Abandon of Bull 140 project

The origin of the Bull "New machine" may be traced down to the cancellation of the BULL G140 project.

The G140 program was, in fact competing with another GE system, a 24-bit second generation computercalled the GE400 developed in Phoenix AZ. As that of the GE-400, the G140 technology was conventional with discrete components, although Bull hardware labs had designed modular elements called "mini-modules" which could have been eventually integrated in ICs.

The G140 program was cancelled by the end of 1966 after its marketing announcement in Bull territories. Reasons of the cancellation were internal competition with GE400, high development cost and Bull General Electric lack of money. It should be remembered that in this period, computers were leased from the manufacturers and manufacturing new computers was a capital drain for the company which required many years to recover. This cancellation caused a large turmoil in French Marketing and also in Engineering that was very quickly deserted by many of its engineers who joined the Government subsidized CII.


The G140 project was the first system designed at Bull General Electric after the GE merger in 1964. The 140, later announced as GE140, was a medium range system 16-bits wide designed for tape and disc environments; the disc version was never physically delivered to customers. The design of its software was later "exported" to the CII as the design of CII IRIS 50. The software chief architect of the 140 software was François SALLE. Initially, the 140 had beendesigned as a member of a common product line with GEISI –General Electric Information Systems Italia– GE100 that eventually was sold very successfully by Bull General Electric

follow-on: Project Charlie