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International Computers Limited

International Computers Limited (ICL) was a British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English Electric Computers (EEC) and Elliott Automation in 1968. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.

In later years, ICL diversified its product line but the bulk of its profits always came from its mainframe customers. New ventures included marketing a range of powerful IBM clones made by Fujitsu, various minicomputer and personal computer ranges and (more successfully) a range of retail point-of-sale equipment and back-office software. Although it had significant sales overseas, ICL's mainframe business was dominated by large contracts from the UK public sector, including Post Office Ltd, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence. It also had a strong market share with UK local authorities and (at that time) nationalised utilities including the water, electricity, and gas boards.

The company had an increasingly close relationship with Fujitsu from the early 1980s, culminating in Fujitsu becoming sole shareholder in 1998. ICL was rebranded as Fujitsu in April 2002. Fujitsu (UK) as the hardware and software supplier has been implicated in the British Post Office scandal, which has extended from the 1990s to the 2020s

The ICL brand is still used by the former Russian joint-venture of the company, founded in 1991.

Origins
International Computers Limited was formed in 1968 as a part of the Industrial Expansion Act of the Wilson Labour Government. ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM; the formation of the company was the last in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950s.

The main portions of ICL were formed by merging International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) with English Electric Computers, the latter a recent merger of Elliott Automation with English Electric Leo Marconi computers, which itself had been a merger of the computer divisions of English Electric, LEO and Marconi. Upon its creation, the British government held a 10% stake in the company and provided a $32.4 million research-and-development grant spread across four years.

International Computers and Tabulators (ICT)
ICT was itself the result of a merger of two UK companies that had competed with each other throughout the 1930s and 1940s during the punched card era: British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and Powers-Samas. ICT had thus emerged with equipment that would process data encoded on punched cards with 40, 80 or 160 columns, compared to the 64 or 80 columns used by IBM and its predecessors.

In 1962, ICT delivered the first ICT 1300 series computer, its first transistor machine and also the first to use core memory. A small team from Ferranti's Canadian subsidiary, Ferranti-Packard, visited the various Ferranti computer labs and saw their work on a next-generation machine. On their return home they quickly produced the Ferranti-Packard 6000, developing the machine, compilers and an operating system (before these were common) and putting it on the market by 1963. A feature of the Executive operating system was its ability to multitask, using dynamic memory allocation enabled with a magnetic drum as an intermediate random access device. The machine went on to have some success and sold in small numbers in Canada (Saskatchewan Power Corporation retired serial number 0004 in early 1982) and the United States.

In 1964, ICT purchased the computer division of Ferranti in another government-forced merger. Ferranti had been building a small number of scientific machines based on various university designs since the 1950s. None of these could be considered commercially successful, however, and Ferranti always seemed to be slow bringing its designs to market.

Meanwhile, ICT management in England was looking to rejuvenate their line-up; their latest developments, the ones used to develop the FP 6000, were still not on the market. Management looked at the FP 6000 as well as licensing the RCA Spectra 70. In the end it was decided to go with the FP 6000 as the basis for a small line of small-to-midrange machines. The result was the ICT 1900 series, which would eventually go on to sell into the thousands.

The 1900 Series, which derived from the Canadian Ferranti-Packard 6000, competed successfully in the UK with the IBM System/360 range from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. The design was based on a 24-bit word, divided up into 6-bit characters. Lower case and control characters were provided for by "shift" characters. The early machines (1904/1905 with hardware floating point) had only 15-bit addressing. Later machines (1904E, 1905E, 1906A) had extended addressing modes, up to 22 bits.

The operating systems (Executives) were

 * E4BM – the original for the FP 6000 (known internally as the FP1)
 * E4RM – a significantly rewritten version of E4BM, with parts of the operating system overlaid to save space.
 * E6BM – a rewritten version of E4BM for the later machines with 22 bit addressing.
 * E6RM – a rewritten version of E4RM overlay software for the later machines with 22 bit addressing.

A later development was GEORGE3, remembered with great affection by a generation of British programmers.

A series of smaller machines were developed by the ICL Stevenage operation, consisting initially of the 1901 / 1902 / 1903 systems running E3 series executives (e.g. E3RM) and versions of the GEORGE operating system (initially GEORGE1). Later developments were the 1901A / 1902A / 1903A with their own Executives and GEORGE2.

At a time (in the 1960s and 1970s) when IBM/360 series programs had to be recompiled to run in different machine and/or operating system environments, one significant feature of the 1900 series was that programs would function unaltered on any 1900 system, without the need for recompilation. Unfortunately ICT, and later ICL, were unable to capitalise on this advantage to make significant inroads into IBM's customer base.

English Electric LEO Marconi (EELM)
During the same period, LEO was struggling to produce its own machines that would be able to compete with IBM. Its parent company, J. Lyons and Co., did not have the financial might to develop a new line of machines. Not wanting to see its work go to waste, it sold its computer division to English Electric.

English Electric had developed a series of machines over the years, notably the famous KDF9 and the commercially oriented KDF8, but never had much commercial success.

Now with serious financial backing at its disposal, the new company nevertheless decided not to come up with its own design, and instead licensed the RCA Spectra 70 (the design ICT rejected). The result was the System 4 series. While there were a number of models in the range, the smaller 4/10 and 4/30 were seen as underpowered, and the more successful variants were the larger 4/50 and 4/70 models. A model 4/75 was also supplied to the EELM (later Baric) Bureau subsidiary and installed at Winsford, Cheshire as the hardware for a bureau-developed commercial system for interactive use by bureau customers. Although several multi-user commercial packages (e.g. sales and purchase ledger systems) were developed and tried with customers, this was not commercially successful, and the service was soon withdrawn.

The System 4 series ran the J (for Job) operating system. This was a batch operating system, although there was a variant that allowed interactive access called MultiJob. Under a framework called Driver, J was a successful operating environment for high volume commercial real time systems. Programming languages used were assembler and COBOL and Fortran (an Algol 60 compiler was provided but not used much, if at all). The system was controlled from a console composed of a mechanical printer and keyboard – very like a Teletype. The assembly language (known as Usercode) non-privileged instruction set was identical to IBM System 360 Assembly Language; in privileged mode there were a few extras.

System 4's compatibility with the IBM 360 made it particularly attractive to customers in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, as the sale and installation of IBM computers (and other American technologies) there was politically sensitive and commercially restricted during the Cold War.

Leo computers

 * LEO computer Leo 3 – origins in J. Lyons and Co.

Elliott Automation computers

 * Elliott 4100 – a joint development with NCR Corporation. Transferred to ICL but sales and development ended soon after the formation of ICL.

The following remained with Elliott Automation and were never included in the formation of ICL:
 * Elliott 503 – extensively used for academic and scientific work in British universities
 * Elliott 803
 * Elliott 901 / 920A
 * Elliott 903 / 920B
 * Elliott 905 / 920C
 * Elliott 920ATC

The 900 series were 18 bit binary computers. The 90x series were commercial machines. The 920x series were built to military specifications and used in military aircraft, mobile field deployed air defence systems and tanks.

Locations
ICL was concentrated in the United Kingdom, with its corporate headquarters in Putney in the London borough of Wandsworth.

At the time of the original merger, the company inherited extensive engineering and manufacturing facilities in West Gorton, Manchester; Castlereagh in Belfast, Stevenage and Croydon from ICT, and from English Electric in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire and Winsford, Cheshire. Manufacture and assembly also took place at several factories in Letchworth Garden City (the original home of the British Tabulating Company) and Croydon.

The company had a large research, operating system and software development and support centre in Bracknell, another smaller one at Dalkeith in Scotland and a software development centre in Adelaide, South Australia, between 1970 and 1973, application development in Reading, and training centres at Moor Hall (Cookham), Beaumont College (Old Windsor) (sales, support and software) and Letchworth (Hertfordshire) (manufacturing & field engineering).

The company also had manufacturing facilities in Park Road Mill, Dukinfield; later replaced by a purpose-built factory at Ashton-under-Lyne.Ashton under-Lyne's team was noted for working on numerous mechanical innovations in the field of computer engineering. A state of the art printed circuit board plant was built in Plymouth Grove, Manchester in 1979, however financial troubles within the company forced its closure in 1981. Other offices included a facility at Bridgford House in Nottingham which was the headquarters of Rushcliffe Borough Council, but has since been converted into apartments.

For some years ICL maintained a training and presentation facility for senior management at Hedsor House, near Taplow, Berkshire.

Outside the UK, ICL's offices around the world were mainly sales and marketing operations, with some application development for the local market. The exceptions were development and manufacturing sites arising from acquisitions, such as Utica, New York in the United States from the Singer merger, and a variety of former Nokia Data sites in Sweden and Finland.

ICL and its customers often referred to these locations by the Site Code, especially where multiple sites might exist in a town, for instance with the Putney headquarters building (now Putney Wharf Tower) being LON11 (London 11), the training college at Beaumont being WSR01 (Windsor 01) and the southern System Support Centre (SCC) at Bracknell, Berkshire being BRA01 (Bracknell 01). BRA05 was the new headquarters of ICL (UK) Ltd, the company's UK sales and customer service division which moved from its original base at Putney Bridge House (LON13) in Fulham, London to a new building in Bracknell in the late 1980s.

Early products: 1900 Series and System 4
On its formation, the company inherited two main product lines: from ICT the 1900 Series of mainframes, and from English Electric Computers (EEC) the System 4, a range of IBM System/360-compatible mainframe clones, based on the RCA Spectra 70.

, the United Kingdom was unusual in Europe for IBM not having more than 50% of the computer market, although an observer stated that the company constrained the size of its British subsidiary to keep ICL alive. Although still the largest European computer company, in 1971 ICL had a poor reputation. When the companies were first merged the EEC order books were full, while ICT (which had twice as many employees) was struggling, perhaps because it was already obvious that the 1900 series was incompatible with the rest of the industry, with an architecture based on a 24-bit word and 6-bit character rather than the 8-bit byte that was becoming the industry norm.

The new board decided that the 1900 should be phased out in favour of the System 4, but shortly afterwards reversed their decision. It is probable that this was due to union and political pressure from the Wilson government. In any event, most of the original EEC board resigned over the interference as they believed that the 1900 series was doomed from the outset, being incompatible with the rest of the marketplace. ICL initially thrived, but relied almost wholly on supplying the UK public sector with computers. The 1900s were sold in several countries worldwide, but the largest slice of the market was always in the UK, and the largest part of that in government, local authorities, and nationalised industries.

Until the 1970s launch of the 2900 Series, the UK government had a single-tender preferential purchase agreement wherever ICL could meet the requirements.

New range: 2900 Series
Even before the merger that created ICL was complete, a working party had recommended that the new company should develop a new range of machines offering "acceptable compatibility with the current ranges of both companies". This was also seen as a way to help "achieve company unity" for the newly formed organization. The resulting 2900 Series was launched on 9 October 1974. Its design drew on many sources, one being the Manchester University MU5.

It ran the VME operating systems, and supported emulation of both the earlier architectures (1900 Series and System 4), either standalone (DME, Direct Machine Environment) or concurrently with native-mode operation (CME, Concurrent Machine Environment). In the early 1980s ICL struck a deal to acquire semiconductor technology from Fujitsu, on whom they became increasingly dependent as the years progressed.

The term "New Range" was used during development for the product line that was eventually launched as the 2900 Series, the operating system being known initially as VME/B and later simply as VME. Models included:

 * 2950
 * 2955
 * 2956

 * 2960
 * 2966
 * 2970

 * 2972
 * 2976
 * 2980

 * 2982
 * 2988

These ran the VME and DME (emulation) operating systems, and were available in both single and multi-processor configurations, the later being known as Duals and SuperDuals (2966 and 2988 only). The company also developed:
 * A Content Addressable File Store (CAFS) that could be exploited by the VME file system and ICL 2900 IDMS
 * The world's first commercially available massively parallel computer, the Distributed Array Processor (DAP), that first ran as an attached processor to the ICL 2980.

Series 39
Series 39 followed the same essential architecture as 2900 series, but was a dramatic step forward in hardware technology. It was the first commercial mainframe to exploit optical fibres for central interconnect, and also introduced a multi-CPU (multinode) architecture transparent to the applications.

The series included:
 * Level 30
 * Level 50
 * Level 60
 * Level 80

The training video for the Series 39 featured the comedy duo Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.

ICL received the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for the Series 39 in 1988.

Operating systems
At the inception of New Range development, two operating systems were planned: System B for the large processors, and System D for the mid-range. System B was subsequently renamed VME/B. A third operating system, System T, was subsequently targeted at small machines. System D was dropped in order to focus efforts on VME/B and System T, renamed to VME/K (Confusingly, VME/B was developed in Kidsgrove, VME/K in Bracknell.) The first large machines (the 2980 and 2970) were launched with VME/B. VME/K first saw service on the 2960.

The chief architect of VME/B was Brian Warboys, who subsequently became professor of software engineering at the University of Manchester. VME/B was developed using the pioneering software engineering system CADES as the development environment. The architect of CADES was David Pearson (computer scientist).

VME/K development continued independently for several reasons. Early VME/B customers suffered significant performance and reliability problems, and the existence of an alternative product provided a safety net. Perhaps more significantly, VME/K was the brainchild of Ed Mack, who had been brought in by managing director Geoff Cross as ICL's head of research and development. Despite his wide responsibilities, Mack took a detailed personal interest in every aspect of VME/K design. To quote historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, "Mack had a good deal more autonomy than was good for the company." Not only was too much resource going into VME/K at the expense of the VME/B system that ICL's biggest customers were actually using, but the development of mainframe systems was also diverting expenditure from small business systems such as the 2903, whose sales were growing much more rapidly.

ICL's finances deteriorated during the late 1970s, leading to the appointment of a new management team led by Robb Wilmot and Peter Bonfield. One of their first actions was to end VME/K development. This happened just at the time that VME/K had finally reached a level of performance and reliability that made it saleable; however, the customer base was very small, and by this time VME/B (which was renamed VME 2900) had also matured sufficiently to give confidence that it would meet the future requirements for the entire mainframe range.

VME 2900 subsequently became simply VME and then Open VME, and continued to evolve. In 1980 it was marketed as "Your system for the 80s", and indeed that decade proved to be its heyday. It continued to give service to many loyal and demanding users, but has attracted few new users since 1990 or so.

Superstructure software
ICL used the term superstructure to refer to the compilers, data management tools, and transaction processing software sitting above the operating system but below the user application – a category now often labelled middleware.

2903 range
The 2903 range was a rapid development to produce a small business computer to replace the 1901A. As far as possible it was developed from existing hardware and software, but configured for an office environment without underfloor cabling. It was urgently needed to generate a cashflow that would support continuing 2900 development. The hardware was based on the 2900 DFC (Disk File Controller), and used the MICOS engine. The 2903/4 system cabinet housed the MICOS engine, Drico FEDS disk storage and a punched card reader. A wing attached at 45 degrees carried the operator's console which was a visual display unit (VDU): for 1900 users who were accustomed to the Westrex teletype as console, this was a major advance. The printers abutted to the wing and were initially integrated; they were soon replaced by the CPI shuttle printer and PBS. The printers ran at 300 or 600 lines per minute, selected by a hidden link.

The 2903 used microcode to emulate 1900 hardware. The operating system was George 1* (a modification of George 1S batch operating system) running on top of the UDAS Executive. In consequence, the 1900 compilers and utilities ran on the 290x range without any changes or recompilation. For some sites a microcode floppy was available that would make the system work as an IBM 360 running the IBM operating system, although this entailed changing the removable hard drives as the formats were completely different.

A new feature provided on this range was Direct Data Entry, a system with up to eight dedicated VDU data entry stations, with which card image files could be created; these could be assigned to a program's card reader and processed accordingly.

There were three models in the range:
 * 2903
 * 2904
 * 2905 (limited production, replaced by the 2950)

290x computers would run in an office environment, still quite an innovation for this class of machine, and were a runaway success. Roughly 3,000 systems were sold, ten times as many as ICL had anticipated.

The smaller machines in the 290x family were replaced in 1980 by the ME29 system.
 * ME29

Executive
The 290x operating system, known as 'Executive', allowed the machines to be operated 'manually' via a video console. GEORGE1* ran on top of Executive to control batch processes by means of JCL (Job Control Language), which was based very closely upon the macro language of the 1900 GEORGE1S operating system.

TME (Transaction Machine Environment)
TME was the operating system on the ME29 and required CL (Control Language) to run jobs – 'manual' operation being discouraged.

Practically all the software packages available on the 1900 range ran on the 290x and ME29 systems.

In about 1982, a new Transaction Processing System TME-TP was introduced for the ME29, with a subset of the facilities of TPMS (cf 2900 software).

TME came bundled with a hierarchical database management system called RAPID (Record Access Program Independent of Data). This was built around 1900 IDMS, and consisted of a set of user interfaces which provided a "user friendly" graphical database schema design and configuration environment, and an RML COBOL-based programming environment. Everything was compiled into the equivalent 1900 IDMS objects for use at run time.

Personal computers
Amidst the broader appearance of personal computers in the early 1980s, ICL introduced the DRS 20 – a multi-user system equipped with multiple 8085 processors and supporting multiple clients – complemented by the DRS 20 Model 10 (or DRS 10) as a client machine, accessing the DRS 20 system's resources over an ICL network. In this context, ICL's commitment to the emerging microcomputer market was questioned by industry commentators who regarded the DRS 10 as a missed opportunity, producing a machine whose £ price was elevated substantially by a £ network card that could have been replaced with a disk controller to deliver a competitive standalone, but network-ready, CP/M system. ICL later added support for running CP/M under the DRX operating system, permitting CP/M applications to be used on DRS 10 machines.

ICL launched its Personal Computer range in 1982, licensing technology from Rair and effectively adopting the established Rair Black Box product as its own, an approach described as "a prime example of badge engineering" in one assessment of the range. In common with the DRS 20 models, the Rair design also used the 8085 processor, and the Personal Computer range consisted of the low-level Model 10 with 64 KB of RAM, dual floppy drives and two serial ports; the Model 30 as an upgraded Model 10, replacing one floppy drive with a hard drive; the Model 31 as an upgraded Model 30 with 128 KB of RAM and four serial ports; and the Model 32, upgrading the Model 31 to 256 KB of RAM and eight serial ports. The Model 31 and 32 were categorised as multi-user systems. CP/M and MP/M were offered as operating systems.

In 1983, ICL followed up with more designs licensed from Rair, also using the 8085, and running CP/M and MP/M. The Models 15, 25, 26 and 35 broadly superseded the earlier models, utilising a faster 8085A processor that could be upgraded to the 8088 processor. They supported RAM expansion up to 512 KB, increased the base provision of serial ports to four and permitted eight on any model, increased the floppy and hard drive storage capacity, and introduced disk caching and RAM disk functionality. A Model 36 followed in 1984 at the top of the range, fitted with an 8088 processor as standard and supporting Concurrent CP/M. 1985 saw another Rair-derived product, the ICL Quattro, a multi-user system employing a single 8086 processor and 8087 floating-point coprocessor, running Concurrent CP/M, and supporting multiple serial terminals.

ICL licensed other external designs, adopting the basic design of the Sinclair QL for its One Per Desk (1984), whose interoperability with contemporary systems rested largely on the bundled Psion Xchange software. ICL also supplied British Telecom with various models in its Merlin range of electronic office products, starting in 1983 with the M2226 small business computer, M1100 terminal, and M3300 communicating word processor, all offering connectivity features. The M2200 series was augmented with the low-end M2215 in 1984. In 1985, the One Per Desk joined these models in the BT Merlin portfolio as the Merlin Tonto.

Departmental systems
For many years ICL marketed departmental computers under the DRS brand, standing originally for Distributed Resource System. During the mid-1980s, separate Office Systems business units had produced a disparate range of products including IBM-compatible PCs such as the PWS (an AT clone), small servers branded DRS, and a range of larger Unix servers sold under the Clan name. A re-branding in late 1988 pulled these together under the DRS brand, with a consistent grey and green livery.

In the mid-1980s ICL developed the DRS 300 in Kidsgrove, and ran down Utica.

In 1994 the DRS range was superseded by the SuperServer and TeamServer ranges of SPARC and Intel-based machines, running Unix or Microsoft operating systems.

OEM products
In the early 1970s, ICL signed an OEM agreement with the Canadian company, Consolidated Computers Ltd (later Consolidated Computer Inc.) to distribute CCL's key-to-disk data entry product, Key-Edit, in the British Commonwealth of countries as well as in western and eastern Europe. Models included Key Edit 100, 50, 59, 1000, and 2000. In the mid-1980s a version of the Key Edit 59 operating system was ported (in emulation mode) to the DRS 20 series and marketed as Data Entry 20.

Dataskil
Dataskil Ltd or ICL Dataskil was a software house, formed from an internal department known as the User Programming Service (UPS), that developed commercial programs and some utility software for the ICL marketplace. Dataskil also provided consultants and project teams to work on ICL's or direct clients' 1900 and 2900 projects. There were several divisions within Dataskil, including Consultancy Services, Transition Services, Project Management Services (PMS), etc.

Dataskil software products included:

 * {| class="wikitable" border="1"

! For 1900 series ! For 2900 series ! Others
 * 1900 Datadrive 1900 Datafeed 1900 Dataview 1900 IDMS 1900 Filan
 * 2900 IDH (Interactive Data Handler) 2900 LP (Linear Programming) 2900 OMAC 2900 PERT Applications Manager
 * Wordskil
 * }
 * }

1900 Filan
The ICL 1900 Filan manual (1st edition January 1973) describes Filan as: "'a totally integrated system for the analysis of large quantities of complex data such as that collected in censuses and other surveys'."

It was used to process the 1971 Indonesian Population Census. In the UK, Filan was used during the 1970s by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to process the General Household Survey data. As there was only a small user community, ICL decided not to convert the software to run on its 2900 range of computers in the 1980s.

With Barclays Bank: BARIC Computing Services Ltd
This was a joint venture of International Computer Services Ltd (ICSL), a division of ICL, and Barclays, that provided computer services. In the early days of computing many organizations avoided the capital costs of purchasing their own equipment and the recruitment of technical specialists by putting their work out to service companies, such as BARIC, which were known as computer bureaux. BARIC also ran special groups such as the Advanced Videotex team, which investigated how new technologies such as Prestel could be leveraged.

This company operated two ICL 1900 mainframes (1904E and 1905S, in manual and GEORGE II operating system modes) from its head office in Newman Street, London. This site housed management, sales and support staff and a large programming team (site closed late 1975). Sales and support offices were in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cork, Dublin, Glasgow, Stoke-on-Trent, Leeds, Forest Gate, Hartree House Queensway, St Paul's Churchyard, Putney (ICL headquarters) and Manchester. The Queensway site was above Whiteleys department store, and had been used in the 1950s and 1960s by the LEO arm of food company J. Lyons to run data processing and an early bureau service.

Chris Gent was the managing director from 1979 to 1985, when he left to lead Vodafone. In 1985 most of BARIC's bureau business was acquired by CMG (Computer Management Group).

India: ICIM
ICL had established a presence in India in its earliest days, through International Computers Indian Manufacture Ltd (ICIM), a partly owned subsidiary. As the name implies, ICIM took on some of the manufacturing of ICL-designed equipment, generally for overseas markets. In later years ICIM, from its offices in Pune, started to establish a presence in the market for offshore software development and eventually outsourcing of the operation of computer services. ICIM subsequently became a joint operation with Fujitsu, establishing links to Japan that were as strong as its traditional links to the UK. Reflecting the shift in its business, the company was renamed ICIL (International Computers India Limited), and again in 2000 to Zensar Technologies, a publicly traded company which has RPG Group as its largest shareholder.

Defence: DESC
DESC Ltd (subsequently ICL DESC Ltd.) was a subsidiary focused on defence systems spun out from ICL at the time of the Fujitsu takeover, to avoid concerns over defence systems ownership by the Japanese firm, as it was involved with battlefield systems which might be unconstitutional in Japan. These qualms were overcome and eventually it was merged back into the parent company.

Banking: iBANK Systems
iBANK Systems was a joint venture with Xcelsoft, Inc. of Canada to develop a Unix-based integrated retail banking system capable of distributed operation. Supported platforms included the DRS-6000 and DRS-3000, and the product was written in COBOL with some 'glue' written in C. The international team was based in Greenville SC, US.

The venture lasted from 1992 through 1995 when the two companies dissolved the relationship and each went forward independently, thereby forking the project. The ICL branch was renamed Fujitsu-ICL International Banking Products, and continued operations until 2000 when ICL withdrew completely from operations in North America. Customers of iBANK Systems included Moscow Savings Bank (Russia), Suprimex (Russia), Chelindbank (Russia, project cancelled at the try-test phase), Mineral Bank (Bulgaria), Romanian Bank for Development (Romania), PTC (Zimbabwe), People's Own Savings Bank (Zimbabwe), Mutual Bank of the Caribbean (Barbados), National Commercial Bank (Jamaica), and Caisse Populaire (Canada).

ICL Pathway and the Horizon system
In May 1996, ICL Pathway Limited (later Fujitsu Services (Pathway) Limited) was awarded the private finance initiative contract to develop the Horizon IT system to modernize Post Office and Benefits Agency operations. The project encountered a number of delays and setbacks during development, causing the Benefits Agency to abandon it in 1999, which led to a £180 million write-off at ICL and £571 million at the Post Office. The project in large part led to reputational damage to the ICL brand, causing the renaming of the company to Fujitsu Services in April 2002, and later to just Fujitsu.

Horizon provided both a replacement for the Post Office's paper-based in-branch accounting, and point-of-sale functions. In 2004, Fujitsu described Horizon as "Europe's largest non-military IT contract". Richard Christou, who was chief executive from 2000 to 2004, later stated he led the original commercial negotiations on the Pathway project, and over the following 25 years it had been ICL and Fujitsu UK's "most profitable" project.

Data from Horizon was later used to prosecute more than 900 sub-postmasters over unexplained losses, but it was found by the High Court in 2019 that "bugs, errors and defects" within the system could have caused the shortfalls. As of 2023, offers of compensation totalled more than £120 million and a public enquiry into the matter is ongoing.

Corporate history
This section describes the various takeovers of and by ICL that followed its formation in 1969.

Singer Business Machines
Early in 1976, ICL acquired the international (that is, non-US) part of Singer Business Machines. The Singer group, a holding company which had diversified by adding many divisions, the most well-known of which was its early roots in sewing machines, and others such as the Business Machine division which was acquired by purchasing Friden, a San Leandro computer company, whose flagship product was the System Ten, a small business minicomputer. SBM had also acquired Cogar Corporation, a manufacturer of desktop intelligent terminals in Utica, New York, which after the ICL acquisition became the development and manufacturing plant for both minicomputers and terminals. The acquisition shifted the geographical balance of ICL's sales away from the UK, and also gave a presence in industry markets such as retail and manufacturing. ICL subsequently developed the System Ten into the System 25, and used the product to spearhead the growth of its Retail Systems business during the 1980s.

1981 crisis
ICL was in financial difficulty in 1981, with weak export performance against American and Japanese competition, and a takeover by an American manufacturer seemed likely. Christophor Laidlaw, deputy chairman of BP, was appointed as chairman and achieved a financial reconstruction, supported by loan guarantees from the government; he also oversaw the start of a technology agreement with Japan's Fujitsu. In 1984, Laidlaw was succeeded by Sir Michael Edwardes, previously chairman of motor manufacturer British Leyland.

STC
On 26 July 1984 a £400 million takeover bid for ICL arrived from Sir Kenneth Corfield, head of Standard Telephones and Cables. The stated rationale was the predicted convergence of computers and telecommunications. The ICL board recommended acceptance of the bid, and the takeover was completed on 10 September. Sir Michael Edwardes, who had been chairman for just six months, resigned, and Laidlaw returned briefly as chairman. Robb Wilmot, who had arrived as managing director in 1981 (at the age of 36) remained, along with Peter Bonfield as marketing director.

The takeover caused losses at STC, leading in 1985 to a rights issue and Corfield's replacement by Lord Keith as STC chairman, with Arthur Walsh as chief executive. Wilmot resigned, and Bonfield was appointed chairman and managing director of ICL. Within a few years ICL was contributing 60% of the profits and turnover of the combined group. Bonfield was appointed CBE for his role in turning the company around.

Datachecker
In 1988 STC acquired US retail systems specialist Datachecker Systems from National Semiconductor Corporation. At the time this was the second largest supplier in the US retail market, and greatly expanded ICL's US presence.

Regnecentralen
In 1989, ICL acquired Regnecentralen of Denmark, a company with a distinguished history and reputation in that country, but which was best known internationally for its front-end communications handling equipment.

Computer Consoles Inc
Also in 1989 STC acquired CCI, suppliers of ICL's Clan 5, 6 and 7 ranges (later DRS 500) and originator of OfficePower. By 1990 CCI's Computer Products Division in Irvine, California, and Office Products Centre in Reston, Virginia, had been transferred to ICL.

Nokia Data
In 1991 ICL acquired Nokia Data, part of Nokia. Nokia Data was itself the result of Nokia's mid-1980s acquisition of Ericsson Information Systems, whose origins lay in the purchase by Ericsson of the computer business of Saab, known as Datasaab. ICL's acquisition (at a price of around £250m) added 9,500 employees to the company (7,000 of them in Finland and Sweden), and brought with it a PC manufacturing capability, a suite of desktop software products, and more importantly a strong presence in the Nordic market and an awareness of the high-volume end of the IT market.

ICL KME-CS
In July, 1991 ICL acquired more than half of the Russian company KME-CS (Kazan Manufacturing Enterprise of Computer Systems, Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia). The agreement was signed between Peter Bonfield (President of ICL) and Mintimer Shaimiev (President of the Tatarstan Republic).

Fujitsu relationship and eventual acquisition
ICL's relationship with Fujitsu started in 1981, when ICL needed a cheaper source of technology to develop lower-end machines in the 2900 range to compete with the IBM 4300 series. At this stage ICL was developing its own large scale integration (LSI) technology for use in the higher-end machines, designed as a successor to the highly successful 2966 processor (known internally as S3). ICL had visited a number of companies during 1980, including Fujitsu and Hitachi, to identify potential suppliers.

As part of the 1981 restructuring, Robb Wilmot – an electronics engineer and former head of Texas Instruments' British-based calculator operation – arrived as CEO in May 1981. He cancelled in-house LSI technology development, and negotiated an agreement that gave access to Fujitsu's LSI and packaging technologies, which, when combined with ICL's in-house CAD capability, enabled ICL to design and manufacture the DM1 and Estriel machines, later marketed profitably as Series 39 level 30 and 80.

Initially the collaboration with Fujitsu was presented as being an arm's length one, to avoid diluting ICL's credentials as a European and British company. However, Fujitsu's involvement with ICL at both the financial and the technical level steadily increased over the subsequent two decades, and in 1990 Fujitsu acquired 80% of ICL plc from its parent STC plc, paying US$1.29 billion. In 1998 Fujitsu became ICL's sole shareholder and the ICL brand was dropped in 2002.

Long term chief executive Keith Todd, in place for 13 years, planned to float ICL on the stock exchange, but due to on and off financial difficulties from some units of the company and the realisation that the parts of ICL sold separately were worth a lot more on the market than ICL as a whole, this was abandoned in 2000. Todd resigned and was replaced by Richard Christou, who dismantled the complicated matrix management structure, rationalised the balance sheet and sold some smaller units. One of ICL's past acquisitions, CFM (Computer Facilities Management), was a key profitable outsourcing unit which originated from local government and managed both ICL and other manufacturer large customer installations. Christou expanded this unit moving the company further into services and away from being a computer supplier. Christou later said "big outsourcing contracts, despite all their problems, actually were, and still are, the profit drivers in ICL".

Fujitsu Siemens
Following the acquisition of Nokia Data in 1991, personal computers and servers were marketed under the ICL brand. This changed when Fujitsu Siemens Computers was formed in 1999 as a joint venture between Fujitsu and Siemens. The joint venture absorbed all ICL's hardware business with the exception of VME mainframes, and all the business of Siemens Nixdorf with the exception of its banking and retail systems. Fujitsu Siemens was merged back into Fujitsu in 2009.

PC Interworks Ltd
PC Interworks was incorporated in October 1995. It was created as a sales company, selling personal computer and other IT equipment to the employees of large organisations. The company, which evolved from a concept developed within ICL, began business with a contract from ICL to provide computer related products to its staff, as a part of its Employee Benefit Programme. PC Interworks was subsequently absorbed by International Computer Logistics Limited.

Transfer of ICL trademark to International Computer Logistics
International Computer Logistics, a British company specialising in IT repair and data recovery, secured the intellectual property rights to the ICL brand in 2014. It is based in Kidsgrove, North Staffordshire and was formed in 2012.

ICL Fellowship
ICL Engineers responsible for pioneering achievements in the field of Computing could be recognised through the ICL Fellowship, established in 1990 by then-CEO Sir Peter Bonfield. The Fellows represented the peak of technological expertise within ICL and directly advised the company leadership on technology matters.

title: International Computers Limited


text:
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is a full-length play written in 2000 by Edward Albee which opened on Broadway in 2002. It won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Overview
The tale of a married, middle-aged architect, Martin, his wife Stevie, and their son Billy, whose lives crumble when Martin falls in love with a goat, the play focuses on the limits of an ostensibly liberal society. Through showing this family in crisis, Albee challenges audience members to question their own moral judgment of social taboos.

The play also features many language games and grammatical arguments in the middle of catastrophes and existential disputes between the characters. The name of the play refers to the song "Who Is Silvia?" from Shakespeare's play The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Proteus sings this song, hoping to woo Silvia. It is also referred to in Finding the Sun (1982), an earlier work of Albee.

Characters

 * Stevie Gray: the wife of Martin who, until Sylvia, had been his one and only love
 * Martin Gray: a 50-year-old award-winning architect who falls in love with a goat
 * Billy Gray: Stevie and Martin's gay, emotionally sensitive, 17-year-old son
 * Ross Tuttle: a family friend and host of a television program

Scene 1
It is Martin's 50th birthday. In his suburban living room, he and his wife Stevie prepare to be interviewed on television by their friend Ross. Martin seems distracted and cannot remember anything. Stevie casually asks Martin about a woman's business card in his pocket and his odd scent. Martin denies having an affair with a woman, but confesses to falling in love with a goat named Sylvia. Stevie laughs it off, thinking it is a joke. Stevie leaves when Ross arrives. Ross begins interviewing Martin, congratulating him for being the youngest man ever to win the Pritzker Prize and recently being chosen to design a multi-billion-dollar city. However, Ross soon becomes frustrated with Martin’s inability to concentrate on the interview. Martin confides that the reason for his absent-mindedness is his affair with Sylvia, which began during his search for a country home. Amazed that Martin could fall in love with anyone but Stevie, Ross asks repeatedly, "Who is Sylvia?" Martin reveals a photo of Sylvia and Ross screams that Sylvia is a goat.

Scene 2
Ross has written Stevie a letter regarding Martin's affair and Sylvia's identity. Stevie confronts Martin about this, with their son Billy also in the room. Billy is shocked and flees (throughout this scene, he enters and exits sporadically). Stevie recounts the normalcy of her life before she opened Ross's letter. She realizes that Martin was telling the truth in Scene 1 and that she was right to worry about the business card and the odd scent. The card belongs to a member of a support group for bestiality. Martin claims that people like him seek animal company as a coping mechanism. For him, Sylvia is not just an animal; she has a soul and reciprocates his love. As Martin tries to justify himself, Stevie breaks various objects and overturns furniture. Finally, she exits, vowing revenge.

Scene 3
Billy enters the ruined living room where Martin remains. Billy claims that Martin and Stevie are good people and are better than most of his classmates' parents. However, he begins crying once he realizes that Martin's bestiality has torn their once happy family apart beyond repair.

Overwhelmed with a sense of loss and love for his father, Billy embraces Martin and kisses him sexually on the mouth. Martin pushes Billy away just as Ross enters to witness the scene. Martin angrily defends both his son and himself. Ross says he received a call from Stevie saying Martin needed him. Ross and Martin spar over Ross's letter and how Martin's public image can be saved from disgrace.

Stevie then enters, dragging a dead goat. With directions from Ross to the farm where Sylvia was kept, she found and killed the goat, because she could not stand the idea that she and Sylvia loved Martin equally, and were loved as equally by him. The scene and play ends with a tableau as Ross freezes, Stevie remains emotionless, Martin breaks down in tears, and Billy quietly tries to address his parents.

Tragedy
Albee places parentheses around the play's subtitle: "Notes toward a definition of tragedy". The original Greek meaning of the word tragedy is "goat-song". The play maintains Aristotle's six elements of a tragedy in addition to the three unities. The play's resemblance to a Greek tragedy continues as Greek theater is linked to Dionysus. As the god of ritual madness, he inspires ecstasy that frees his followers from fears and subverts hegemony. Bestiality is considered taboo in contemporary society. Martin's relationship with Sylvia thus defies convention. Unlike the other members in the support group, Martin does not understand why bestiality is wrong when he practices it devoid of previous trauma.

On the other hand, Stevie resembles a maenad with her increasingly frenzied actions. The play also alludes to the Eumenides. Before the interview starts, Ross hears "a kind of...rushing sound...wings, or something," to which Martin replies, "It's probably the Eumenides." The noise disappears and Martin corrects himself because "the Eumenides don't stop." The allusion foreshadows Stevie's vow for vengeance, carried out to conclude the play.

The Goat is also a problem play. Albee questions, among other concepts, social morality in relation to taboos, the perception of female identity by contrasting Stevie to Sylvia, and the arbitrary nature of social standards and conventions by juxtaposing Martin's distaste for homosexuality with his bestiality.

Productions
The play premiered on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on March 10, 2002, and closed on December 15, 2002, after 309 performances and 23 previews. Directed by David Esbjornson, the cast featured Bill Pullman (Martin), Mercedes Ruehl (Stevie), Jeffrey Carlson (Billy), and Stephen Rowe (Ross). On September 13, 2002, Bill Irwin took on the role of Martin, and Sally Field took the role of Stevie.

The European premiere took place at Vienna's English Theatre in March to May 2003. Directed by Pam MacKinnon, the cast was Laurence Lau (Martin), Jurian Hughes (Stevie), Howard Nightingall (Ross), and Michael Zlabinger (Billy).

The play ran in the UK at the Almeida Theatre in Islington from 3 February to 13 March 2004 and transferred to the West End at the Apollo Theatre on April 15, 2004, closing on August 7, 2004. Directed by Anthony Page, the cast featured Jonathan Pryce (Martin), Kate Fahy (Stevie), Matthew Marsh (Ross), and Eddie Redmayne (Billy).

The play was produced in NSW, Australia by the State Theatre of South Australia at the Seymour Centre (Sydney), from April 6 to May 7, 2006. Directed by Marion Potts, the cast featured William Zappa, Victoria Longley, Cameron Goodall and Pip Miller.

The play was produced at TheaterWorks Hartford from April 2 to May 23, 2004, directed by Rob Ruggiero.

The play was produced in Ottawa at the Great Canadian Theatre Company under the direction of Lorne Pardy, October 28 to November 14, 2004. The cast included Stewart Arnott as Martin, Dixie Seatle as Stevie, Peter Mooney as Billy, and Dennis Fitzgerald as Ross.

A new production directed by Ian Rickson and starring Damian Lewis, Sophie Okonedo, Jason Hughes and Archie Madekwe opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London's West End, in 2017.

A production by Bulgarian director Javor Gardev, endorsed by Albee, premiered at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre of Bulgaria in 2009. The production received the Award of the Society of the Independent Theatre Critics that year. It remains in the repertoire of the National Theatre.

A new production by Sydney Theatre Company opened at the Ros Packer Theatre, Sydney in March 2023, featuring Claudia Karvan, Yazeed Daher, Nathan Page, and Mark Saturno.

Awards and nominations
The play was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (won that year by Anna in the Tropics).

Awards
 * 2002 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding New Play
 * 2002 Tony Award for Best Play

Nominations
 * 2002 Tony Award, Best Actress in a Play (Ruehl)
 * 2002 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actor in a Play (Pullman)
 * 2002 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actress in a Play (Ruehl)
 * 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
 * 2006 Helpmann Award for Best Play

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?


text:
Xenozoic Tales

Xenozoic Tales is an alternative comic book by American artist Mark Schultz, set in a post-apocalyptic future. Originally published by Kitchen Sink Press, the series began in 1986 with the story "Xenozoic!" which was included in the horror comics anthology Death Rattle #8. This was shortly followed by Xenozoic Tales #1 in February 1987. Kitchen Sink published 14 issues between 1987 and 1996 and it has since been reprinted by several publishers, including Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Flesk Publications.

The series was well-received and in the early 1990s it won four Harvey Awards and three Eisner Awards. Despite this, issues started to be released further apart, eventually ceasing mid-story arc in issue #14.

Xenozoic Tales also proved moderately successful under the title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and spawned an animated series on CBS, an arcade game from Capcom, a Sega CD video game from Rocket Science Games, action figures, candy bars, and a Twilight 2000 system role-playing game. The comic book reprints from Kitchen Sink and Marvel, and the continuation from Topps Comics, also used the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs name. The title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and the likenesses of classic Cadillac automobiles were used with the consent of General Motors, which holds the phrase "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" as a trademark and has licensed it for the comic books, the video game and the animated series.

Schultz's illustrated novella, Storms at Sea, published in 2015 with Flesk Publications, includes details which appear to provide a back-history of the circumstances that led to the creating of the world as shown in Xenozoic Tales.

Xenozoic Tales (Kitchen Sink Press): 1987–1996
The original publication of Xenozoic Tales ran irregularly from 1987 until 1996, often with multiple years taking place between issues. The final issue, #14, ends in the middle of a story arc. While there is no time-frame, in 2012 Flesk Publications revealed they had tentative plans with Mark Schultz to create an additional 80 pages of story to complete the current story arc. The most recent mention of this is in the last pages of the Flesk collection Xenozoic where it states: "The adventures of Hannah Dundee & Jack Tenrec will continue. Look for more mystery, mayhem, & intrigue in future Xenozoic stories!"

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Marvel Comics): 1990–1991
In 1990, under the banner of Epic Comics, Marvel Comics began reprinting Xenozoic Tales in full color under the title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. These editions had completely new covers, but only the first six issues were reprinted and the series ceased publication in April 1991. As of yet, these colorized versions have never been released in a collected form.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Topps Comics): 1994
In 1994, Topps Comics began running their own continuation of Xenozoic Tales, also under the title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. The series only ran for one year, in which they released nine issues. The stories were designed to complement the original series, taking place between in the midpoint of the story "Lords of the Earth" in Xenozoic Tales #10, right after Wilhelmina Scharnhorst is elected governor, but before Jack has been driven into exile. In the original story, that moment lasts for only a few minutes, but Topps Comics sought the permission of Mark Schultz to turn it into a "moment that stretches". While Mark Schultz did not write or draw any of the comics released by Topps, he was consulted on some of the story arcs to make sure they were kept as true to his vision as possible.

The series ran three main story arcs over the course of nine issues before "going on hiatus" right before the release of Xenozoic Tales issue #13. A fourth storyline titled "Hammer of the Gods" was in the works, being drawn by David Roach, but was never released.

Story
In the storyline, Earth has been ravaged by pollution and natural disasters of all sorts in the 1990s. To escape this, humanity built vast underground cities in which they lived for approximately 500 years. Upon emerging, the humans found that the world had been reclaimed by previously extinct lifeforms (most spectacularly, dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals). In the new 'Xenozoic' era, technology is extremely limited and those with mechanical skills command a great deal of respect and influence.

The two main characters of the series are mechanic Jack Tenrec and scientist/love interest, Hannah Dundee. Tenrec operates a garage in which he restores cars, particularly Cadillacs. Given that the post-apocalyptic world no longer possesses the ability to refine oil, Tenrec modifies his cars to run on dinosaur guano. These cars, of course, are frequently chased by rampaging dinosaurs in pulp style action-adventure stories.

Other characters include various criminals, politicians, scientists, and inventors who populate the dystopian world of tomorrow. There is also a race of reptilian humanoids called the Grith who cannot speak in a human language but instead communicate by spelling words with Scrabble tiles. These creatures have befriended Tenrec, and apparently have the ability to communicate telepathically with the dinosaurs. Added into the mix is Hermes, a half-tamed Allosaurus Jack raised, and who basically acts as the most threatening guard dog one could ask for.

Characters

 * Jack Tenrec – an old blood mechanic who runs a garage. Old bloods are a group of people who repair machines that were left over from the great cataclysm that forced humanity to live underground. Despite his gruff and stubborn behavior, he is considered leader by the people in the City in the Sea (formerly Manhattan) more than their governors; he starts an on/off relationship with the beautiful Wasoon ambassador and scientist Hannah Dundee.
 * Hannah Dundee – a beautiful scientist and ambassador from Wasoon (formerly Washington, D.C.). She came to the City in the Sea in order to build relations with her people, as not many trust them. Over the course of the comics, she becomes the love interest of Jack Tenrec despite their different views on things.
 * Hermes – an Allosaurus who Jack raised after his mother was killed by poachers; although he can be vicious to others, he is gentle with Jack and Hannah. He first appeared when he saved his beloved master after he was being threatened by one of the Terhunes.
 * Remfro Rhynchus – a reclusive yet obsessed oddball expert on zekes and their flying patterns, he soon builds an engineless plane that relies on thermal updrafts to keep afloat. He also befriends Hannah.
 * Mustapha Cairo – an engineer and a mechanic who is a good friend to Jack. He becomes one of their allies in their fight for survival in the post-apocalyptic world overrun by dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers. He is suave and level headed who does what he can do best in the tumultuous times in the city.
 * Kirgo – an elderly, dry witted mechanic who is a friend to Jack. He seems to know why some people hate Jack and want him dead.
 * Sheba – a wild card mechanic who sticks around the garage and has a close relationship with Kirgo.
 * Phu-tsering – a mechanic who is the kennel-master of Hermes who has a keen intellect and humble personality.
 * Ryder Corbett – an expert tracker who is a rival to Jack Tenrec. He is intelligent and crafty. Able to make a rifle powerful enough to kill a Shivat; also has a robotic prosthetic arm with two claws that looks like a Shivat hand. He is killed later by a mutated Shivat after a fight in the Garage against Tenrec.
 * The Terhune Clan – a family of poachers who are the enemies of Jack Tenrec; they have tried many times to kill him, but always fail.
 * Mother Terhune - leader of The Terhune Clan, she is small, old, and frail compared to her three sons. She is intelligent, short-tempered, and violent. She seems to hate Tenrec and Dundee. She is also known to smoke many cigars.
 * Hammer Terhune – an overweight poacher who despises Jack Tenrec. He is dumb as a stump but makes up for his ruthless leadership skills. He tries to kill Jack and Hannah many times, but always fails. He has two brothers named Wrench and Vice. He was later shot by Hannah after he took Jack hostage while escaping from an enraged woolly mammoth.
 * Wrench Terhune – Hammer's younger brother who is the middle child of the Terhune family. Previously, Wrench and some other poachers had murdered a Wasoon patrol. In the first issue, they plotted to kill the visiting Wasoon ambassador, in the belief that the Wasoons were coming after the murderers. When Jack intervened, Wrench tried to kill him, but Hermes came to Jack's rescue and bit Wrench to death before flinging his corpse through a window.
 * Vice Terhune – the youngest, most arrogant brother of the Terhune family. Like his two older brothers, he is a poacher and has a huge dislike of Jack Tenrec. He appears in two issues, the first when he finds an old case which he believes has gold in it, but later discovers that it has old American dollars instead. Later he turns to thieving, after the City in the Sea imposes a hunting license on all hunters.
 * Mikla Von Ermine – Vice's raving girlfriend who is obsessed with Vice, despite his domineering behavior and rival to Hannah.
 * Black Elmer, Sherman Spurgeon and Brick Flinders – Henchmen of Vice who also have a particular hatred towards Jack.
 * Wilhelmina Scharnhorst – the leader of the "Moles", a group of people who search the ancient ruins in and under the City in the Sea. She is a large woman who is determined, disdainful, masculine, pragmatic, corrupt, and condescending. She despises the old blood mechanics, as she believes that they are nothing but nuisances who stand in the way of progress. She runs for Governor of the City, after the death of Gov. Julian Gorgostamos.
 * Lord Drumheller – Leader of Wassoon, he is cunning yet ambitious in his endeavor to gain knowledge of the world. Even if it means doing morally grey acts to achieve them.
 * Chorthis Rouge –Drumheller's lieutenant and advisor who is often times a voice of reason for Drumheller.
 * Aduwa Steptoe – an elderly enigmatic witch-like figure in Wassoon who is a Mechanic. She holds a lot of influence in Wassoon and opposes to Drumheller's goals who allies herself with Jack, but Jack holds his suspicions for her.
 * Lord Balclutha – known as Balclutha the Hunter, he is an experienced hunter and aristocrat in Wassoon who is at first a rival to Jack, but gradually becomes a close friend in Jack's endeavors.
 * The Governors – The council who rules over The City in The Sea.
 * Gov. Nock – The figurehead to the Governors who acts as a "yes-man" to Scharnhorst.
 * Gov. Toulouse – One of the Governors who is the most neutral and laid back in his ideals with rare hints of any ambition.
 * Gov. Lorraine Dahlgren – The most flamboyant and savvy of the Governors, who may have had a thing of Jack Tenrec. She aids Jack's and Hannah's escape from the city.
 * Gov. Julian Gorgostamos – The deceased member of the quartet of Governors. He is a overweight man who seemed to be a kind and well-spoken to Hannah, but is later to be revealed as a cunning and cruel man who planned on luring Hannah and Jack into a trap only for them to leave him at the trap for hours. He is later killed by the Grith and his remains are found by Jack and Hannah. He has a bespectacled son named Julian the Younger who becomes an assistant to Scharnhorst.
 * Derek Wister – Director of the Calhoon Mines, he is known to be a sly but cowardly man who seems to antagonize Jack.
 * Big Red – Amaiza, better known as Big Red is a antagonist turned ally to Jack who is the leader of a female led biker gang that raids and pillages anything in their path. She is tough, ruthless, and charming with a leather uniform and long red hair, hence her name. She and Jack have a small affair, but Jack ends it quickly. She helps Jack fight The Terhune Clan and their plans in taking over a Vault that is Big Red's home.
 * Dr. Phileas Fessenden – a crazed scientist who strives to discover the secrets of what caused Slithers to exist, instead he turned himself and his fellow researchers into monstrous brain creatures that have telepathic abilities in the Great Swamps. Their tentacles wrap around their skeletons like ivy to ride on top of their former bodies. Though Phileas rides on a Shivat skeleton. He is killed when Felicia put him out of his misery when he was blown up by TNT.
 * Felicia Fessenden – daughter of the mad scientist, Phileas and old friend to Jack. She is head-strong researcher but desperate in finding her father when he became a mutated brain creature.
 * The Grith – a mysterious race of intelligent lizard men who cannot communicate in a human language, but can communicate with Scrabble tiles. They are said to be descendants of an unknown species of dinosaur. They are allies with Jack for some unknown reason and, later, they ally with Hannah as well.
 * Hobbs – Jack's contact in the Grith. He appears when Hannah was taken by the Grith, and then informs them that a settlement is about to be destroyed by an earthquake.
 * Wild Child – a human teenager who was raised by the Grith who wears a loincloth and animal hide boots. He wandered away from his home when he was only three years old and was then attacked by a pack of cave hyenas, but was saved by the Grith, who then raised him as one of their own. Ten years later, Hannah discovered Wild Child and tried to take him back, but eventually knew that he belonged with the Grith. Hannah reluctantly told the boy's mother that she had found nothing.

Prehistoric animals
In the Xenozoic Tales universe, the humans have developed their own names for prehistoric creatures. Below are the names used in the comics and the real-life creatures they refer to:
 * Slither – a generic term for any dinosaur or prehistoric reptile.
 * Bonehead – Pachycephalosaurus. A species of Pachycephalosaur with a bony skull on its head.
 * Cave bear – same name. Large and mostly peaceful bear, though dangerous if threatened.
 * Cutter – Allosaurus. A mid-sized carnivore, relatively common. Hermes, Jack's half-tame dinosaur, is a juvenile.
 * Crawler – Ankylosaurus. Peaceful but dangerous plant eating Ankylosaurs with body armor and a club tail.
 * Harvestman / Cogspider – giant opilione. Lives deep underground in huge colonies. If exposed to pressure at sea level, it will slowly die.
 * Hornbill – Parasaurolophus. A peaceful and gentle species of hadrosaurs, travels in herds.
 * Horses – one of the few modern animals still existing in the Xenozoic Era, they are used as mounts by many of the surviving humans.
 * Mack – a general term for ceratopsians, generally used for Triceratops or Styracosaurus. Easily startled herd animal.
 * Mammoth / Big Woolly / Tusker – Woolly Mammoth who are ill-tempered elephants. Hannah tried to catch one, and in a rage it followed them back to Jack's garage, before being killed in a run-in with a Mack herd.
 * Sabre-Tooth Cat – Smilodon. Cats with knife-like canines, hunts animals such as Macks and Mammoths.
 * Sambuck – Apatosaurus. Large sauropod, lives in herds and startles easily.
 * Sailback – a general term used for sailed synapsids such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus.
 * Shark – Cretoxyrhina. A species of shark that is mostly found in the waters surrounding the City in the Sea.
 * Shivat – Tyrannosaurus rex. The largest carnivore in the world, sticks to the higher regions. Mates for life. A mutated specimen possessed chameleonlike abilities and an ultra-tough hide. Its genitals are highly prized on the black market.
 * Shrike – Deinonychus. Small pack Dromaeosaurs. Also referred to as a Harrier.
 * Tree Grazer – Brachiosaurus. The largest herbivore in the world, lives in small herds.
 * Tri-colored Sambuck – Diplodocus. Large sauropod, lives in herds and startles easily much like Sambucks.
 * Thresher – Mosasaur. Large sea hunter, possesses sonar.
 * Triton – Trilobite. An early arthropod, in real life they were usually 3–6 cm long, but in the comic they can grow as long as 2 metres.
 * Wahochuck – Stegosaurus. A fairly common animal.
 * Zeke – Pteranodon. Scavenger sensitive to underwater predators. A flock was drawn to the city to warn of attacks on fishing boats by Threshers.

Locations
The setting of Xenozoic Tales is along the Eastern coast of North America during the mid-27th century, most of America's cities having been destroyed during the Great Cataclysm, with a few surviving:
 * The City in the Sea – the remains of Manhattan and the series' main setting. As its name implies, it consists of several buildings that survived when Manhattan was flooded during the Great Cataclysm. The Empire State Building was one of the surviving buildings.
 * Jack's Garage – a large garage that is both the home and workshop of Jack Tenrec.
 * Wassoon – the home of Hannah Dundee, located in the south and the remains of Washington, D.C. Its people the Wassoon are a tribe of scholars, but they are treated with disdain by many other surviving humans for reasons unknown. They sent Hannah to the City in the Sea with the hopes of gaining access to their library.
 * Calhoon Mines – a copper mine located a few days from the City in the Sea. It is where the copper for the City in the Sea is mined; it was once besieged by a man-eating Shivat until it was killed by Jack and Hannah.
 * Fessenden's Station - a scientific research station that is a several-days journey from the City in the Sea, deep within the treacherous jungles, and established by Dr. Phileas Fessenden, a scientist highly revered by the city. Jack and Hannah discover the grisly fate of Fessenden and all his staff there, and the place is torched and declared forbidden. The Grith later secretly inform Jack that the abandoned station is the "key to everything".

Animated television series
In 1993 Nelvana adapted Xenozoic Tales into an animated television show for CBS Kids. The show lasted for one season of thirteen episodes. While not a direct adaptation of the comic book series, many of the episodes featured stories taken directly from Xenozoic Tales. The show has developed a cult following and is currently available to watch in the U.S. through Amazon Video.

Collected editions
The original series has been collected multiple times, starting with Kitchen Sink Press in 1989, Dark Horse Comics in 2003, and eventually being collected in a single volume by Flesk Publications in 2013. Flesk also released a limited edition hardcover of the book after raising funds through Kickstarter. An Artists Edition was released by IDW Publishing in August 2013 and contains oversized reprints of the original art from issues #9–14 of the series. While these collections all contain the complete original series written by Mark Schultz, only the Kitchen Sink Press releases contain the backup stories drawn by Steve Stiles, though in 2012 Flesk Publications made it clear they were hunting for the original art from his stories for a future release.

The Epic Comics colorized issues and the Topps Comics series have never been released in collected form.

Awards
Mark Schultz has won five Harvey Awards for his work on Xenozoic Tales. He won three times for Best Artist or Penciller (1990, 1992, 1993), once for Best Inker (1997), and once for Best Single Issue or Story (Xenozoic Tales #11, 1992).

Xenozoic Tales also received two Eisner Awards: one for Best Short Story (Xenozoic Tales #12 "Two Cities" 1992) and one for Best Black and White Series (1991).

title: Xenozoic Tales