ICL’s 40%-owned Marine Computer Systems joint venture established last year in Leningrad (CI No 1,158) has begun local assembly of its 8086- and 80286-based DRS 30, 40 and 45 personal computers. The joint venture – in which the Soviet partners are the scientific research and planning design institute of Morflot, the Soviet Ministry of Merchant Marine, and Leningrad City Council, is dedicated to applying computers to safety at sea for cargo and passenger vessels, their efficient use, administration of Soviet port facilities and automation of municipal activities. The new company has 70 employees in the Soviet Union, 30 of them at the Leningrad assembly arm. ICL shipped 2,700 assembled machines to the joint venture in 1989, and the unit has also sold two Series 39 Level 15 mainframes to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, and two DRS 500 Unix machines to the Soviet arm of the global Satellite and Rescue system.
