ICON (microcomputer)

The Unisys ICON was a computer built specifically for use in schools, to a standard created by the Ontario education ministry. They were found widely in Ontario high-schools in the mid to late 1980's, but disappeared after that time with the widespread introduction of PCs. They were also known as the Cemcorp ICON and Burroughs ICON as it moved from company to company through the development process.

History

Although it's difficult to imagine today, at one time the difference between computer use and computer programming was not at all clear to most people. So while everyone in education agreed that "computers" should be a part of every curriculum, the actual courses at a high-school level tended to focus on programming.

By the mid 1980's most high schools had computers of one sort or another, typically Apple II's or Commodore PETs. The Apple was liked primarily due to it's color graphics, while the PET's all-in-one metal construction and "networkable" floppy disk system had obvious advantages in a classroom setting.

At about this time the Ontario ministry of education decided to look for a machine that combined the features of both, but was more powerful than either. Eventually a model of a PET-like machine with color graphics, a "real" networked drive system (including a hard drive) and a trackball for mouse-like pointing support.

First they went to IBM looking for such a machine, but IBM had nothing comparable and stated that they were uninterested in producing one for such a limited market (10,000's). At this point development was passed onto the newly formed CEMCorp (Canadian Educational Microprocessors Corporation) in Toronto, who started the design under the name ICON. After the machine reached the "beta quality" stage production was passed on to Burroughs Canada, who were to soon merge into Unisys.

The machine was deployed widely in Ontatio schools starting in 1985. As a school machine it was ideal, but the software suite available for it was never up to the same standards. Oddly many programming classes ignored the ICON due to it's "odd" Unix nature, as most machines of the day booted directly into the BASIC programming language which is where they wanted to end up anyway. As more powerful "standard" PC's became available the ICON was displaced.

Description

The ICON was based around the Intel 80286 (and later 386) microprocessors, running QNX as their operating system. On top of this was added a new graphics system based on NAPLPS.

The machines were housed in large metal wedge-shaped cases with the trackball mounted on the right beside the keyboard. The monitor was mounted in the same location as on the PET, but included a tilt-and-swivel stand instead of the PET's fixed-mounting.

The workstations included no fixed storage, and classrooms were set up with an additional fileserver that contained a 10MB hard drive and two floppy drives. Unlike the PET's simple floppy system however, the ICON used needed to use what were considered to be rather arcane Unix commands to copy data to the floppy. One recurring problem was the users didn't do this, thinking they didn't have to, and lost data.