RTC @ 50: Invitation to dine with Iann Barron in the Merchant Taylors Hall, on the 27th of June

You are cordially invited to dine with the Real Time Club on the occasion of our 50th anniversary to try and piece together how the tech world got to be the way it is and what the next 50 years may hold.

In 1967 an American entrepreneur with experience in the emerging field of ‘real time’ data processing arrived in the UK, intending to set up a software house. He was keen to plug into the local network of people who shared a common interest in the applications of this new technology, and organised our first dinner.

The evening was a huge success. Held on the 27th June 1967 in the Bourbon Room of the Institute of Directors on Belgrave Square, attended by twelve leading entrepreneurs and academics in the fledgling British computing industry.

After dinner, each person described his interest in real time data processing and the group agreed to a subsequent meeting to discuss particular problems over a good meal.

For the next 50 years the RTC has held dinners graced with a glittering array of after dinner speakers from science, politics, law enforcement and the media.

In the spirit of that tradition we shall be enjoying a fine meal, some decent wine and interesting conversation at the Merchant Taylor's Hall on the 27th of June and if you wish to join us, you may sign up here...

Was the Club a product of its time, or could it have emerged and thrived in any commercial environment? Will it be able to survive the continued changes in both the industry and its user communities, as real time computing becomes increasingly ubiquitous around the globe?

These were the questions in 1967; they’re just as pertinent 50 years on and can be asked of the next 50 years.

Our speaker this evening Iann Barron CBE will look back over the past 50 years of Real Time Computing and share a vision for the next 50 years. Iann was the very first speaker at the RTC and so it is fitting that he looks both forwards and back.

Over the evening ex-Chairs of the Real Time Club from the past 50 years will give a very brief overview of their time in the hot seat, spanning five decades of the Real Time Club

JOIN US for what will be an entertaining, informative and exciting evening based around ‘Real Time Computing: 50 Years On and 50 Years Hence’. Ask difficult questions, hear a slice of history and a vision of the future you could only hear at the Real Time Club.

Before he was 21 Iann Barron had designed a real computer, the Elliott 803. That was in 1956. In 1965 he started Computer Technology Ltd - the first mini-computer company in the UK, long before the term minicomputer had been coined – and designed the Modular One, the most successful UK minicomputer in its time.

1978 saw the beginning of inMOS International PLC, the UK semiconductor company – where Iann and his team designed the Transputer, a device which should have revolutionised the world, but even now, no one understands the ideas behind it.

inMOS International PLC ‘would have been a great success if it were not for Mrs Thatcher’ was sold in 1984 to Thorn EMI when inMOS needed a public offering to provide the funding to capitalise on the products it had created and before it had a chance to thrive and grow. It could have been the UK’s first ￡bn company.

He has gone on to start Division PLC, the company which created and has exploited virtual reality and continues to suffer from a persistent problem: his ideas are too far ahead of the market.

Real Time Club Dinners are held under the Chatham House Rule to encourage free and frank conversation.

Founded on 27th June 1967, the Real Time Club meets to network and discuss technology issues of the day, today at Merchant Taylors Hall in the City of London. Over the past 5 decades we have evolved a format of:

6:00 to 7:00       Networking at our open bar 

7:00 to 8:30    A fine three-course dinner 

8:30 to 9:00       Our Speaker will talk on

    “Real Time Computing: 50 Years On and 50 Years Hence"

9:00 to 10:00     Questions from the floor

10:00 ~ 10:30  Fine conversation and networking over drinks