 Ascom AG was created in 1987 through a merger between three major telecommunications companies in Switzerland, although its origins can ultimately be traced back to the establishment of the Swiss Federal Telegraph Workshops in 1852.The Autelca AG division, which had been acquired in 1963 by one of Ascom AG's constituent companies, was involved in the manufacture of ticket vending machines (TVMs); it provided British Rail with the B8050 self-service machine, hundreds of which were installed at stations across Britain from 1989 onwards.The EasyTicket system was developed while the Transport Revenue division, as it was then known, was still under Ascom's ownership; but as part of an attempt to focus on the telecommunications sector, the division was sold in August 2005 to Affiliated Computer Services, Inc for 130 million Swiss Francs.