Prime Computer

Prime Computer, also written PR1ME, was indigenous to in Natick, Massachusetts manufacturer of 32-bit super minicomputers. Prime acted from 1972 to 1992.

The 32 -bit computer systems this agent had become common since the late 1970s, especially in the university sector and in technology with the introduction of CA technologies (CAD, CAM, CAQ, FEM and allied areas).

Foundation

The company was founded by the following persons, some of whom had worked on the Multics project at MIT:

• Robert Baron ( President)
• Sidney Halligan ( Vice President Sales )
• James Campbell ( Director of Marketing )
• Joseph Cashen ( Vice President Hardware Engineering )
• Robert Berkowitz ( Vice President Manufacturing )
• William Poduska ( Vice President of Software Engineering )
• John Carter ( Personnel Manager / Director of Human Resources )

The company started with the motto software first. This should be expressed that the draft of the definition of the HW SW would have to precede, so that they could run optimally on the hardware (eg, microcode support for task switching, Ready -List, VM address translation and cache).

Poduska left Prime in 1980 to found Apollo Computer. 10 years later he left and founded the Apollo supercomputer workstation company Star Dent.

The German subsidiary was established in 1974. The first German prime customer ( the Biophysical instruments department of the MHH Hannover, led by Prof. Maass ) had already decided shortly before (first prime multi-user system ) for the innovative P300, obtained from a 2 -man team was sold in Germany. However, the first "German" Prime devices were at Linotype in Frankfurt and attended there for a beautiful print set. To use a single-user system came the P200, based on the Honeywell 316, which had previously been used in Linotype. Customer was here Linotype, USA.

The operating system of the Prime computers, first DOS or DOS / VM, later Primos, is a derivative of Multics. This operating system was implemented in the original to a large extent in the Fortran programming language. Subsequently also the PL1 derivative PL/P- and Modula -2 language was used in the kernel. A certain number of new utilities in PRIMOS were written in SP / L, which is similar to PL / P. In the first years of the complete source code are included, so that users better understand not only the system but also could add their own add-ons.

The original products were initially replicas of Honeywell minicomputer 316 and 516 from the series 16 The Prime 400 was in its time (late 1970s), a successful minicomputer, and the Prime 750 (1979 ) was a competitor for the VAX 11/780 of DEC, one of the first 32 -bit super- minicomputer.

The company Prime was successful in the 1970s and 1980s and peaked in 1988, when it stood at 334th place of the Fortune 500 - listed companies. Any export to the Soviet bloc of Prime types of computers was prohibited by the CoCom list. However, parts were successfully smuggled occasionally.

In the late 1980s, Prime got into trouble because more and more customers migrated to Unix systems; particular SUN proved more successful, cost-effective competitor. In addition, it became increasingly difficult for Prime, keep up the fight for the sheer computing power. In contrast to DEC we failed to build an LSI - based CPU, although such a project was well advanced ( "Prime on a chip" ).

Prime tried to develop in the direction of a CAD company, including as they the CAD vendors Computer Vision bought for 300 million U.S. dollars. This costly purchase, leaving the company vulnerable to a hostile takeover. A corresponding thereto attempt was made by Bennett S. LeBow with his BASIC4 Corporation. To fend off the takeover, was Prime to buy back into private ownership by the New York - risk investors JH Whitney. Finally, the computing developments and productions have been set, and renamed the prime company in computer vision.

Office automation systems

Prime bought in the late 1970s or early 1980s, the OAS application of Lincoln National, a large insurance company. It is unclear whether the system was a joint development of insurance with Prime. The system was one of the pioneering applications in this field, we fought long, especially in the UK to gain a leading position, but failed finally.

OAS consisted of the following applications:

• Electronic mail, initially restricted expanded to a single, non-networked minicomputers, and only much later synchronized to a global system which, however, only proprietary, that is, between different Primos machines in the Prime network worked.
• Word processing, either stupid (at least semi -capable graphics ) terminals as PT25, PT45 and PST100, or on the part PT65 intelligent terminal, load from the central computer that had its software. It was a page-based text system. This workstation concept was very similar to the machines from Wang, but the execution speed was much slower than Wang, because the processing was via serial interfaces RS- 232 C, however, the Wang machines via fast - possessed coax cable connections - but expensive. The word processor was not of the highest quality, and the PT65 device often scrapped the text in the processing.

As Prime the withdrawal of the customers recognized by downloading workstations, concluded an arrangement with Prime Convergent Technologies for the Unix-based AWS system, the Prime renamed Prime Producer 100 ( launched in mid-1983 ), and later for Convergents modular NGEN System, which was then referred to as prime producer 200 and 1984 was released. Each of these systems was the original prime- word processing is far superior, and they functioned document - centered.

Prime had a very active OAS - user group whose proposals have been taken to product development in the UK. The British pioneers included the land - development company London Docklands Development Corporation, and Oxford Brookes University.

Prime information

Very similar in concept and execution to the Pick environment, developed by Richard Pick, was also the Prime said information database concept, which allowed a fast, 4GL -like development of own applications using relational or quasi- relational database structures. Approx. 1987 got this system in competition with Oracle, which was ported to a version of the Primes and sold in Germany.

Prime Information Connection

In 1984 developed around Prime a system that came with the OAS into the enclosure and the market plunged in confusion. Prime Connection information connected word processing, and database programming model and so caused the duplicate offer competing office suites, on a market that was dominated at that time in the United States of Wang Laboratories.

Competitor

Larger (about a factor of 10 ) and ultimately more successful rival of Prime was the DEC. In particular, the operating system VAX VMS was seen by the users in the comfort and the ease of learning the front; but the operating system PRIMOS by Prime was second to only a little.

Another early rival of Prime was Data General. In later years, various computer vendors emerged, focused on powerful hardware development and abstützten in the software to the increasingly sophisticated Unix world. This included in the early 1980s, the company Nixdorf Computer.

Model development

First well -selling 32 -bit model of Prime was the P400 ( 2 CPU boards ), which appeared around 1977 on the market. She had, inter alia, the competition a continuous 32- bit processing -based approach requires meanwhile the competition was still being run exclusively in the 16- bit world. However, Prime did not stay long alone in the 32 -bit market; quickly pushed behind the major competitor DEC. Another advantage of the P400 was the microcode -based task switching, a two-dimensional task list management ( " Ready List" ) and a 2K hardware cache. Thus, they were ahead of the competitors by orders of magnitude. In practically all multi-user benchmarks with random load distribution, the prime machines could handle the tasks with significantly less hardware. Only genuine real-time oriented applications they had to fit most. A short time later, the three -board model P500 came on the market. His third CPU board supported in the microcode a " Business Instruction Set ", the va was responsible for character strings and fixed-point operations. This should facilitate the marketing of commercial tools (COBOL, FORMS, Codasyl DBMS ). Particularly affected, the Prime -SW proved in the networking area. In the late 70s the e -mail traffic between computer models of different manufacturers at the Hanover Fair was presented by X.25/TCP-IP. Similarly, it was possible to operate a global network different hard drives ( " PR1MENET "). IBM systems could be connected by SDLC controller with prime assets.

The roughly twice as powerful P750 ( 2 CPU boards ) appeared in 1979 before the VAX/780. Based on the 750 Prime also emerged dual processor versions ( 8750, 8850, each 2 * 2 CPU boards 1 Sync board) and ever-faster clock- rates increased versions. The dual processor variants were about 60 % faster than the equivalent single-processor models.

CAD / CAM

Prime computers were in addition to the DEC machines over many years one of the major target environments for providers of CAD -CAM software. This is in particular the connection to the CAD system MEDUSA of the British software firm Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS ) to call, which was driven by the exclusive AGS in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Prime had for the American market distribution rights to MEDUSA. In 1984, Computer Vision all activities of CIS and AGS. With Prime Computer to Computer Vision agreed to the effect that the Prime MEDUSA version was 4:06 in the source code, both companies MEDUSA from this point itself constantly evolving and distribute them worldwide were allowed. Computer Vision joined shortly thereafter to version 5.0, while Prime Prime Medusa with the version 1.0 came on the market.

In 1988 Prime Computer software company computer vision. Prime was divided into two columns Prime hardware that was responsible for proprietary computer, and Prime Computer Vision, which was responsible for the CAD / CAM business with MEDUSA and CADDS. Another mainstay in the graphics sector was SGI, whose hardware is started along with the 3D body -SW " PDGS " around 1985, at Ford.

After setting the proprietary PRIMOS computer production and delivery of the maintenance obligations to another manufacturer by concentration on the CAD - CAM software business with renaming in computer vision. The mid-1990s, the takeover of computer vision by Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC).

Even today, there is an active Internet forums and stubborn fans of the 32 -bit superminis of Prime.