Tandem Computers Ltd has been awarded a UKP6m contract for the supply of one of its NonStop Cyclone machines to Heidelburger Drucksmaschinen AG of Weisbach, West Germany. The four-processor fault-tolerant machine has been installed at the company’s main printing press manufacturing plant, and will be used to control most warehousing, manufacturing and distribution operations. It is linked with an IBM 3090, and two existing Tandem VLX processors are tied in via a Tandem Dynabus processor-to-processor channel that operates at 40Mbytes per second. The Cyclone and VLX systems will control component warehousing, batch production of sub-assemblies, bespoke final assembly and despatch of finished machines, while another two VLXs are to be devoted to software development. A smaller plant at Amstetten will continue to run some production and warehousing control on a Tandem six-processer TXP machine. The Cyclone, which replaces a Tandem NonStop II, is connected to over 500 terminals and a number of personal computer local area networks, and future plans include the implementation of the NonStop SQL relational database.
