Route Reference Computer: Difference between revisions

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By August 1956 the project was three times its original budget, and when Turnbull demanded an update, Ferranti finally told Levy about the problems they were having with the Transac circuitry and stated they had been forced to abandon it to develop their own. Their new design worked, but the equivalent circuits were larger and this caused problems trying to fit them into the original chassis. Levy, reporting back, was admonished by Turnbull, who was under increasing pressure to deliver the system. That month, [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]] Postmaster critic [[William McLean Hamilton]] pressed for an update on "this million dollar monster",<ref name=v117>Vardalas, pg. 117</ref> and given an end-of-year date that was also missed.

The machine was finally delivered in January 1957,<ref name=v117/> and Turnbull was able to display it in working fashion that summer when the [[Universal Postal Union]] held its Congress meeting in Ottawa, the first in Canada. Interest was high, prompting postmasters from England and Germany to visit Ottawa to see the system, along with a similar visit by several U.S. Congressmen. Hopes of international sales were dimmed when the Congressmen returned to Washington and quickly arranged $5 million in funding for local development of a similar system.<ref name=v118>Vardalas, pg. 118</ref> [[Burroughs Corporation]] won a development contract the next year,<ref>James Cortada, [httphttps://books.google.com/books?id=Iws7Trv_VdEC "The Digital Hand: How computers changed the work of American public sector industries"], Oxford University Press US, 2007, pg. 168</ref> emerging as the [[Multiple Position Letter Sorting Machine]] in the early 1960s.

By this point the budget for development had reached $2.5 million. During [[Canadian federal election, 1957|1957 federal election]] the [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada]] ran a campaign that aimed at what they characterized as [[Louis St. Laurent]]'s out-of-control spending. Nevertheless, when Hamilton took over the role of Postmaster General in August 1957, instead of canceling the project he pressed Turnbull to install a production system as quickly as possible. Turnbull stated that they could have a system installed within six months, and Hamilton agreed to continue funding the project, but noted that he would accept no further delays.<ref name=v118/>

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===Bibliography===

{{refbegin}}

* John Vardalas, [httphttps://books.google.com/books?id=S8DFZtmLziMC "The Computer Revolution in Canada: building national technological competence"], MIT Press, 2001, ISBN 0-262-22064-4

* Norman Ball and John Vardalas, "Ferranti-Packard: pioneers in Canadian electrical manufacturing", McGill-Queen's Press, 1994, ISBN 0-7735-0983-6

* David Boslaugh, [httphttps://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Mi8MhzheOokC "When Computers Went to Sea"], Wiley, 2003, ISBN 0-471-47220-4

* Alan Dornian, [http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~williams/History_web_site/World%20map%20first%20page/Canada/a2031.pdf "ReserVec: Trans-Canada Airlines' Computerized Reservation System"], ''IEEE Annals of the History of Computing'', Volume 16 Number 2 (1994), pp. 31-42

{{refend}}