CW@60: Spending 40 years on things that no longer exist

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<div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-60-anniversary-logo-white-400px.jpg" alt="Computer Weekly 60th anniversary logo" width="226" height="117"> </div> <p><i>On 22 September 2026, Computer Weekly turns 60. To mark the milestone, we asked some of our friends - experts, parliamentarians, IT leaders and suppliers - for their perspectives on how tech has changed their lives over six decades. What's changed the most for you since then?</i></p> <p>I have been involved in IT for over 43 years but <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/CW60-Reflections-of-an-accidental-technology-anthropologist">entered the industry by accident</a>. From conversations with many of my peers this seems to be how most people ended up in ICT - information and communications technology, as it was known then. </p> <p>I was, and still am, a Chartered Electrical and Electronic Engineer, I started work with the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) at Drakelow Power Station, neither of which exist today – rather like my old schools and university campus also no longer exist, becoming housing estates.</p> <p>I left the CEGB after six years and went to university and was working in my second job after graduating with an honours degree in electrical and electronic engineering. I had just moved from the BBC where I worked in numerous departments as a graduate engineer to CAP Scientific - a consulting company that also no longer exists - as an electronics engineer.</p> <p>My first job was to work on the electronic control system for making a tank manoeuvre faster, and as this was a military project I was subject to security clearance. CAP Scientific had just won a contract with the Ministry of Defence at Admiralty Research Establishment in Bushy Park near Richmond in London. Guess what? That also no longer exists. </p> <p>The contract CAP won required a Fortran computer programmer who could also be the systems engineer for the estate of DEC VAX and PDP systems – computers that again no longer exist.</p> <p>Even though I was not a Fortan 77 programmer, my engineering knowledge was considered exactly what was needed and I could learn the language, as I had done computer programming at university.</p> <p>So, even my route into 43 years of working in an industry no longer exists - who today will employ anybody without the skills and experience they are looking for?</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Fledgling industry"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Fledgling industry</h2> <p>My route into IT showed how this fledging new industry was drawing people from all different areas but was mostly based in engineering, as keeping these systems running required constant tinkering.</p> <p>DEC VAX systems like the DEC 11/750, 6000 and 8000 series were complex systems that had multiple different configuration levers that systems managers, or systems engineers, needed to tweak to ensure the performance was maintained. These systems ran the VMS (virtual memory system) operating system, which used a command-line only method of interaction. System managers needed to develop scripts for common tasks.</p> <p>One of the most time-consuming tasks was performing upgrades, which had to be done on-site in person using removable media. I remember one upgrade I was responsible for while working for another company in the late 1980s -a company that, of course, no longer exists.</p> <p>I was responsible for seven different DEC VAX 6000 series machines in seven different datacentres in the UK. The upgrade process required a mixture of sitting watching a screen and responding to questions. Once it was completed, you needed to reapply settings manually to all the different subsystems, such as the terminal services, and so on.</p> <blockquote> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="“https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Roy-Illsley-Omdia-PR.jpg"" alt="Photo of Roy Illsley from Omdia"> </div> <p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><span style="color: #34495e;">“I cannot imagine a world without IT, yet I wrote the dissertation for my bachelor’s degree on a typewriter, not a wordprocessor, using Tipp-ex to correct spelling”</span></strong></span></p> <p><span style="color: #34495e;"><em>Roy Illsley, Omdia</em></span></p> </blockquote> <p>Therefore, you needed to write down, on paper, the commands, settings, and values for each system, because there was no guarantee that they would be the same – and this was on a per-location basis. In fact, things like number of users were sufficient to mean the settings for one location were not the same for another. Hence, I spent two days at each location performing the upgrade in person.</p> <p>Eventually the DEC VAX systems were replaced by IBM AS400s, which is another story of a name that no longer exists.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Boring, reliable and business-friendly"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Boring, reliable and business-friendly</h2> <p>My memory of the AS400 was how the company I worked for switched to the AS400 from the DEC VAX but found even the largest AS400 at the time – the F-Series - was not powerful enough to run all the business applications for the whole company.</p> <p>The firm was actively involved with IBM in bringing Opti-connect to the AS400 in what was eventually call “Advanced Series,” so all the company’s AS400s could be clustered together to make a single system that was capable of hosting the business applications and their databases. </p> <p>The reason the DEC VAX lost to the AS400 was the IBM machine was simpler to operate and manage, you did not need a systems manager to perform lots of tweaks - the AS400 was like a black box, it just worked, plus it supported the business applications of the time.</p> <p>Reflecting on these two systems – which have both since disappeared from mainstream use - I have to say the DEC VAX was more interesting and more fun, but equally more frustrating, while the AS400 was the boring, reliable, business-friendly option.</p> <p>Moving from mid-range systems to another topic that introduced me to new skills and great beer and curry - Windows 95. This version of Microsoft’s operating system was revolutionary when introduced, so much so that the IT department of the company I was working for put together teams to go and live and work in the six main offices to train the staff, deploy Windows 95, and then “floor walk” support post go-live. I was dispatched to Glasgow, where I got a taste for “heavy” and curry on Sauchiehall Street.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="A change to corporate life"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>A change to corporate life</h2> <p>Window 95 was such a big change to corporate life people forget that before it, personal computers were command-line based - now business applications and data were accessible in a graphical user interface.</p> <p>Organisations took this change seriously - the company I was working for sent teams of 20 IT staff to each main office location for a period of at least three months, and most were there for six months.</p> <p>There were many other key events and technologies over the past 43 years of my involvement with IT. However, the one thing that comes through is that as a society, we have been living with, and managing the impact of, technological change for all this time.</p> <p>This can be exemplified as going from my first programming experience at university in the late 1970s using punch cards – remember, do not drop them! - to asking Gemini to write, document, and run my software program today.</p> <p>I cannot imagine a world without IT, yet I wrote the dissertation for my bachelor’s degree on a typewriter, not a wordprocessor, using Tipp-ex to correct spelling. Imagine doing that today - it sounds so last century.</p> <p><i>Roy Illsley is chief analyst at Omdia.</i></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read all of Computer Weekly's 60th anniversary essays</h3> <p>Technology is changing the way we live and work like never before – touching people’s lives every day, opening up new opportunities and creating new challenges.</p> <p>So for our 60^th anniversary, we wanted to reflect on the human stories of how the digital revolution has changed the lives of some of the key leaders and influencers in tech today. Read our full collection of essays, which offers a unique set of insights and perspectives into the changes we have seen during Computer Weekly's first 60 years.</p> <h2><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/essentialguide/CW60-How-technology-has-changed-our-lives-over-60-years">CW@60 - How technology has changed our lives over 60 years</a></h2> </div> </div> </section>