General Automation

General Automation, Inc.

Type| Public
Founded| 1968
Headquarters| Anaheim, California

Key people

| Larry Goshorn and Burt Yale, co-founders
Products| Minicomputers

GA General Automation was an American company, founded in 1968 by Burt Yale and Larry Goshorn[1] (a former marketing executive and a salesman from Honeywell), which manufactured minicomputers and industrial controllers. General Automation was originally located in Orange, California. In the late 1970s, GA relocated to Anaheim, California.

In 1971, Ray Noorda, the future CEO of Novell, joined GA as executive vice-president. In 1971 General Automation increased its sales to $10.6 million and showed its first profit of $3,000. In 1972, sales increased to $16 million with net income of $1.56 million. By 1973 sales jumped to $30.4 million.[2]

In 1990, GA reported a loss of $221,000 on revenues of $39,248,000.

In 1994, General Automation announced it would be relocating from Anaheim to Irvine. It announced it would be phasing-out its manufacturing operations but would retain its 50 employees.[3]

By 2002, General Automation was doing business under the name GA eXpress, Inc. In 2003 GA eXpress filed a Form 8-K with the SEC stating it was may go into receivership.[4]

## Products

* SPC-12[5] (Jan 1968)

* Priced at $6400 and claiming $4,000 worth of free options
* Totally integrated, binary, parallel, single-address processor
* 8-bit data and 12-bit address
* 4,096 words (8-bit bytes) of memory with a 2.2 microsecond cycle time
* Shared command concept that permits the SPC-12s 8-bit memory to handle 12-bit instructions.
* Features included a real-time clock, expandable memory to 16K, a teletype interface, a control panel and a priority interrupt

* SPC-8 (Nov 1968)[6][7][8]
* GA 18/30 (June 1968, IBM 1800 and IBM 1130-compatible)[9]
* SPC-16/30, /50 & /70 (November 1971)[10]
* SPC-16/40, /45, /65 & /85 (January 1972)[11]
* LSI-12/16 (January 1974)[12]

These computers were initially produced with silicon on sapphire circuit technology provided by Rockwell International[13][14] but yield problems caused a switch to conventional ICs by 1975.[15]

* GA 16/110 and 16/120 (December 1976)[16]

These SPC-16 compatible computers were based on a two-chip microprocessor supplied by Synertek[17]

* GA 16/220 (July 1978)
* GA 16/330
* GA 16/440
* GA 16/460
* GA Zebra 1700/1750[18]

Introduced in 1985, a Motorola 68000 computer running Xenix or Pick Operating System

* Parallel Computers, Inc. – fault-tolerant supermicro/minicomputer based on Unix, acquired 1987, sold 1988[19]

## References

1. ↑ Hendrie, Gardner. "Oral History of Charles W. “Chuck” Walker". Computer History Museum. https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/03/102746020-05-01-acc.pdf.
2. ↑ White, Roger Bourke Jr (2010). Surfing the High Tech Wave: A story of Novell's early years, 1980-1990. Bloomington, IN: authorHOUSE. ISBN 978-1-4520-2303-8. http://www.whiteworld.com/cyreenikland/books/surfing/index.html. Retrieved 27 May 2025.
3. ↑ "General Automation Inc.: The company said Tuesday...". Los Angeles Times. November 30, 1994. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-30-fi-3270-story.html.
4. ↑ "Form 8-K". SEC. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000040443/000101968703002139/gaexpress_8k-100803.txt.
5. ↑ Datamation, September 1968, p. 137
6. ↑ "Low Cost Computer Has 4K Memory". Computerworld 2 (39): 7. 25 Sep 1968. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xdtOAAAAIBAJ&pg=3932,3357338.
7. ↑ "Across the Editor's Desk - Computing and Data Processing Newsletter: SPC-8, A NEW GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER FROM GENERAL AUTOMATION, INC.". Computers and Automation: 60. Oct 1968. https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_computersA_9801715.
8. ↑ (in english) SPC-8 general purpose computer. General Automation, Inc.. 1968. https://archive.org/stream/TNM_SPC-8_general_purpose_computer_-_General_Auto_20171108_0094#page/n1/mode/2up.
9. ↑ Datamation, May 1969, p. 136
10. ↑ Datamation, November 15, 1971, p. 112
11. ↑ Datamation, January 1972, p. 5
12. ↑ Datamation, January 1974, p. 105
13. ↑ "Rockwell Cancels SOS uC". Microcomputer Digest 1 (7): 1, 4. January 1975. http://bitsavers.org/magazines/Microcomputer_Digest/Microcomputer_Digest_v01n07_Jan75.pdf. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
14. ↑ Datamation, January 1974, p. 105
15. ↑ Datamation, January 1975, p. 18
16. ↑ "Mini Maker Offering Micro". Computerworld X (49): 50. December 6, 1976. https://books.google.com/books?id=-2ZtoSPs5IEC&dq=general+automation+GA+16/110&pg=PA50. Retrieved 7 May 2025.
17. ↑ GA 16/110/120 maintenance manual (B ed.). General Automation. March 1979. pp. 1–9, 2-1 thru 2-6. https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/generalAutomation/88A00509A-B_GA16-110_maint.pdf. Retrieved 8 May 2025.
18. ↑ Zebra 1700/1750 Hardware Reference Manual. General Automation. November 7, 1985. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/generalAutomation/zebra/88A00820A02_Zebra17x0hwRef_Nov85.pdf. Retrieved 9 May 2025.
19. ↑ "Parallel Computer Acquired 16 Months Ago: General Automation to Sell Money-Losing Subsidiary". Los Angeles Times. August 3, 1988. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-08-03-fi-6568-story.html.

## External links

* Computer History Museum
* Documents at Bitsavers
* 18/30 Fortran IV Software Data Sheet

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