Computer operator Jim Burton with chief executive Ian Walker (right) and computer services manager John Cross.
Seven million pounds-worth of high technology computer equipment was formally commissioned last week when Ian Walker, BP Oil's chief executive, visited the new computer room at BP House, Hemel Hempstead.
Not surprisingly, with so much sophisticated hardware carrying so much company information, security is a high priority. Entry for everyone - including Mr Walker - is via an inches thick reinforced door which can only be opened by keying in a special code in conjunction with a special card.
Library
The room houses three main frame and three minicomputers, the communications equipment, and ancillary storage equipment. A fire-proofed library stores 15,000 magnetic tapes, of which up to 1000 will be used in any one day.
These tapes are now being superseded by 24 of the latest disc storage devices. While they look like old fashioned washing machines there is nothing dated about the ability of each one to store 90 million words - equivalent to, say, 500 paperbacks.
The communications side of the company has quintupled in the past four years as John Cross, BP Oil's computer services manager, explained to Mr Walker. Modern technology is having difficulty in keeping pace with modern requirements. The various pieces of equipment have to be sited within 50 feet of each other simply because communication between them is slowed down by distance.
"A communications signal tracks one foot every one hundred thousandth of a second," Mr Cross said. "Light has actually become too slow for many modern processes."
Cabling
There is also the problem of sheer size, especially where cables are concerned. BP Oil is now using fibre optic cabling because one fibre optic can carry the equivalent of 250 conventional cables.
Computers too, are getting smaller. To use the jargon, they have a `decreasing footprint'. Mr Walker commented that the space taken up by the first computer at Hemel Hempstead, the Leo, was some one-and-a-half times that of the present Univac's. Whereas the Leo boxes held only 16,000 words of memory the Univac holds a million.
"Looking to the future," he said, "we have to balance the unlimited demand from a population increasingly hungry for more and more instant information - which frequently cannot be other nice to know - with the rapid production of essential data and statements which lead to a more efficient and cost effective company."
Taken from BP Oil News - May 1983
£7m in 1983 would today (2010) be worth about £16.5m.
Today, it is quite amusing to read such comments about computer size becoming an issue and thereby the distance that information had to travel. Also, the comment from John Cross that “light is too slow” – I suppose that as we could not move data faster than light we just had to make the technology smaller.
The linear storage of data on tapes were only then being passed out for the non-linear discs.
Ian Walkers comment about the need for instant information, specific to the business and not just “nice to know” is somewhat prophetic for an age when we have almost unimaginable instant access to a wealth of information via personal computers and the internet.
An interesting article from a time when major step changes in computing where taking place and giving an insight into the challenges of the future that we had to address.
Shed stones raise pounds. That was the idea that Hemel's Charlotte Harber (nee Withey, then wife of Martin Harber) and Gill Glover came up with when they suggested that their male colleagues start a sponsored slim. And after weighing in last month, the foursome notched up a total loss of 40.5 pounds and a gain of £57.50
"The money was raised for Befriending Parents," says Tony Smart, from central technical support at Hemel Hemptead. Tony sits on the steering committee for Befriending Parents, which was set up in November 1981 to give help and assistance to parents with handicapped children.
Hemel's Sister Pereira suggested a diet of 1,000 calories a day for the foursome and gave them helpful information about weight watching and sensible eating.
Keeping watch on the pounds, our picture shows Charlotte Harber, and from the left, Brian Spencer, Derek Morris, Tony Smart (on the scales) and Steve Emmett.
Missing from the picture is Tony's wife Maureen Smart and Pauline Bonfield, who also work at Hemel and who later joined in the sponsored slim to boost the funds.
Richard Doyle knew what he was talking about when he was invited to speak at the British Computer Society Database Conference last month. It was a subject close to home - data dictionaries.
Richard, project leader in development control, was responsible for setting up the dictionary currently in use at Hemel Hempstead. “It’s sort of like a Webster’s of the computer world,” he says.
The data dictionary is used to store the definitions of all the company’s data, including how and where it’s used within our computer systems.
Richard spent a great deal of time working out in advance how the dictionary was going to be used. “It took eighteen months,” he says, “and it was important to get it right in the early stages because to go back and make changes would have been costly.”
The main benefit of this system is that it can help people fully understand the meaning and use of all the data that is processed.
"We're something of a pioneer in this market,” says Richard, “so I felt quite pleased when I was invited to discuss our experiences and uses of the dictionary at the conference.”
Richard also works as a consultant to other BP and outside companies, occasionally selling our data dictionary and interface programmes and earning the company money.
The PC, CRT monitor and printer (no mouse?) shown in this picture was the height of computer technology in October 1987.
This hardware was donated by BP Oil and Boffin Computer Maintenance to the cadets at RAF Northwood. Possibly to naval cadets, as the photo I have has Commander-in-Chief Fleet on the reverse.
Boffin was the computer maintenance and support function of Pericom PLC (Chairman - Ron Cragg) based in Milton Keynes. They were major suppliers to BP Oil in the 1980's.
I recall seeing facilities onsite at RAF Northwood that were used as part of "Operation Corporate" (the 1982 Falklands War).
In the photo unknown, Yorath Trebble, David Thorn, Phil Else (Managing Director - Boffin Computer Maintenance), unknown, Ian Pitkethly and Laurence Hill.
The link above will take you to a pdf of a 20 page booklet called "Computers are a people business" which was published in 1980.
Warning : This is quite a large document at 353MB depending on your broadband (using a speed of 200 kB/sec it may take about 30 mins to download).
This booklet was designed to promote careers within the BP Oil Computer and Accounting Centre at Hemel Hempstead. Although this was available to staff at the time, I think it was focused towards the annual graduate intake (commonly known as "The Milk Round").
This was obviously a time of expansion and getting the "right young things" in to a "high-tech" career was perhaps difficult!
People mentioned in this booklet are Angela Slezok (she later married Richard Doyle), Jacky Dormer, Helen McGillicuddy and John Maher.
George in his box-room with - what else - a collection of post boxes.
When people go to the Post Office to make a collection they usually come away with a letter or parcel. Hemel Communication Engineer George Karvounakis often ends up buying the post box itself.
He started his off-beat collections two years ago last month and currently he has a hefty selection of I00 toy miniatures and eight genuine ones.
The 'real' ones he buys from the Post Office at anything from £220 upwards for a pillar box, £60 for a wall box and about £45 for a lamp box.
The oldest one he has is a Victorian wall box he bought from a Post Office in Essex.
The boxes are usually in poor condition and George first has to deliver them to his garden shed for a face-lift. Once he has got them back to near original condition he deposits them in his spare bedroom with the rest of his collection.
"My wife thought I was mad at first," he says, "but she's got used to it now. I didn't realise there were so many different types of boxes until I started collecting them."
George writes to all the Post Office regional headquarters asking to be put on their 'mailing lists' for post boxes.
The toy miniatures he finds in shops and on market stalls. "Sometimes I just jump in my car and go out pillar box hunting."
George, who also collects pictures of pillar boxes, went to his native Greece last year for a holiday and even managed to find a post box for his collection over there.
He is also a keen stamp collector but his number one hobby is post boxes. "With stamps you know exactly what you are looking for — it's all in the catalogue. But with post boxes you never know what is going to turn up," he says.
George still has plenty of space left in his spare bedroom to increase his collection and so if any readers have a post box or a picture of a post box, he would be delighted to get a letter from them.
Families in the Hemel area with handicapped children are being given a new lease of life thanks to a scheme called Befriending Parents. And BP Oil employees in the town are playing a major role in helping the scheme develop.
Last year they donated £1,000 to Befriending Parents and they have pledged to raise a similar amount each year. Says BP Oil's Tony Smart(above), who serves on the steering committee of Befriending Parents:
"We hope to raise the money through a series of raffles, competitions, bring and buy sales and the like. The cash is needed to meet the host of administrative costs associated with the scheme, everything from telephone calls and stationery to travelling expenses for the volunteers who visit the families."
These volunteers are called `befrienders' and so far ten of them have been matched up with families who have a mentally or physically handicapped child.
The aim is to act as friends and sympathisers to these parents who have more than their fair share of problems bringing up a family.
Organisers still do not have nearly as many volunteers as they would like and are anxious that people do not mistake the purpose of the scheme.
As a volunteer, no one is expected to cope with a handicapped child. The role is a supportive one and volunteers act as companions and sometimes someone to lean on for these busy parents.
The help provided might be an evening baby-sitting while the parents have a rare night out or a few hours driving people on hospital visits.
The co-ordinator of Befriending Parents is Barbara Bradley, herself the mother of an 11-year-old severely handicapped child.
Although he is a full-time job, he is not demanding or worrying, but he does get bored. This is why Barbara is often worried. "I feel guilty if I feel I am not stimulating his interest," she says.
This is where Barbara's own `befriender', Ann Hubball is such a godsend. Her presence enables Barbara to be able to relax and forget the responsibility for a time. Just to go off on her own for an hour or two, to go shopping or visit the hairdresser without worrying is a relief.
It also enables Barbara to get down to the business of linking volunteers with families.
"You don't need to be experienced or specialised to help in our scheme. It's commonsense that matters all the time," she says.
Befriending Parents was formed in November 1981 as a result of the International Year of Disabled People. It developed throughout 1982 and it is hoped that this year it will go from strength to strength.
The support given by BP Oil employees in Hemel is much appreciated but, of course, more support is always needed.
If you would like further details of the scheme, please contact Tony Smart in room 110 (extension 460).
There was fun and games at Hemel in November when all departments got together to compete for the Bowden Trophy.
The event, held annually since 1965, involves staff in games like passing the key on a piece of string through clothing, walking with balloons between legs and passing tennis balls to partners using only chins.
The trophy was won by Computer Operations, and for the first time in the history of the contest the winning team scored maximum points.
There were a lot of new faces taking part this time because of the transfers from Victoria which made the victory more impressive. The trophy was presented by Mike Hancock.
Most policemen hate paperwork but Bob Roach is an exception. The former Detective Chief Inspector and now security officer at Hemel is very much at home with a pen in his hand.
He wrote a couple of short stories a few years back and a friend suggested that he sent one of them in to Weekend Magazine. Much to his surprise they decided to use it and it earned Bob £50.
The story, entitled 'Night a Big Softie Helped Me Collar Three Robbers', was published under the Reader's Own Story section.
It explained how the Roach's pet dog, Dirk, helped catch three men suspected of armed robbery. Although Dirk wouldn't hurt a fly, the robbers believed he was a trained police dog and surrendered quietly.
Mind you, Bob had to stand on Dirk's tail to get him to bark and snarl, otherwise the pet dog would probably have gone up to the men and licked their hands!
Bob spent 25 years in the Metropolitan Police before becoming a security officer and he has a wealth of stories to tell about his time on the Force.
He is keen to write a full-length book about his police experiences. "I'll get down to it one day, it's just a question of finding the time," says Bob.
Some of the Hemel stalwarts who helped with the "hampers-on-wheels" service - Christmas 1982
The girls in Data Preparation organised a 'Hampers-on-Wheels' service just before Christmas to bring a little festive cheer to old folk in the Hemel area.
They raised over £100 with a collection among their colleagues and used the money to pack nine food hampers with Christmas puddings, tea, butter, sugar, jams, tinned meats, fruit, biscuits, vegetables and bottles of sherry.
They contacted the local branch of the Social Services and got a list of old folk in the area who had no relatives or friends and who therefore were preparing to spend a lonely and possibly a hungry Christmas.
Julie Olver, along with colleague Janet Fogden, drove round delivering the hampers to nine homes just before Christmas and spent some time with each of the occupants.
"The old people were really overwhelmed and it was a good feeling to know that we were able to provide them with a little comfort," says Janet.
Added Julie: "Everyone of them invited us in for a cuppa. They were glad to see visitors and have a bit of a chat with someone for a change."
Fibre optics are replacing old-style copper cable...
Fibre optics are getting everywhere these days - even under the floorboards at Hemel office. Proving the point are Colin Chapman (left) and David Thorn.
Strands of glass little thicker than a human hair are carrying impulses of light to provide a faster, neater, safer link between BP Oil's computers and the men and women who use them.
And this high technology replacement for the humble copper wire is helping to overcome a list of problems ranging from overcrowding behind the skirting boards at Hemel Hempstead to attacks by rats at Grangemouth and Llandarcy refineries.
Inventor
The science of the 'light pipe' was first discovered more than 100 years ago when a curious inventor noticed that light could be transmitted from one end of a jet of water to the other. Fifteen years ago, coffee tables throughout Britain sprouted those strange 'mares tails' of thin optical fibres which seemed to carry a swaying mass of pin-pricks of light.
But take the more serious development of fibre optics to its conclusion, and it could revolutionise wiring systems both at work and in the home. The TV and telephone of the future could depend not on electrical impulses, but on tiny flashes of light travelling along thin and flexible strands of glass.
All that, says BP Oil's Hemel Hempstead-based manager of distributed computing, Bruce Moulder, remains in the future. For the present. BP is working in the forefront of optical fibre technology to harness its many advantages to the day-to-day business of running the company.
"In the simplest terms, fibre optics use a small piece of glass fibre to replace a rather
lariter piece of electrical wire." explained Bruce.
"The only thing that travels down the fibre is light, so there is no risk of electrical shock. no possibility of fire, and no chance of picking up interference along the way."
It was sheer pressure on space that led to the first practical application for fibre optics within BP Oil. As more people moved into BP House in Hemel Hempstead, more telephones were needed, more power sockets, more links between computer terminals and. Hemel's two Univac mainframe computers.
All these extra wires and cables had to be fitted in somewhere – and the only place was in the already jam-packed ducting behind the skirting hoards.
Cunning
So far, only data travelling between computers and their terminals is being handled by fibre optics. But thanks to a cunning system called 'modem time multiplexing,' a single length of optical fibre can do the job of many individual copper wires. Meaning just one extra cable instead of dozens behind Hemel's overcrowded skirting.
"The multiplexor splits the light signals travelling down the fibre into different slots, one for each computer terminal," said Bruce Moulder.
"In theory, a single optical fibre could carry all of BP Oil's data transmissions at the same time — that's the sheer capacity of the system.
"Looked at another way,one strand of optical fibre about twice the thickness of a human hair could do the job of a one-inch-thick copper cable."
Hemel Hempstead already has seven main optical fibre 'trunk routes' running through the main building and the tower block, linking them with the new computer suite currently in the final stages of construction. It means that Hemel's average daily transactions of up to £18-million - the very lifeblood of the company — can travel literally at the speed of light and without any risk of picking up interference from adjoining power lines. And just how real that problem of interference can be comes from the recent case where lightning was conducted down copper cables to cause damage to 11 of Hemel’s computer terminals.
A start has also been made on bringing fibre optics to BP House in Victoria, where once again computer users will have the advantages of receivinga cleaner signal without the risk of picking up data-distorting 'noise' from adjoining power cables.
"In general, fibre optics give people using computers a better chance of doing the job and providing a service on time." said David Thorn, who is project leader in Hemel's communications co-ordination unit.
It is the intrinsic safety of optical fibres' use of light, rather than electricity, to transmit data that has led to their introduction at BP Oil's refineries. At a stroke, optical fibres take away one possibility of a stray spark causing firein areas wherepotentially hazardous materials are produced or stored.
Communications engineers such as Colin Chapman, George Karvounakis and Ian Perry have installed optical fibre systems which will link the refinery computers at Grangemouth and Llandarcy with terminals in the stores and workshops.
But on the way. their hi-tech communications system came up against some rather old-fashioned problemsr.
Bruce Moulder explained: "The PVC covering on cables tends to go 'gooey' if it is in prolonged contact with hydrocarbons, so refinery cables have traditionally been lined with lead and protected by steel mesh. On top of that, rats have a habit of chewing their way through PVC insulation, and termites can also nibble away at cables if the radius is such that they can get their teeth into them. We had to overcome all these problems when installing the new optical fibre systems."
Closed-circuit
Although fibre optics are already working for their living, the technology is still at a relative stage of infancy compared to what may lie just around the corner. So far, fibres have only been able to offer 'one way traffic' to light signals, but developments are in hand to produce fibres which can send and receive signals simultaneously. Video signals can also be transmitted through fibre optics — a possible application would he closed-circuit television security systems. And voice and music transmissions are also possible down these light-transmitting strands of glass.
The fibre optic has come a long way from the coffee-table lamp — and its development is far from finished yet.
Colin Chapman demonstrates the concept of fibre optics.
Taken from BP Oil News - October 1982
Focom Ltd
During the early 1980’s BP Oil pioneered the adoption of fibre optic communications in its embryonic networks.
The main drivers were for safety within the then refineries (Grangemouth and Llandarcy) – light rather than electricity in cables; the weight of cables in floors and ceiling; cable duct capacity – space available; and potential capacity of the cables via further multi-plexing.
The supplier of this new technology was Focom Ltd, who were based on the Hunslet Estate in Leeds. We dealt with a few people at Focom Ltd, including John Iles, Ian Elliott, Martin Farrell and Mike Cloak (Sales Manager).
I recall visiting Leeds a few times in my dealings with Focom. They even had a fibre drawing machine to actually make the cables there.
The first demonstration of fibre optic cabling in BP House consisted of a single fibre cable running a computer terminal on the 13th floor training suite from the Univac 1108 computer room on the 1st floor. The first problem to solve was how to run the trial cable, the solution was to throw the cable out of a 13th floor window, down to the roof above the 4th floor (over the restaurant area) and then back through a window on the 1st floor. Senior BP management were invited to the demo in the training suite, it worked and everyone marvelled at the use and potential application of this new method of communication.
Focom Ltd later became Pirelli Focom Ltd.
Added by David F Thorn Friday 27 August 2010
Message received 15 August 2020 from Mal O'Neil who worked for Focom Ltd
I recently came across your BP BlogSpot which is
of interest to myself and friend John Russell as we both worked at Focom
Systems, operating out of the Leeds factory. In the early 80's we spent a
significant amount of time working on the BP Hemel site, Britannic House with
its high speed lifts, and other sites including LLandarcy, Grangmouth and
Sunbury. It was always a pleasure to visit BP as the people were friendly and
helpful. At the Hemel site we built good relationships with the Comms Staff including
Steve Tipton and those you mention, Colin Chapman , George Karvounakis, Ian
Perry plus many others but sadly their names have faded from the memory over
time. It was always a pleasure to spend time at BP Hemel and Britannic House as
you had a free vend coffee machine on every floor and an excellent 10p lunch in
the BP restaurant, novelties we didn't have much of in the industrial north! I
think I made excuses to call in when passing just for the lunch!
You mention the Fibre Drawing machine we had at Focom allowing us to produce
stepped and graded index fibre cable along with the fibre/data transmission
equipment we designed and manufactured from our base in Leeds. In addition to
the many multiplexers you purchased I should imagine many kilometres of
the cable found its way under the floors at BP. The Fibre Drawing machine was
run by John Russell in-between his Field Engineering outings which at the time
took us all over the UK installing this new Fibre Optic Technology. We
certainly felt we were part of the new communications era and working at the
forefront of Fibre Optic Transmission development with Focom Systems. Much
water has now run under the bridge since those pioneering days and reading your
articles gave us an enjoyable trip down memory lane as we both hold fond
memories of our time at Focom, BP and its staff. Regards Malcolm O’Neil
