convergent Technologies
Convergent Technologies was an American computer company formed by a small group of people who left Intel Corporation and Xerox PARC in 1979. Among the founders were CEO Allen Michels, VP Engineering Bob Garrow, head of marketing Kal Hubler, and ...
for their AWS which Prime named the "Prime Producer 100" (launched in mid 1983) and later for Convergent's modular NGEN, clip together system, the "Prime Producer 200" (launched in 1984), each of which had far superior WP to the initial Prime offering, and were document-based.
In the UK, Prime had a very active OAS User Group whose suggestions were acted upon in new product development. UK Pioneers of the system included the London Docklands Development Corporation
The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its seventeen-year existence it was responsible for regenerating an a ...
and Oxford Polytechnic
Polytechnic is most commonly used to refer to schools, colleges, or universities that qualify as an institute of technology or vocational university also sometimes called universities of applied sciences.
Polytechnic may also refer to:
Educatio ...
, now Oxford Brookes University.
Prime Information
Both the Pick environment and Prime Information were based on the Generalized Information Retrieval Language System (GIRLS), developed by Richard Pick for the American Department of Defense.
Devcom, a Microdata reseller, wrote a Pick-style database system called INFORMATION in FORTRAN and assembler in 1979 to run on Prime Computer 50-series systems. INFO/BASIC, a variant of Dartmouth BASIC
Dartmouth BASIC is the original version of the BASIC programming language. It was designed by two professors at Dartmouth College, John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. With the underlying Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS), it offered an inte ...
, was used for database applications. It was then sold to Prime Computer and renamed Prime INFORMATION.
Unlike the Pick operating system, a complete operating system, Prime Information was not an operating system, but a 4GL system that ran from the Prime PRIMOS operating system.
Prime Information was a re-implementation which deliberately left out some features and added others. Prime Information allowed rapid 4GL or 4GL-like development of applications around relational or quasi-relational database structures. After a series of evolutions and acquisitions Prime Information is now an obsolete part of the Rocket U2
Rocket U2 is a suite of database management (DBMS) and supporting software now owned by Rocket Software. It includes two MultiValue database platforms: ''UniData'' and ''UniVerse''. software suite.
Prime Information Connection
In , Prime developed a system to conflict with OAS and confuse the market. Prime Information Connection added word processing to Prime Information, giving the company two office oriented suites to offer in a marketplace dominated by Wang Laboratories
Wang Laboratories was a US computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954–1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (1963–1976), and finally in Lowell, Massachuset ...
.
CAD/CAM
Prime originally entered the CAD
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
industry through Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
. At the time, Ford was using Control Data Corporation (CDC) stand-alone computers. Data was shared via reel tape and stored in "Data Collector" rooms at each facility. Ford began looking for a small computer that had all the advantages of the CDC computers, but could also connect to a network.
Prime’s 2250 ("Rabbit") offered the combination Ford was looking for in a package smaller than the original CDCs. In addition, the PRIMOS operating system would run unaltered across all Prime platforms; from the 2250 up to 750 (what would be considered today as a server). As a result, the Data Collector (rooms) would contain several 750 class machines, each with rows of CDC 300 or 600 MB drives. Primenet (Token Ring
Token Ring network
IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so.
Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...
) network connected all CAD stations in a building with its Data Collector.
Ford pushed PDGS out to its suppliers and engineering contractors throughout the northern Midwest.
Prime gained expertise over the years with its collaboration with Ford and continued to expand into the CAD market with its Medusa
In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those ...
product. With the acquisition of ComputerVision, Prime appeared to be a formidable force in the CAD/CAM
Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bin ...
industry.
Prime Medusa versions 5 and CV Medusa 7 were merged/recombined into a product that was called Medusa version 12. Prime also picked up Calma CAD systems from GE.
Electronic messaging
Electronic messaging was developed on ''relay.prime.com'', which was the hub that relayed global electronic mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronics, electronic (digital media, digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, ...
for Prime Computer. The software used on this computer system
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These progr ...
, PDN Mail, developed by Robert Ullmann, was designed to use the encoding header field that was later explained in a Request for Comments
A Request for Comments (RFC) is a publication in a series from the principal technical development and standards-setting bodies for the Internet, most prominently the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). An RFC is authored by individuals or g ...
.RFC1154
/ref> PDN Mail was also used by Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
until MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Message ...
was introduced.
Before MIME existed, PDN Mail was able to perform the same functions and was used to send software updates as well as all sorts of attachments between systems. In August 1993, Robert Ullmann, David Robinson and Al Costanzo wrote RFC 1505. This RFC, documented the Encoding Header Field for Internet Messages that PDN mail used and was published by the RFC editor, Jon Postel that same year.
Marketing
A series of memorable advertisements created by Australian artist Rone Waugh in 1980 featured actors Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor and writer. He is well known for his portrayal of the Fourth Doctor, fourth incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Wh ...
and Lalla Ward
Sarah Jill "Lalla" Ward (born 28 June 1951) is an English actress, voice artist and author. She is best known for playing the role of Romana II in the BBC television series ''Doctor Who'' from 1979 to 1981.
Career
Early career
Ward's stage na ...
as their characters from the TV series ''Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
''. All four of these adverts have since been included on the DVD release of the 1979 serial ''Destiny of the Daleks
''Destiny of the Daleks'' is the first serial of the 17th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 1 September to 22 September 1979. The story introduces ...
'' in which both actors appear.
Photos
Photos of several Prime systems
* RI Computer museum
2450
2850
5340
an
9650
a Prime 750
See also
* PRIMOS
PRIMOS is a discontinued operating system developed during the 1970s by Prime Computer for its minicomputer systems. It rapidly gained popularity and by the mid-1980s was a serious contender as a mainline minicomputer operating system.
With ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
History of Prime Computers
by David Mandel; last available version of 27 September 2007 via the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Prime Computer Corner
of Malcolm Hoar, incl
1972 establishments in Massachusetts
1998 disestablishments in Massachusetts
1998 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 1972
American companies disestablished in 1998
Computer-aided design software
Computer companies established in 1972
Computer companies disestablished in 1998
Defunct computer companies based in Massachusetts
Defunct computer companies of the United States
Defunct computer hardware companies
Defunct software companies of the United States
Minicomputers
Software companies based in Massachusetts
Software companies established in 1972
Software companies disestablished in 1998