Harvest
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old_codger
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Caslad66
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oldcodger
I used to cover this company in the trade papers in the 80s, they were always in trouble and provided loads of scoops. John Gow was a very colourful character and really he spotted an opportunity for DEC in the commercial market, apparently Ken Olsen was against getting involved in commercial contracts after DEC was sued by a big US law firm. Olsen was also against other companies selling his computers, he believe it to be immoral, so although Systime sold a lot of DEC machines the DEC management didn't like them, and in particular wanted to get the maintenance contracts for all the DEC machines Gow's posse had sold. Systime also developed its own range of plug compatible stuff that they sold for a fraction of the price DEC charged, even though the quality of the engineering was much lower (DEC did Rolls Royce kit) Eventually a customer did chance and when a memory board was sent back to DEC for maintenance someone noticed that it was an exact copy of the DEC board. The lawyers were informed and the glass palace was stormed. The whole Eastern Europe thing was a red herring, Reagan was uptight about Ruskies getting hold of IBM PCs and other vital military hardware (maybe they were going to drop them on our heads). A Guy from Derbyshire did get sent down for selling a couple of system to hotels on the Bulgarian Coast. Many ex-systime guys have done very well for themselves although you will not see the company name on their CVs. John Gow taught them well and I am sure they still meet up for a few beers now and again, he was certain great company and knew how to tell a story. They did blow a load of taxpayers cash though, not to mention investor cash, but they were amateurs compared to the dotcom boom generation.
oldcodger
Forgot to mention, John Gow told me that the Leeds United shirt sponsorship came about because the guy who was building the Glass Palace had just been made a director of Leeds and was under pressure to justify his place by finding some sponsors. Systime had not for the first time completely run out of money and could not pay for the completion of the building. Gow agreed to become shirt sponsor in return for the guy completing the building of the Glass Palace and waiting (presumably he is still waiting) for his money later.
old_codger
Thanks for that. What's the score with the ridiculous name though? :P
Djpekingman
Oh for god's sake - there's two of the fuckers now. :rolleyes:
heyho
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JustSteve
Not really anything about the Systime company, but I used to be the computer controller for a Systime 6400 PDP 11-44 mini, with 40 remote terminals, connected to an IBM 3081 & 3090 Mainframe for a company called SU Butec, a subsidiary of Unipart in Oxford from 1986 to 1989. I even have the operations manual I wrote for it at home somewhere.
scouse
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away... All salesmen become 'Dark Side'......I was a 'Light Side' entity who bumped into Mr N Brackenbury, DEC's UK leading salesman for a couple of years. Some time later he was enticed by Mr J Gow, ex-DEC himself, to join the bawdy (Gow's Wild Parties in Leeds were legendary) Systime. Brackenbury eventually persuaded me to join him at Systime and I was interviewed by Gow and Sales Director Michael Ludlam. Joining Systime a month later I was surprised to hear of Ludlams departure for pastures new (I was told he was doing a roaring trade simultaneously swapping IT staff betweeen companies and converting permies to contractors) and heard nothing more until years later when I bumped into Brackenbury who told me Ludlam had been convicted of COCOM violation and sentenced to 2 years.........Page 50 books.google.co.uk/books?id=i8IOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=Michael+Ludlam+illegal+export&source=bl&ots=M2JWm-Meec&sig=n2dileJR9hMHRG-rBbQjekyhFYM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uNSWUL7WBYvJsgbnjoCABA&sqi=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=falseThat could have been the end of the story but.......... decades later 1991 I was working with HMG on Perestroika in Hungary and assigned to the nuclear research KFKI entity aeki.kfki.hu/index.php?page=&lang=en and their CEO's team under Janos Szlanko told me that one or two Systime badged DEC VAX clones c/w VMS SW & language libraries (BLISS) had been 'imported' via Austria and comprehensively reverse engineered and cloned to the extent of 20,000 units, 80% going to the Russian Central Nuclear Research and Intelligence agencies....... (John von Neumann was Hungarian - Neumann János Lajos wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann). When our perestroika work revealed the HUGE extent to the US Govt (who naturally were working with us Brits on liberating ex-Soviet Block Countries), the US Courts fined KFKI $10m for being so naughty, BUT simultaneously decreed 'someone' was needed to replace all these illegal clones, c/w bootlegged SW, with genuine authentic kit, so DEC were 'instructed' to award a $10m contract to KFKI to do this....... A Very Small Old World Indeed.......I could not invent all this stuff even if I was George Lucas & Tom Clancy rolled into one......
belvaz
Interesting to see this ole time goodie company coming out the vaults. I used to be The Technical Support / Systems programmer at Systime Bristol & I do remember going to Leeds & seeing a scruffy individual fiddling around on a Transam. That individual thurned out to be John Gow himself.in 1983 Systime UK came up with a working Mini / PC system which was unfortunately based on Dec's Basic + RSTS/E operating system. This at a time when they had the majority of UK VAX systems installed. It was this introduction that really got Systime in trouble for whereas they could clone hardware & other things to their heart's content, RSTS/E was a proprietary operating system far ahead of the crap from rivals like IBM, Data General & HP & copying it so shamelessly was a no-no (at that time I could have walked in & out of any bank's systems in the UK & they would not have seen me coming r going).I used to work in this wonderful system & back then (1981-1983) they had wonderful things called Message Receivers & you could use these to create dynamic objects that loitered in the background & did do amazing things including a real time system I created for the Wolverhampton & Dudley Brewery to copy all sales orders to a remote location for security purposes. It was also used by yours truly to spy on people or to wind up someone's goat by doing the famous Computer version of Chinese torture called a DING. This meant that at random times in completely strange moments the poor victim (mine was a nose picking idjit who brought in smelly boiled eggs every bleeding day) would hear a mysterious bell on his computer or see a fake logon screen in addition to other peculiar things that only happened to him.He went bananas one lunch time when I was away & somehow got a System Administrator's password & killed off Job 0 (yes we had those back then) which was the operating system back then as he could see 2 identical tasks one of course being my nice & naughty thingie. An uproar followed when the whole computer system collapsed & poor Phillip C was left a withering wreck after the descent of every living being in the office who had been working at things other than picking their noses.Systime Bristol was famous then for the 3 Debbies. Debbie Sanderson (software support), Debbie Anderson (Management support) & yet another Debbie Anderson down at Andrewartha Windows in Plymouth. I have not forgotten any of you 3.Then there was Colin our engineering manager, his secretary Gill, the late Eddie Egan (System Analyst) who had been in computers from the mid-1950s, Dave Burgess our esteemed manager & little old me who used to masquerade as Godfrey Henry Bel, so that people could called me God which was indeed my function at the techie desk who did not use the word impossible ever. And there was Sarah who used to nick my sandwiches & a short sales manager (Bellusconi size) who claimed to be the pop singer Chris Rainbow who'd had some small electronic pop hits. And there was a sales man called Dave who had a girlfriend called Charlie (true honestly) who won a Rolls (could have been a Bentley) for a week in a sales promotion & then took himself & Charlie to a safari park one weekend with the roof open whilst munching inside the car. Yes an elephant actually decided to have a bunny & stuck his trunk inside, Dave panicked & tried to close the sun roof with the elephant's bun clutching trunk still in the car. Result one seriously bashed in car courtesy of the enraged pachyderm's legs. This was the story he told us at the time. Only he & Charlie know the truth.Ah wonderful times & memories & I still remember & miss you all.The company in Chesterfield was one I did some consultancy work in about 1987 on a software project to convert an American Sales Ledger to an acceptable UK version after they had hunted me down & was run by employees who used to work at one time for Mill's Associates out of Monmouth. I had the pleasure to work there under Geoff Toogood who really did shape my computer work ethics for the rest of time. What a hard task master he was. Chesterfield then had a famous MP who was none other than Edwina Currie & every time you went into a restaurant or takeaway you had an egg loitering in it for no reason & on my first visit there the taxi driver said 'Where r u going my luv?' You can guess how confused & awkward I felt (nothing to do with gays) as I asked 'Who r u talking to?'Ooh yar the good old days when the Earth had yet to cool down & the moon still controlled our sex drives & our brains hung around behind.
Mr.chemist
I had a share in the fun and games at Systime, from 1981 to 1985, working as a field engineer, then, after an ill-timed and badly-judged remark, in the less-well-paid role of "depot repair"The contract with BL ensured that my first ever brand new car was a Morris Ital, the facelifted Marina. This was a pleasant car to drive, reliable and comfortable, never let me down or used oil. This was a remarkably better experience than almost everyone else enjoyed, since they were mostly lemons of the first order. My second company car was the generally unreliable Ambassador, the facelift of the Princess (the "Terry and June" car), though I had a good one, it never let me down and was roomy and comfortable and converted me to liking FWD cars.People I remember: I worked first in the old mill on Dewsbury Road, I was appointed by the Leeds service manager, Jim Dumbell ("Dim Jumble"), who was succeeded by Gerard Boitelle, who I never really liked, understandable as he was very busy and I only saw him when I was in trouble. My supervisor was Jim Gibbs, a great guy. Jim Gee was service manager, if I remember correctly. Charlie Feather was head of Technical Support.The Glass Palace was reportedly designed on a napkin in a restaurant. John Gow drew it, saying "that's what I want." If there were extravagant parties, they weren't where I was, though the Christmas dinner was always pretty decent and the company would sort out a hotel room at a reduced price, so you didn't drive home drunk and bend their car.After CDC took over, DEC increasingly attempted to woo our service customers and after a short time, it became obvious that Systime had copied the interface boards almost entirely, only changing the position of the connector. This was copyright infringement and was something that one could be prosecuted for, regardless of the "exporting to Russia" business. As regards that, I remember it being that we had sold DEC equipment to some Swiss people, who had sold it to some Bulgarians, and it had therefore crossed the Iron Curtain and we were in trouble.Trouble also came every month, the horrors of cash flow reared up and bit us every time, as with increasing trade month-on-month and 90-day payment terms, the money from one month wasn't enough to pay wages and buy new kit to sell next month. As a result, engineers were often sent out "installing" half-built systems with no panels on and/or almost empty cabinets. Anything to get a signature, so it could be billed this month and therefore count as assets.In some ways the loss of Systime was a great technical loss, for example, DEC computers had loads of switches on the front panel to get them started (booting), which was seldom a problem in their original homes in university laboratories, but Systime's computers had one ROM on a circuit board to do the same thing. This was innovative, since it meant that the computers were literally "turnkey" which was novel at that time. So many other memories, 5MHz processors, removable hard disks, usually CDC SMD 64Mb disks, Digidata tape backup drives the first laser printers, £150,000 as I recall, at E J Arnold, the educational supplier. Band impact printers for invoices and such, 600 lines per minute and temporary deafness for unprepared engineers who stood next to them.I moved on, to a Systime customer, Technology for Business, who had terribly inconvenient offices on Woodhouse Lane, with restricted parking and super-diligent traffic wardens. Then I did a PGCE and I have been a science teacher for nearly two decades. Funnily enough, staff changes meant that I was called-upon to teach Computing this year and all my experience and knowledge of things like binary arithmetic, computer architecture and operating systems has has to be dragged back into current memory!
Placid
Great thread. Any of you Systimers know Chris Morrison and Mark "chippy" Chippendale? They were slips of lads back then.
Ken_Kapstick
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noneoftheabove
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Odd_Job
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Harvest
Napkin or serviette?
Odd_Job
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larkshall
If you want to know anything about the Systime russia affair you really ought to speak to Mike Ludlum who managed to get done for the VAT alledged fraud and did time for this. Its considerably more involved and convoluted than mentioned here. I was a customer of Mike's and did write and visit him in Jail
Placid
