Digico Limited
Digico was a British computer company founded in 1965 by Keith Trickett and Avo Hiiemae, two ex-ICL electronics engineers. Former MP Eric Lubbock was chairman from 1969 to 1983. The company was based in Letchworth initially, moving to a new factory in Stevenage in 1973 and employing about 90 staff.
Digico's first product was a laboratory data-logging and spectrum analyser hardware system named DIGIAC. This product had been developed before Digico was formed, so was an immediate source of income. Digico soon developed a 16-bit minicomputer series, the Micro 16, for which it was best known for.
Circa 1982, Digico started manufacturing a networked CP/M based microcomputer system with business software options, named Digico Prince.
Digico Micro 16
Digico quickly started developing a general purpose 16-bit minicomputer, the Micro 16, which became available in 1966. Digico was assisted by the Ministry of Technology and the National Research Development Corporation in this development. The first version produced was the Digico Micro 16S, followed by the 16P, then the 16V in 1972.| Example applications available for Micro 16V |
| Animal feed mix control |
| Car park control |
| Census analysis |
| Electroencephalography |
| Gas chromatography |
| ICL 1900 front ending |
| Invoicing |
| Machine tool control |
| Mass spectrometry |
| Stock control |
| Typesetting |
The Digico Micro 16V had a standard memory of 4k words with 950 nano second cycle time, expandable to 64k words, and able to support up to 64 external interfaces. It had an optional microprogrammed floating-point unit. The Micro 16V was supported by a simple and flexibly sized executive that could optionally support multiprogramming, disc files and teletypes. The Micro 16V used semiconductor memory, rather than magnetic-core memory as in the previous models.
The instruction set architecture is single accumulator based with instructions generally having a consistent 12-bit address field. A direct address thus limits memory size to 4k words in the current selected memory region, named a "stack". Three instructions permit indirect addressing where the direct address contains the 16-bit address of the operand. A carry register supports multi-word arithmetic; there is no integer multiply or divide instruction. One instruction uses the address field to specify a variety of non-addressing sub-instructions such as shift, carry manipulation and input-output. Floating-point arithmetic is handled by software or an optional floating-point unit with its own registers that can work in 32, 48 or 80-bit modes.
Digico primarily sold into the data logging market until 1969, when it expanded into areas like process control, stock control and front-end processors for the ICL 1900 mainframe. In 1974 Digico had a turnover of over £1 million and in 1977 well over £1 million.
In 1978 the Digico Micro 16E stackable minicomputer, which was well suited to an office environment, won a Design Council Award for Engineering Products.
Digico Prince
Circa 1982, Digico started manufacturing a CP/M based microcomputer with business software options, named Digico Prince, with a unique seven year maintenance guarantee.A more sophisticated multi-user Digico Prince II system was also available. The Digico 3800 user terminal had three Zilog Z80A processors, 64 kilo-bytes of memory and optionally two floppy disk drives. Up to three Digico 3800s could be connected to a 3810, 3820 or 3830 master workstation with a shared 5 MB Winchester disk drive. Up to 32 of these clusters could further be connected locally or remotely to a Digico 7800 server based on a Digico Micro 16E, providing more shared disc capacity and remote access to IBM, ICL and Honeywell mainframe computers.