The End of ICL-CES

One of the challenges with a computing curriculum is that it is very quickly out of date. Technology moves fast, and as an example, AI has a brief mention on current UK syllabi. The jobs that current students will take probably don't have names yet, as they have yet to be invented. I've seen this all through my career as a computing science teacher and lecturer. Syllabi content has to be consulted upon, agreed and ratified. A particular syllabus will be in use for ten or more years. Currently I have to teach students about network hubs, disk thrashing, optical media, defragmentation and so on, because a question could potentially appear in a future exam paper. GCSE, and to a lesser extent A'level are currently undergoing consultations, and a revised GCSE computing is expected around 2028.

Between the first editions of the books (in the early to mid 70s), and the late 1970s, technology of course had evolved. In the late 70s, microcomputers such as the Commodore PET and the RM 380Z were starting to appear in British schools. They had VDUs that provided near-instantaneous output. Program code could be input, run, edited and run again in a matter of seconds. Computing was changing quickly, from mainly the batch processing model to the interactive local model. ICL manufactured mainframe and mini computers. A whole raft of manufacturers were releasing or about to release many different models of affordable micro computers. Initially when I first wrote this section, I thought that this was a problem for ICL, who didn't operate in this space. Evidence suggests that it wasn't as big of a problem as I initially thought. It seems that the creation of (for example) CESIL interepreters for microcomputers was encouraged and welcomed.

ICL didn't operate in this space, and this must has crossed the minds of ICL executives outside of the CES group. A large part of their ICL-CES programming element was based around ICL technology. Write your code on pre-printed sheets, send them off to an operator to produce punch cards or paper tape, which would then be input into an ICL mainframe, and then wait up to a week or so for the results. This was the modus operandi at the start of the ICL-CES program but it was becoming old-fashioned and out of touch towards the end.

Some students liked CESIL, but others didn't. Jeff Minter, the famous games programmer, didn't like it, and was frustrated with the old school method of programming. (Minter, Jeff, and Patrick Minter. A History of Llamasoft, s3.amazonaws.com/lsshop/AHistoryofLlamasoft.pdf.)

Schools had spent a lot of money on teaching materials where a large proportion of the course involved programming in a (now) old-fashioned way. So of course for a few years they continued teaching using it. Students were learning CESIL and BASIC, but making use of (for example) an actual Commodore PET sitting in the corner of the room. Some teachers with access to a microcomputer even created CESIL translators (see last comment).

The concepts and principles that were part of the ICL-CES programme were still valuable knowledge, but without an in-class translator, teenagers would have viewed this programming execution model as old fashioned, frustrating and not as fun or interesting as directly interacting with a microcomputer.

There is still much research to do, but I think I can understand why ICL sold the CES project in 1983. ICL itself was struggling with its own financial issues, partly due to the influx of cheaper microcomputers and increased competition from companies such as IBM, leading to a takeover of ICL by STC in 1984. Their product line did not support delivery of a computer studies specification, which wasn't a good fit with the incoming microcomputers. Acorn was seemingly in a stronger position with their home micros and also being chosen as the computer for 'The Computer Literacy Project'.

Acorn didn't republish any of the computer studies materials. They republished Computers, Information and You — a relatively small ~116 page book initially published by ICL only a few months previous in mid 1983 — first with just a logo change on the cover, and then later in a new style for a further reprinting. Work on the second book, The Information Age, had only just begun at ICL-CES before Acorn acquired the project for under 100K in October 1983, and Acorn saw it through to publication. However, Acorn were already in financial trouble when they acquired CES, due to issues with the Electron, a failed US expansion and the UK home microcomputer bubble bursting. Acorn quickly made redundancies, reducing the CES team from six to three and moving them from Acorn's new Maidenhead office to Cambridge in July 1984. Following the Olivetti bailout in February 1985, Acorn seemed to shift focus toward educational software and training materials — all of which was eventually rolled into Acornsoft. CES faded away in the aftermath. No more secondary books were ever released, and I speculate that all only work on the 11-13 Living with Computers series continued at Acorn. Independent computer studies textbooks were beginning to appear, although many schools continued to at least dip in and out of the CES textbooks until the mid-80s. (One of my ICL-CES textbooks has a loan date to a student in a class of 1987!)

The Centre for Computing History details the only materials released under the Acorn CES branding.