Chronology of Unidata 1972-1976
| Unidata was an
attempt to create a European company, to enlarge the national
markets, somewhat similar to then emerging Airbus Industries.
The confederation of German, French and Dutch computer makers
had been preceded by unfruitful negotiations with the British
ICL. Contrarily to Airbus, that was essentially the design and the manufacturing of a new airplane, each Unidata participant wanted to take advantage of their existing design. Their mother companies see more Unidata as a source of Europe subsidies more than a source of business. |
|
| Aug 1971 | Exploratory conversations with Siemens, that just loosed its precedent partner RCA, from which Siemens got licenses of Spectra7 |
| 30 Jan 1972 | Agreement between CII and Siemens to cooperate in general purpose civilian computers. |
| Apr 1972 | Negotiation between CII, Siemens and Philips for building a common company Unidata. |
| Sep 1972 | Conclusion of the agreement with Philips |
| 19 Jan 1973 | Formal signature in Munich of the agreement between CII and Siemens AG |
| 4 Jul 1973 | Formal signature in Amsterdam of the agreement creating Unidata |
| Sep 1973 | CII introduces the Siemens 4004, a derivative of RCA Spectra 70, in its catalog |
| 1973 | CII absorbs Siemens computers activities in France and gives up its CII GmbH to Siemens |
| Unidata partners
decide to introduce the X series. The X architecture is similar to IBM's S/370 and to Siemens 4004. X0 will be developed as an entry level by Philips, Siemens' X1 and X3 and CII X2 will run under the Siemens operating system BS-2000. The upper end CII X4 and X5 would have run either BS-2000 or a port of Siris 8 to the X architecture. |
|
| Dec 1973 | Dispute between the Fininfor (the CII holding company) shareholders. CGE (48%) disagrees with Thomson (52%) |
| 15 Jan 1974 | Introduction of Unidata 77-20, designed and produced by Philips. |
| Jul 1974 | Telefunken is
taken over by Siemens That take-over was made without Unidata partners consultation. |
| 16 Sep 1974 | Introduction of Unidata 77-30 and 77-50 produced by Siemens and of Unidata 77-40 (née X-2) produced by CII |
| 3 Sep 1975 | Philips leaves Unidata |
| 19 Dec 1975 | Dissolution of the Unidata association |
