Hilger & Watts

The company also had a factory at Loughton (Debden) in Essex Amongst other devices, the Camden location produced PDP-8 computer-driven X-ray diffractometers in the mid-late 1960s, one of which is believed to be still functional at Oxford University Chemistry Dept.

One of the production engineers claimed that the electronic research department in Camden (headed by Arthur Long) had PDP-8 No 4 from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), so Hilger and Watts was likely to have been one of the first PDP-8 customers.

The four-circle diffractometer was originally designed for neutron work at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment Harwell Laboratory but it became better known in field of X-ray crystallography.

At the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, University of Oxford, a 5-circle version of the machine was developed for protein crystallography which could measure up to five X-ray reflections in each scan due to the addition of a tiltable linear array of 5 counters to the detector arm.

[13] In Galway[14] a BBC micro hard wired to the PDP8 front panel and a reflection indexing program[15] were used to automate the Y290 (getting rid of the paper tape) and another group has described complete modernisation of the Y290 motors and control electronics.