In 1975, Xerox decided to sell the computer business which it had purchased from Scientific Data Systems in 1969.
In a deal put together by Harry Sweatt, Honeywell purchased Xerox Data Systems,[1] and took on the Xerox sales and field computer support staff to provide field service support to the existing customer base.
Comshare, a major Xerox customer, but with their own operating system, needed more capacity to service their rapidly expanding timesharing business.
This project was initiated in 1978, and the machines were sold at the original retail price and delivered beginning in the third quarter of 1979 until 1981.
[8] CP-6 included an integrated software development system which supported and included a set of language processors: APL,[9] BASIC,[10] COBOL, FORTRAN, RPG, IDP, IDS/II, SORT/MERGE, PL-6, GMAP, and a text formatting program, TEXT.
Commonly needed software packages (Pascal, SNOBOL, LISP, SPSS, BMDP, IMSL, SPICEII, and SLAM) were developed by Carleton University.
The system used communications and terminal interfaces through a Honeywell Level 6 minicomputer-based front-end processor.
A high-speed channel connected this host to a Level 6 mini computer, which provided processing and connection for terminals, communications lines, and high-speed channel to remote computers, including LADC and customers for on-line support, new version download and problem fix patches.
Product additions in the mid eighties included adaptation for DPS8000 Bull mainframe computers.