in 1960 the American company EAI established a sub company in Britain called Electronics Associated Limited (EAL) and were the first American company to venture into the British computer market. Their base was at Burgees Hill in Sussex (UK). EAL were doing well selling the PACE computer to large organisations and offering technical support services.
The engineers at EAL realised there was a market for a smaller table-top Analogue Computer, as the PACE 231-R Analogue Computer took up most of a room. Around 1965 they designed and built the EAL 380.
Liverpool Polytechnic used an EAL 380 Analogue Computer. Its Digital counterpart was a pdp8.
I was a 22 year old engineer in 1964 when I joined EAL and found myself on the design team of the 380. I was responsible for designing the backplane and the VDFG ( variable diode function generator ) tray. The 380 proved very successful.
My immediate boss at EAL went on to be a senior engineer at CERN.
And with Digital Equipment Corp being mentioned I was an account manager for them in the 80’s selling Vax clusters.
During the development of the EAL 380 the chief engineer decreed that no mains power should go to the front panel and so the power supply would be switched on by a relay. A schoolboy error- on the first switch on we pushed the button and the 380 just sat there. No power to the relay!!!! Anyway simple rewire and the grand switch on (part 2) button ceremonially pushed followed by a plume of smoke – the 380 was switched off only to find one of the draftsman holding a tube which had previously held drawing paper and a huge cigar. He just about survived the rest of the day. Needless to say all went well and the 380 was a great success followed by an American version from our parent EAI later that year.
We were based in Burgess Hill, Sussex and the industrial unit next door was owned by the Norris Brothers and they were building the ill fated Bluebird boat and Donald Campbell and his partner Tonia Byrne were regular visitors.