Ferranti Ltd. Definition/Meaning:
Originally a company, now a group of companies, Ferranti plc.,
based in Manchester, UK. It has been a pioneer in electrical engineering,
interest in the stored-program computer being aroused in the late 1940s by work
at the University of Manchester. Its link with the university dales from 1948
and, on instructions from the government, it undertook to make a production
version of the Manchester Mark I. The Ferranti Mark I, delivered in 1951, was
the world's first commercially available computer, and was followed by the Mark
I Star (1953), Pegasus I and II (1956, 1959), and Atlas (1963).
Ferranti's
computer interests in the field of commerce were sold in 1963 to 1CT
(International Computers and Tabulators), ICT and EELM (English Electric Leo
Marconi) merging in 1968 to form ICL. Ferranti then concentrated on computers
for use in industrial process control. In 1975 three divisions of Ferranti were
amalgamated to form Ferranti Computer Systems Ltd. Since that time FCSL has
expanded in the industrial, military, and commercial fields of application.
|
