Allen-Babcock
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Allen-Babcock Computing was founded in Los Angeles in 1964 by James D. Babcock and Michael Jane Allen Babcock to take advantage of the fast-growing market for computer time-sharing services.[1]
In 1966 the company developed "RUSH" (Remote Users of Shared Hardware), an interactive dialect of PL/I.[2] Between 1965 and 1966 they assisted in the development of Conversational Programming System (CPS), a timesharing system that ran under OS/360, under contract to IBM.[3] CPS was a subset of RUSH prepared by IBM with the permission of Allen-Babcock.
The significant technological outcome was the first idea to alter the hardware of an IBM computer to enhance the performance of a time-sharing system on IBM hardware.[4] This was the first time such firmware was programmed by software developers for this purpose. Later tests showed increases of throughput by as much as 70%. Several such altered System/360 Model 50s were delivered to other IBM customers.
In 1969 Allen-Babcock held a 3 percent share of the time-sharing services market.[1]
During the early 70's Allen-Babcock leased copies of the RUSH software to several industry owners of the IBM 360 series computer systems. One such company was Procter & Gamble. These lessees sought to use RUSH internally to provide their companies access to time sharing on their internal networks.