Metal Mickey, Mummy Bear and Daddy Bear

They are, to all intents and purposes, very similar computers, and all do more or less the same job - that is to manage the centralised signalling control of an area or areas.

Tom will probably know more about the origin of the nicknames, as he has worked closely with the old boys professionals who were around at the time all were commissioned. These trusted chaps have worked very closely indeed with all three.

Metal Mickey more than likely found its name when commissioned as a programme of the same name (featuring a large robot) was around at the time. Being only a youngster, I of course only have vague memories of the programme (but I suppose the fact I remember it at all makes me slightly older than I like to let on ;D )

Mummy and Daddy bear probably rose from someone or other in the old Computer Section. They are the proverbial parents of the system (and old enough to be grandparents as well ;D )

To treat the computers as living beings may well appear slightly odd. In fact I have often told trainees of the system in such a way you would think the machines actually talk. All I can say is that most people who have worked with them for any length of time will no doubt feel as though they do have some form of "life." One of them I will swear is in a bad mood for most of the time and will appear to act against you ;D

(and of course, that's why we can never clear OB31 when we want to )

EDIT: Just noticed Pat's post above (in between me writing this and posting it). I was always under the impression that Metal Mickey was the machine on the Picc. Tom will no doubt confirm.

Fascinating info.

Which photo on Anorak Heaven is of Metal Mickey? I'm assuming that he lives in Earls Court SCC...

Thanks Tom. Nice to see Metal Mickey/Evil Edna 'in the flesh' if you know what I mean!
A machine that gave us train-crew on the Piccadilly LOADS of overtime in the first 6 months or so after it was installed. Total chaos as it did all sorts of strange things with the train service.

One incident I particularly remember was finally arriving at Cockfosters (around 20 minutes late after blocking back from Manor House) to be held there for over an hour! Both I and my guard relaxed contentedly on a bench while other trains (also running about 20 min late) arrived and departed. We still had 3 hours left to do, so didn't make a fuss.

LOL! ;D ;D

Last time I was up there (1999) there were four PC's running win 3.11 running the desk. They've subsequently been moved out of the room, but still performing the same role.

Solidbond's story is partially true - the series of computers used were all used first by not only the US military, but also the British. The London Fire Brigade also had a suite of GEC4190's similar to Baker Street.

Some quotes from weblinks I've found relating to GEC4190s in general or the Baker Street computers specifially:

"When originally commissioned, the hard disks were of a size (80MB) which was quite large at the time. But these have now been complemented with additional hard disks up to the limits of the existing operating systems (1 to 4GB in size)."

"Steve Mowbray, Unix system administrator at Heriot-Watt University, had extensive experience with GEC4190 computers at Manchester University, which, he said, ripped them out seven years ago because they were too old.
"I'm not sure why anybody is using these big old boxes. They are clunky, and a desktop PC is more powerful than one of those," he said.
However, analyst with Bloor Research, Martin Brampton, said, "Unless they do a radically different requirement today, then there is no good reason to rip them out." "

"4190 (1982)
The 4190 was basically a hardware tidy up of the 4090. The old 4082/4085 external memory crates for a 4Mb 4090 system required several 6 foot tall 19" racks, and this was all replaced with internal memory on the 4190 (using the same 32bit memory boards as the GEC Series 63). This enabled the system to address up to 16Mb of main memory. The instruction set and appearance of the machine was unchanged from the 4090 (except for loss of external memory racks).
A new I/O processor, the FMC, Fast Multiplexor Channel, was developed, and this was the first 32bit wide I/O processor. (The company never actually developed any 32bit controllers for the FMC, continuing to use the existing 16bit controllers in it. However, one customer did develop a 32bit controller for it - a fast parallel I/O card which could be used as an inter-machine link.) "
(from www.cucumber.demon.co.uk/geccl/4000series/processors.html)

Int he abscecne of complciations*, a computer will do what it did at the same speed it did, when you bought it, in theory until the hardware dies. Its only when you start asking it to do more that it gets in trouble.

*by "complications" I mean things like adding more programs to it, each with their own bugs; OS updates that introduce more features (each with their own bugs); viri; etc. In short, a closed system is a good system for long term operation.

Windows isn't designed for realtime operations, its designed for the average home/office user, where the most realtime thing their likely to do is chat online. Although I image VOIP might have a lower lag tollerance, I don't actually know?
AFAIK some linux installs do well at realtime work, and DOS can even do it to a certain extent (MUCH lower overheads than windows). Microcomputers (which is the proper generic term for PCs/Macs/etc) were the lowest level, basic computer. The signalling systems are run by Minicomputers (mini being true from a 1960s perspective), which are the mid range systems designed to handle things of this sort of scale, or running a supermaket type level. Upscaling you get to Mainframes and then ultimately Supercomputers.
Today high-end microcomputers have merged with minicomputers and are known in modern parlence as "midrange systems" or "servers".
[/history lesson]

Actually, they do - I think Anorak Heaven has got photos of Neasden SCC's consoles. citysig has already made his views known on such technology...

Well, if you spend a lot of time and money on it, you can get Windows somewhat unstable

Besides, they only use it for signalling control - which is a whole different pile of eggs to signalling interlocking.

There are very quirks with Metal Mickey (and replacement) - you can't use one of the platforms at Arnos in a certain direction because there's a software fault.

The whole thing's now a pile of junk - but the Picc upgrade doesn't complete until 2014....