Editing ICL VME (section)

==History==

When New Range was first launched in October 1974, its operating system was referred to as "System B". By the time it was first delivered it had become "VME/B".<ref name="campbell-kelly">{{ cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/iclbusinesstechn0000camp/mode/2up | title=ICL: A Business and Technical History | publisher=Oxford University Press | last1=Campbell-Kelly | first1=Martin | date=1989 | access-date=30 May 2024 | isbn=0-19-853918-5 }}</ref>

VME/K (originally known internally as "System T" for "Tiny") was developed independently (according to Campbell-Kelly, "on a whim of Ed Mack"), and was delivered later with the smaller mainframes such as the 2960. At the time VME/B was still plagued with performance and reliability problems, and the mainly American management team had misgivings about it.

There was also a project known as System D, which was an advanced, highly modular operating system designed for configuring and building customized near real-time applications. Although it was used to bid on a system for British Rail it was subsequently cancelled because of engineering resource constraints.

ICL had sold a large system to the [[European Space Agency]] to process data from [[Meteosat]] at its operation centre in [[Darmstadt]]. A bespoke variant of VME/K, known as VME/ESA was developed on-site to meet the customer's requirements.  

Following a financial crisis in 1980, new management was brought into ICL: [[Christophor Laidlaw]] as Chairman, and [[Robb Wilmot]] as Managing Director. An early decision of the new management was to drop VME/K.<ref name="beacon">{{cite journal | title=Beacon 1963-7: A System Design Ahead of its Time? | last1=Knight | first1=Michael | url=https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/resurrection/res43.htm#g | journal=Computer Resurrection | issue=43 | date=Summer 2008 | quote=For numerous and varied reasons, beyond the author’s knowledge or competence to evaluate, VME/K became not a success, but a trauma. VME/K was finally terminated in 1981 by newly-installed Managing Director, Robb Wilmot.}}</ref> Thus in July 1981, VME 2900 was launched.<ref name="campbell-kelly"/>{{rp|pages=340}} Although presented to the customer base as a merger of VME/B and VME/K, it was in reality the VME/B base with a few selected features from VME/K grafted on. This provided the opportunity to drop some obsolescent features, which remained available to customers who needed them in the form of the "BONVME" option.{{citation needed | date=June 2024 | reason=This sounds like insider knowledge, presumably present in the appropriate literature, however.}}

The "2900" suffix was dropped at System Version 213 (SV213) when ICL launched Series 39 in 1985 as the successor to the original 2900 series, and the "Open" prefix was added after SV294. VME became capable of hosting applications written originally for [[Unix]] through a [[UNIX System V|UNIX System V Release 3]] based subsystem, called VME/X, adapted to run under VME and using the [[ASCII]] character encoding.<ref name=bailey-2000>{{cite web |url=http://www.axis.org.uk/presentations/dbailey.ppt |title=The Continuing Development of OpenVME |author=Dave Bailey (powerpoint) |publisher=ICL |date=30 November 2000 |access-date=28 January 2014 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202103907/http://www.axis.org.uk/presentations/dbailey.ppt | archive-date=2 February 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.cbronline.com/news/icls_open_vme_turns_out_to_be_subset_of_unix_under_vme_applications_are_coming |title=ICL's Open VME turns out to be subset of Unix under VME; Applications are coming |newspaper=Computer Business Review |date=10 February 1992 |access-date=28 January 2014 |archive-date=28 January 2014 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140128140743/http://www.cbronline.com/news/icls_open_vme_turns_out_to_be_subset_of_unix_under_vme_applications_are_coming |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref><ref name="icl199305_coates">{{cite journal |url=http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/Images/ICL-Technical-Journal-v08i03.pdf#page=143 |page=473 |title=VME-X: Making VME Open | last1=Coates | first1=P. |journal=ICL Technical Journal |publisher=ICL |year=1993 |issn=0142-1557 |access-date=7 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305082038/https://www.fujitsu.com/uk/Images/ICL-Technical-Journal-v08i03.pdf |archive-date=5 March 2016}}</ref>

In 2007 Fujitsu announced a VME version run as a hosted subsystem, called '''''superNova''''', within [[Microsoft Windows]], or [[SUSE Linux|SUSE]] or [[Red Hat Enterprise Linux]] on [[x86-64]] hardware.<ref name="vmesupport" />

In 2012 the VME user group, AXiS, announced that after almost 40 years it would be disbanding because of the reduced user base.<ref name=axis-2012>{{ cite web | url=http://www.axis.org.uk/ | title=ICL User Group to be disbanded after almost 40 years loyal service to the VME community | last=Cloutt | first=Harold | publisher=AXiS | year=2012 | access-date=11 July 2018 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324065211/http://www.axis.org.uk/ | archive-date=24 March 2012 }}</ref>

Fujitsu intended to support VME on customer computers until 2020.<ref name=thereg-20220121>{{cite news |url=https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/21/dwp_1bn_pension_shortfall/ |title=You might want to consider the cost of not upgrading legacy tech, UK's Department for Work and Pensions told |last=Clark |first=Lindsay |website=The Register |date=21 January 2022 |access-date=24 January 2022}}</ref>

In 2020 Fujitsu transferred 13 [[HM Revenue and Customs]] applications from their computers onto Fujitsu's virtual managed VME hosting platform.<ref name=computerweekly-20201013>{{cite news |url=https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252490445/HMRC-signs-five-year-169m-contract-with-Fujitsu-for-VME-platform |title=HMRC signs five-year £169m contract with Fujitsu for VME platform |last=Evenstad |first=Lis |website=Computer Weekly |date=13 October 2020 |access-date=24 January 2022}}</ref><ref name=ted-20201012>{{cite web |url=https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:481324-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML |title=United Kingdom-Salford: Application service providers |id=2020/S 198-481324 |publisher=European Union |work=Tenders Electronic Daily |date=12 October 2020 |access-date=24 January 2022}}</ref>

As of 2021, the [[Department for Work and Pensions]] completely replaced its VME based systems, following the completion of its award winning VME-R replacement programme.<ref name="computerweekly20210326_dwp">{{ cite web | url=https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252498414/DWP-completes-in-house-VME-replacement-project | title=DWP completes in-house VME replacement project | website=Computer Weekly | last1=Evenstad | first1=Lis | date=26 March 2021 | access-date=27 May 2024 }}</ref>