Not that brief and hopefully not too technical!
In September 2022 Hexatec will have been in existence for 40 years and I thought it a suitable time to record the technical advances made by us, starting in 1982 as the microcomputer revolution was taking shape through to the data-centric world we find ourselves in today.
These pages do not fully describe the sometimes tortuous financial route that a small hi-tech company situated in rural Northumberland had to follow. Difficulties with obtaining reasonable finance when expanding, with finding management assistance that understood I.T. which could help us continue to exist and expand then last but not least keeping highly trained staff for more than a few years all added to the roller coaster ride that had been Hexatec for over 25 years. Only when we decided to downsize and contract back to just the two founders did we achieve a level of stability; bigger is not always better!
I will say, however, that the changing state of British industry was to affect us in the years following 1982. We have seen a substantial number, probably most, of our early industrial customers in the U.K. completely change or simply disappear. First, a move of manufacturing by British companies to Eastern Europe and beyond. Take overs became increasingly common, often resulting in changes in policy which often negatively affected our customer base.
That said, we can still take pride in the knowledge that many of our customers, over the years, stayed with us for extended lengths of time. Our involvement with the Manx Electricity Authority in 1988 for example has only recently finished when our last system was replaced due to wider changes in the industry. Who knows how many of our systems are still installed and running?
I have scanned many documents from our archive and made them available in pdf format. These are available on the links you will find in the following pages either for direct viewing or for download. Please note that some of them are quite large! The documents and images open in a new tab / window - just close it to return to the main website.
Follow the links at the bottom of the pages to progress through our history.
Most of the images can be clicked over to show an enlarged version in a separate window.
Next: 1982 - The Early Days