General Automation

General Automation, Inc.

Type| Public
Founded| 1968
Headquarters| Anaheim, California

Key people

| Larry Goshorn, co-founder
Products| Minicomputers

GA General Automation was an American company, founded in 1968 by Larry Goshorn (a former marketing executive and a salesman from Honeywell), which manufactured minicomputers and industrial controllers.

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.[1]

## Products

* GA SPC-12[2] (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

* GA SPC-8 (Nov 1968)[3][4][5]
* GA 18/30 (June 1968, IBM 1800 compatible)[6]
* GA SPC-16/30, /50 & /70 (November 1971)[7]
* GA SPC-16/40, /45, /65 & /85 (January 1972)[8]
* LSI-12/16 (January 1974)[9]

These computers were initially produced with silicon on sapphire circuit technology provided by Rockwell International[10][11] but yield problems caused a switch to conventional ICs by 1975.[12]

* GA 16/110 & /120 (December 1976)[13]
* GA 16/220 (July 1978)
* GA 16/330
* GA 16/440
* GA 16/460
* GA Zebra 1700/1750 (Introduced in 1985, a Motorola 68000 computer running Pick Operating System)
* Parallel Computers, Inc. – fault-tolerant supermicro/minicomputer based on Unix, acquired 1987, sold 1988[14]

## References

1. ↑ "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.
2. ↑ Datamation, September 1968, p. 137
3. ↑ "Low Cost Computer Has 4K Memory". Computerworld 2 (39): 7. 25 Sep 1968. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xdtOAAAAIBAJ&pg=3932,3357338.
4. ↑ "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.
5. ↑ (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.
6. ↑ Datamation, May 1969, p. 136
7. ↑ Datamation, November 15, 1971, p. 112
8. ↑ Datamation, January 1972, p. 5
9. ↑ Datamation, January 1974, p. 105
10. ↑ "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.
11. ↑ Datamation, January 1974, p. 105
12. ↑ Datamation, January 1975, p. 18
13. ↑ *"Mini Maker Offering Micro". December 6, 1976. https://books.google.com/books?id=-2ZtoSPs5IEC&dq=general+automation+GA+16/110&pg=PA50.
14. ↑ "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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