GEC Computers

Elliott Automation became GEC Computers Limited after the data processing computer products had been passed over to ICT (which later became ICL). Elliott Automation retained the real-time computing systems, renaming itself Marconi Elliott Computer Systems Limited for a short time, and then renaming again to GEC Computers Ltd. GEC Computers retained the original but now aging Elliott 900 series, and needed to develop a new range of systems. Three ranges were identified, known internally as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha appeared first and became the GEC 2050 8-bit minicomputer. Beta followed and became the GEC 4080. Gamma was never developed, so a few of its enhanced features were consequently pulled back into the GEC 4080. The principal designer of the GEC 4080 was Dr. Michael Melliar-Smith.

The GEC 4080 hardware and microcode included pioneering process management features. These allowed the efficient implementation of semaphores, asynchronous message passing, and context switching.
GEC 4000 Computer
GEC 4080 Computer
GEC 4100 Computer

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