Milestone-Proposal:LEO: First Application of Digital Computing to Business Processes (November 1951)
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Docket #:2025-09
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To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation? No
Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes
Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes
Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes
Was it of at least regional importance? Yes
Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes
Has the IEEE Section(s) in which the plaque(s) will be located agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes
Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes
Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone? Yes
Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:
1947 to 1981
Title of the proposed milestone:
LEO: First Application of Digital Computing to Business Processes (November 1951)
Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance; if personal name(s) are included, such name(s) must follow the achievement itself in the citation wording: Text absolutely limited by plaque dimensions to 70 words; 60 is preferable for aesthetic reasons.
J. Lyons, UK’s largest catering company of 20th century, built the first business computer to reduce extensive clerical work. Lyons engineers developed LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) at Cadby Hall in Hammersmith, London, following the success of an experimental computer at Cambridge University. Computers had previously only been used for military or scientific purposes. Lyons realised the potential demand from government and commerce for business computing and formed LEO Computers Ltd.
200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.
The LEO I Computer was developed to provide business solutions, as there were no such machines then available. The complete process of development of LEO I from the vision, to the machine construction, to the training of engineering and operation staff, to the development of operating systems, systems analysis, and application programming, all took place within the one company. No purchase was made of a system from a supplier computer manufacturer. The building of LEO I started in 1949 and the first program was run in 1951. The last known operational date of a LEO built computer is 1981.
The first business application to be run on LEO I was Bakery Valuations, which computed the costs of ingredients used in bread and cakes. This was successfully run on 5th September, 1951, and LEO I took over Bakery Valuations calculations completely on 29th to 30th November, 1951. The name “electronic office” indicates the function for which LEO I was designed. LEO I was designed to process commercial applications. UNIVAC, for example, first became operational in 1954, 3 years after LEO I (Peter Bird’s Book Page 94). The ENIAC, EDSAC, and EDVAC family of computers were designed to assist with numerical scientific problems or to act as calculators.
KEY OUTCOMES:
The key outcome from a National Lottery funded project is the substantial new archive built up from contributions from the LEO pioneers themselves and from the membership of the LEO Computers Society: "LEOPEDIA" https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/52267/LEOPEDIA/
The National Lottery project also enabled the LEO Computer Society to commission:
- LEO Film 2021, celebrating 70th anniversary of LEO becoming operational: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/67107/New-Film-The-Story-of-LEO/
- Virtual LEO I, this enables people to view the original LEO computer in its room in Lyons HQ, Cadby Hall. https://www.leo1.co.uk/
IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.
Chapter Member: IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Technology & Engineering Management Society (TEMS)
In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?
United Kingdom and Ireland (UKRI) Section
IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:
IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):
Unit: United Kingdom and Ireland (UKRI) Section
Senior Officer Name: Professor Paul Cunningham
IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:
Unit: United Kingdom and Ireland (UKRI) Section Life Member and History Affinity Committee
Senior Officer Name: Brian Harrington
IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):
IEEE Section: IEEE United Kingdom and Ireland Section
IEEE Section Chair name: Professor Paul Cunningham
Milestone proposer(s):
Proposer name: Brian Harrington IEEE Life Senior Member 05480975
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public
Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.
Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):
The “Queen’s Head” public house. 13, Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BL Coordinates. Latitude: 51.4953 / 51°29'43"N. Longitude: -0.2181 / 0°13'5"W.
Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.
Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. The intended site for the plaque is the Queen’s Head in Brook Green as this was a location at which the development team of LEO often met. It is close to the original location, Elms House, of Cadby Hall, and is used by the members of the LEO Computers Society for their meetings, and by the surviving engineers who developed and built LEO. It houses collectables from LEO development and from the operational period. The significance of this “meeting place” to LEO I heritage will be described in a poster placed alongside of the mounted plaque.
The Queen's Head is located at 13 Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6. The Queen’s Head is a listed building of historical significance and architectural value. On 17th June, 1954 it was designated as a GRADE II* (Grade II Star) building. Importantly, this site is protected from any future redevelopment. The Queen’s Head was built in 1796, originally as two houses (Numbers 13 and 14), built for two brothers as their out-of-town villas. A later resident at number 14 was the Marquis of Queensbury. These houses became the Queen's Head public house in the early 1900s [1]. The highwayman Dick Turpin was a regular visitor [2].
References:
1. ^ "History of Brook Green Area and of the Friends". Friends of Brook Green. Retrieved 31 July, 2017.
2. ^ Benedict Le Vay (2007). Eccentric London: The Bradt Guide to Britain's Crazy and Curious Capital. Bradt Travel Guides. Page 264. ISBN 978-1-84162-193-7.
Are the original buildings extant?
The original development location of LEO I was within Cadby Hall, Hammersmith, London. Following the demise of J. Lyons & Co., Cadby Hall was demolished in 1983 and replaced by an office block, which is now in its turn to be demolished and replaced by new commercial premises. The current developers have shown a great interest in the heritage of this site and have worked with the LEO Computers Society to incorporate commemorative material into the design of the new building. This includes art work and a time line relating to Lyons and the development of LEO. It is hoped that, in time, a duplicate plaque will be considered by the developers for this strategic Central London location.
Details of the plaque mounting:
The “Queen’s Head” public house. 13, Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BL Coordinates: Latitude: 51.4953 / 51°29'43"N. Longitude: -0.2181 / 0°13'5"W.
The plaque will be mounted in a public room of the Queen’s Head that is accessible to all visitors of this popular and renovated public house and gastro restaurant. The Queen’s Head is situated in the West End of central London. The protected nature of the property as a site of special historic interest may prohibit the mounting of the plaque on an external wall.
How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?
The Queen’s Head will be open to visitors during all normal licencing hours, and the plaque will benefit from the security measures that are adopted by the business.
Who is the present owner of the site(s)?
Fuller's Griffin Brewery: Griffin Brewery, Chiswick Lane South, Griffin Brewery, London W4 2QB https://www.fullersbrewery.co.uk
What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include detailed support at the end of this section preceded by "Justification for Inclusion of Name(s)". (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)
The Lyons business was epitomised by the large number of office staff employed at their London HQ and the large number of waiting staff employed at their many restaurants across the country. Typically, profit margins on teashop food were very low with the margin on a coffee or tea and biscuits being but a few farthings (Cents). In the late 19-forties office management as practised by Lyons’ J.R.M. Simmons and T.R. Thompson [3] (both ex Cambridge University) was far ahead of that practised in most other British and foreign businesses. They believed that highly efficient ways of organising everyday work could be achieved by thoughtful analysis. This thinking led, for example, to the evolution by Lyons of Computer Systems Analysis derived from O & M and Operational Research practice.
In 1947, the Lyons Board agreed to a proposal by Simmons to send two of his senior managers, Thompson and Standingford [3], to America to study what advances in business processing had been made in America during the war period, including the then current research into electronic computers. During their stay in the USA, they were put in touch with everyone who was doing serious work on electronic computing, but they found that this concentrated almost exclusively on academic and military applications such as ballistic calculations.
Simmons had written to Dr. Herman Goldstine [4], a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princetown, asking if Thompson and Standingford might visit him. A visit was made to the Moore School of Engineering in Philadelphia where ENIAC [4] (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) had been developed for the U.S. Army Ballistics Research Laboratory. However, ENIAC was not working at the 1947 visit to the USA. Professor Goldstine advised them of a computer project that had just started in England at the Cambridge University Mathematics Laboratory. This suggested a solution to Lyons’ ambition of automating the routine aspects of the clerical work in the Lyons business. Goldstine offered to put them in touch with the initiator of the project, Professor Douglas Hartree [3]. On their return to England, they found an invitation awaiting them from Professor Hartree. A meeting was soon arranged with him and the current project leader, Dr Maurice Wilkes [3], attended by TR Thompson and members of the Lyons Board.
The Cambridge University project was called EDSAC [5] (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator). Like those in America, it was designed primarily for technical academic calculations and was not suitable for business applications, but Lyons at once appreciated the potential of the new technology, and this became a significant aspect of Thompson and Standingford’s report findings. With nothing else on the horizon from the electronics industry, it was recommended that the Lyons company could design and develop a computer based on the work being done at Cambridge. Lyons knew that EDSAC was short of funds for completion of their project. So, it was agreed to donate £3,000 (£74,000 in year 2,000’s money) and the services of an electrical assistant in return for guidance in designing a computer for Lyons’ own purposes. This was to be the start of a very good relationship between Lyons and Cambridge University.
To the public, J. Lyons and Co. were best known for their chain of teashops, with 250 open across the country at any one time. The first of these opened in London’s Piccadilly in 1894 and finally closed in 1981. The company was a substantial food manufacturer, with factories at Cadby Hall in Hammersmith, London, U.K., and from 1921 at Greenford U.K., producing bread, cakes, pies, tea, coffee, and ice cream. It was the UK’s largest catering company of 20th century. The company also ran high class restaurants, founding the Trocadero in London’s Piccadilly Circus in 1895, and hotels including the Strand Palace, opened in 1909, the Regent Palace, opened in 1915, and the Cumberland Hotel, opened in 1933, all in London. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their art deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, the Strand, and Tottenham Court Road, they, and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue, were large buildings on four or five floors. Lyons’ chains have included Steak Houses (1961–1988), Wimpy Bars (1953–1976), Baskin-Robbins (1974–present) and Dunkin' Donuts (1989–present).
LEO Computer Origins:
Early computing devices, some mechanical or electro-mechanical, others analogue and digital, converged on ENIAC, or more broadly on the several electronic devices of a similar nature conceived and built at that time. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. It was Turing-complete and able to solve a large class of numerical problems. However, ENIAC could not store programs and had to be re-configured for each job. That is, mechanical and electro-mechanical circuit changes were needed.
From ENIAC, Eckert and Mauchly started work on a new design, to be later called the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) which would be both simpler and more powerful. In 1944 Eckert wrote his description of a memory unit (the mercury delay line [6]) which would hold both the data and program. Unlike ENIAC, EDVAC [4] was binary rather than decimal, and was designed to be a stored-program computer.
The machine constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England, EDSAC [5] (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), was the second electronic digital stored-program computer to go into service. Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC [7], Maurice Wilkes was able to build upon experience from war-time radar to develop the mercury delay-line for memory storage.
EDSAC’s first program was run in 1949, completing the squares of all numbers from 0 to 99. Maurice Wilkes’ success at Cambridge endorsed Lyons’ decision to proceed with their own computer development. Lyons received the intellectual property rights to use EDSAC concepts for business purposes, and in 1949 a request at Cadby Hall to set-up a workshop to build LEO I was made.
The LEO I [8] digital computer, the Lyons Electronic Office I, was designed and built by Dr John Pinkerton [3] under the leadership of John Simmons [3]. It handled the company's accounts and logistics. The development of the computer and the subsequent computer operations all took place at Lyons’ major manufacturing operation in Cadby Hall, Hammersmith, London. It was not a copy of Maurice Wilkes’ EDSAC. Hardware, software, and peripherals development were all needed to process commercial applications. EDSAC did not have the hardware architecture or the capacity to handle manufacturing or commercial work. Computer applications for cash handling, picking lists, set-up of vans for delivery, streamline of manufacturing, and ordering, were analysed and programmed. The first business application to be run on LEO was Bakery Valuations, which computed the costs of ingredients used in bread and cakes. This was successfully run on 5th September, 1951, and LEO took over Bakery Valuations calculations completely on 29th to 30th November, 1951. The building of LEO started in 1949 and the first program was run in 1951.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt called this "the world's first office computer", built in 1951.
References:
3. Reference to LEO personalities is to be found in LEOPEDIA - “People”. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/sec/50391/People/ 4. ENIAC: Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC 5. EDSAC: Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDSAC 6. Delay-line memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-line_memory 7. First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Draft_of_a_Report_on_the_EDVAC 8. LEO I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) 9. AIT Trust: Archives of IT - LEO https://archivesit.org.uk/leo/
What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?
At the initial design stage, Thompson and Standingford had considered requirements for delivering data and programs at a high-speed to the machine. Recording the input and output data in binary form on spools of magnetized wire, as was the practice to record sound for broadcasting, seemed attractive.
STC (Standard Telephones and Cables) had relevant experience and were keen to be involved. However, at the time (1951) when LEO I was nearing delivery STC were found to be experiencing persistent problems: STC had not mastered a way to stop– start a spool of tape running at high speed with accuracy, and the decimal-binary converter was unreliable.
Pinkerton decided to use the tried and tested technology of paper tape and punched card readers with additional buffers in the form of short delay lines to compensate for the slower speed. The technology using a spooled magnetized media was later available for LEO II.
Operationally, the LEO series of computers proved to be extremely reliable. However, LEO I was a tube (valve) development and could be subject to electronic interference and valve shock. Electronic shock to tubes (valves) was minimized by not turning the machine off. The process of “Egg-Boxing” was followed for changing batches of valves, not individual valves. Memory delay-lines could be subject to vibration or physical shock from office activities which could affect memory storage. The modular design was manufactured by a supplier organisation as standard size plug-in units, but initially with harnesses of parallel wiring. The resulting inductive and capacitance pick-up caused the adoption of point-to-point wiring to be adopted; although messy.
The process of switching LEO I on and off was a non-trivial activity.
What features set this work apart from similar achievements?
The complete process of development of LEO I from the vision, to the machine construction, to the training of engineering and operation staff, to the development of operating systems, systems analysis, and application programming, all took place within one company. No purchase was made of a system from a supplier computer manufacturer.
The name “electronic office” indicates the function for which LEO I was designed. LEO I was designed to process commercial applications. The ENIAC, EDSAC, and EDVAC family of computers were designed to assist with scientific numerical problems or to act as calculators.
The Lyons Electronic Office (LEO), was designed and built to handle the company's accounts and logistics by Dr John Pinkerton under the leadership of John Simmons. LEO was not a copy of EDSAC. The hardware design and manufacture under Pinkerton, Lenaerts, Ray Shaw, and Ernest Kaye, encompassed many improvements in performance and reliability, that were necessary to enable the Lyons Computer to operate and to support a large and complex manufacturing and supply organisation.
The design included many World-First developments: • Lyons conceived the idea of using electronic computers for business administration before anybody else. • Caminer specified the first business application of computers both in and outside Lyons and, with his team, designed the systems. • These early specifications and designs pioneered business flowcharting, file design, form design for input and output documents, in program reconciliations, and restart procedures. • More subtly, they developed the concepts of systems integration (entering data just once and squeezing the most out of it) and of handling error-prone data (validation) without human intervention. • They incorporated business process re-engineering, and included time-critical and decision support systems, as well as systems initiating operational activities, rather than reacting to it. • Derek Hemy established the disciplines for writing the long, complex, programs, that are characteristic of business systems, and with his team wrote the first such programs. • LEO developed the disciplines of checking programs off-line (desk checking), debugging them and carrying out large scale pilot and parallel running for commercial operation. • LEO set up the first professional computer data preparation unit, and the first professional computer operation for commercial applications. • First “on-line” data collection from teashops. Direct data input from forms. Bulk handling of card input, paper tape input, and printing – hardware buffers. • Micro-programming, complex data handling instructions e.g. data merge and sort strings. Edit (build lines of print), multi-radix computing without conversion. • Conversion and reconversion between decimal and English Pounds Sterling i.e. Pounds Shillings and Pence, using a mathematical base or radix (British currency decimalization was not until the 1970’s). • Intelligent input output with minimal central processor activity. Multi-programming Operating System (Master Routine) Interrupts, store protection. • A Mercury Delay-Line memory held 2048 short words or instructions. 4K bytes weighed approximately ½ ton. • The modular construction was designed from 228 replaceable units held in 21 racks. • Reliability required test programs and marginal voltage application to ensure the reasonable life of 6,000 valves (tubes). • The LEO team demonstrated the ability to turn ground-breaking innovation into working systems. Business applications were ambitious and overall processes re-engineered. • The development of computer systems analysis from management principles such as O & M (Organisation and Methods and Operational Research) was accomplished. • Large scale payrolls – 30,000 Lyons staff, 20,000 staff Ford Motor Company. Payslips completed in 1.5 seconds per employee without error compared with 8 minutes when done manually.
LENAERTS NOTEBOOKS: The LEO Computers Society have an important ambition concerning the wonderful set of handwritten notebooks kept by Ernest Lenaerts during his time as an engineer on LEO I. The aim is to transcribe all of these notebooks and then have them digitised so that in future people will be able to find and read the sections they want with ease. Volunteers at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge U.K. are engaged in the digitising work, but help is needed to transcribe notebooks – that is to type up what is currently handwritten! You can see an example of the handwriting at: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pdfview/web/viewer.html?file=/downloads/64761#magazineMode=false
Humanitarian and Educational Contributions: • First application programmer – Mary Coombs ( nee Blood) was employed in 1952 as the first female programmer to work on LEO, and as such she is recognized as the first female commercial applications programmer. • LEO gave careers in programming and engineering to university graduates in Mathematics, Physics, Electrical Engineering (with electronics) and Arts with at least the basic attainment in Maths. • The appointment and training of staff. Development of Braille converters and decoders for the use of blind programmers. • Education - PhD Thesis Elisabetta Mori (Middlesex University) sponsored by LEO Computers Society and funded by AIT Trust March 25th, 2024. • The successful application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund of a grant to support a 3-year joint project between LEO Computers Society and National Centre for Computing History.
The National Lottery Fund enabled the recruitment of archivists to build the LEO archive at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge U.K. The archiving of documentation and hardware material enabled the development of "LEOPEDIA".
Within this project came:
• LEO Film. This film about the history of LEO, released in 2021 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of LEO becoming operational, went on to win Video of the Year in the Association of British Science Writers Awards in July 2022. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/67107/New-Film-The-Story-of-LEO/of LEO
• "Virtual LEO I". A VR presentation of LEO 1 for schools, Universities, and Museums. https://www.leo1.co.uk/
• Extensive early 21st century Archive Film on LEO 1 broadcasts is held by the BBC. Ref: The Centre for Computing History - Computer and Video Game Museum - Cambridge http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/52267/LEOPEDIA/
Presentations made by members of Lyons Computers Society include: Presentations mainly to retirement organisations such as the University of the Third Age given by Lyons Computers Society trustee Neville Lyons and 53 members since the inception of these presentations in 2019.
Why was the achievement successful and impactful?
The name LEO “Lyons Electronic Office” indicates the function for which LEO I was designed. LEO I was designed to process commercial applications. UNIVAC, for example, first became operational in 1954, 3 years after LEO I (Peter Bird’s Book Page 94). The earlier ENIAC, EDSAC, and EDVAC family of computers were designed to assist with scientific numerical problems or to act as calculators. The first business application to be run on LEO I was successfully run on 5th September, 1951. This was Bakery Valuations, which computed the costs of ingredients used in bread and cakes. LEO I took over Bakery Valuations calculations completely on 29th to 30th November, 1951.
Ongoing Developments of LEO I:
Lyons, premier caterer and hotelier, became a computer manufacturer and set-up manufacturing facilities. Other companies were using Lyons’ LEO I at Cadby Hall as a service bureau and were interested in having their own machine. In May 1954, Pinkerton presented a proposal for a more powerful machine – LEO II – to handle a growing workload. With company board approval a subsidiary, LEO Computers Ltd, was formed in 1954 and went on to build 11 Leo II and 61 Leo III computers that were sold worldwide. Lyons organized itself as a computer manufacturer to recruit, train, and organize, installation and maintenance staff. Marketing personnel were known as consultants and not salesmen.
One of the ardent users of LEO computers was the United Kingdom’s General Post Office (GPO), who bought LEO computers in the mid/late 1960s to produce telephone bills. These computers were kept operational until 1981, helped by buying other companies' redundant machines and using them for spare parts. 1981 is the last known operational date of a LEO built computer.
The company was losing money in the 1960’s. Lyons began to close some of its London tea shops and hotels; in 1963 it also merged its LEO Computers business with English Electric's computer interests to form the jointly owned English Electric LEO Computers. In 1964, Lyons sold their half-stake; and English Electric merged the company with Marconi's computer interests to form English Electric LEO Marconi Computers.
Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.
References to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: • “LEO Matters”, the newsletter of the LEO Computers Society is posted to the Website. • WEBSITES of the LEO Computers Society and the Centre for Computing History, Cambridge. www.leo-computers.org.uk and www.computinghistory.org.uk . On these sites the most up to date news about what is being done to preserve LEO’s heritage will be found. These will introduce you to LEOPEDIA [12] – a complete listing of all available information about LEO – including oral histories, reminiscences, books, journal articles, listings of artefacts, etc. • FILMS about LEO: Film footage about LEO is listed in LEOPEDIA. There are several films, including newsreels, free to view on YouTube. These include the 2021 film specially commissioned and funded by the National Lottery heritage Fund which covers the history of LEO and is accessible [10],[11] at https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/67107/New-Film-The-Story-of-LEO/. (Film makers, Boffin Media, won The Association of British Science Writers Award for Video of the Year, 2022. As of mid-June 2024, there had been more than 13,000 viewings.) • MUSEUMS, libraries and archives holding LEO material and with LEO displays can be found around the world. Their catalogues are usually found online. They are listed in LEOPEDIA. • Five files of archive material on the LEO Computer patents are held at the British Library [13] and can be accessed through the British Library Archives catalogue.
BBC Broadcasts: These are radio broadcasts. There have been others, but may no longer be available to hear. For example, two “Last Words” programmes – One on DTC (3rd July, 2008) and one on Mary Coombs (March 2002). Also, Georgina Ferry’s book on LEO was selected as Book of the Week and broadcast on Radio 4.
1. LEO the Electronic Office from BBC Radio 4 Computing Britain [14]. Recorded 2001. 2. LEO BBC Radio 4 Extra [15]. Recorded 2001. 3. LEO Making History BBC Radio 5 Live Outriders [16]. Recorded and broadcast on 29th November 2011 in celebration of the 60th anniversary of LEO.
All three can be heard on LEO Computers Society website at: https://www.leo-computers.org.uk/leo-on-the-radio/
LEO Computers Society review and discussion on BBC podcasts: Zoom Recording [17].
References:
10. LEO Film 2021, celebrating 70th anniversary of LEO becoming operational. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/67107/New-Film-The-Story-of-LEO/
11. Virtual LEO I, this enables people to view the original LEO computer in its room in Lyons HQ, Cadby Hall. https://www.leo1.co.uk/
12. LEOPEDIA is the archive that contains a comprehensive collection of articles, original papers, and photographs from the personal collections of those who worked on the development of LEO computers. http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/52267/LEOPEDIA/
13. The British Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Library
14. LEO the Electronic Office from BBC Radio 4 Computing Britain https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069rvb4
15. LEO BBC Radio 4 Extra https://leo-computers.org.uk/Videos/2.Bletchley%20Park%20&%20LEO%20BBC%20R.4%20Extra.%203.11.2013.mp3
16. LEO Making History BBC Radio 5 Live Outriders https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02swr1y
17. LEO Computers Society review and discussion on BBC podcasts https://leo-computers.org.uk/Videos/Neville_Lyons_LEO_on_the_BBC.mp4
Selected Archive Material courtesy of the Centre for Computer History, Cambridge U.K. and members of the LEO Computers Society, and linked to the “leo-project”: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/
1. LEO – The Automatic Office (1957) https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/55717/55717-LEO-The-Automatic-Office-(1957)/
2. LEO – Celebrating the Pioneers. The Frank Land interview by Google https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/53244/LEO-Celebrating-the-Pioneers/
3. Mary Coombs shares her story https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/56445/Mary-Coombs-shares-her-story/
4. Filtered Copy of Archive showing LEO I business take-on and Newspaper Reporting https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/49753/site-search/?topic[0]=LEO%20I&p=1
5. LEO I Interactive machine room layout https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/leodev/photos/
6. Documents concerning general development of LEO https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/sec/55570/documents/
7. Archive photographs of LEO I, and of subsequent LEO Computer Versions https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/sec/51844/Photographs/
8. Historical Newspapers. Introducing LEO I to the World. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/sec/64039/Historical Newspapers/
IEEE Journals:
Article by John Aris (2000) in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol, 22, No.3, pp. 4-15, July-September. This stresses the software as well as the hardware achievements.
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Behind the Curtain at LEO: A Personal Reminiscence - David Caminer https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/55728/IEEE-Annals-of-the-History-of-Computing-April-June-2003/
BOOKS on the history of LEO and of Lyons, LEO’s parent company:
LEO and the Managers J.R.R. Simmons The paperless office concept of the Lyons Comptroller whose support was vital to the LEO project. Macdonald, London 1962 ASIN B0006DCSW4
LEO: The First Business Computer Peter J. Bird The first book to tell the story of J Lyons’ pioneering work in moving computers out of the laboratory and into the office. This illustrated history gives the background of how the company was founded as well as details of development of LEOs I, II and II, with many technical appendices giving various features of the machines. (Copies of this book are obtainable from the LEO Computers Society). Hasler Publishing Ltd. 1994 ISBN 0-9521651-0-4
User-driven Innovation The World’s First Business Computer David Caminer, John Aris, Peter Hermon, Frank Land The story of how the LEO came to be developed, with individual accounts of some of the earliest jobs written by the consultants who brought them to fruition. The authors were all part of the group that put LEO, the first business computer to work. McGraw-Hill, 1996 ISBN 0-07-709236-8
A Computer Called LEO Lyons Teashops and the World’s First Office Computer Georgina Ferry Recounts the extraordinary story of Simmons’s mission: to create a Lyons Electronic Office, the first of its kind in the world. The birth of LEO placed Britain, for a moment, at the forefront of global business technology. Fourth Estate 2003 ISBN 1-84115-185-8 Also available in paperback: A Harper Perennial paperback ISBN 1-1-84115-186-6
Electronic Brains Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age Mike Hally Inspired by the BBC Radio 4 series of the same name, Electronic Brains looks at the stories and people behind the early computers and gives them voice. Granta Books 2005 ISBN 1-86207-663-4
Books about Lyons, LEO’s parent company, giving an insight into the company behind LEO:
The First Food Empire - A History of J.Lyons and Co. Peter Bird A detailed and beautifully illustrated history of the Lyons company from its ‘tobacco beginnings’ to the ‘Fall of the Lyons Empire’. Phillimore and Co. Ltd. 2000 ISBN 1- 86077- 132-7
Legacy: One Family, a Cup of Tea and the Company that Took On The World. Thomas Harding A much-acclaimed history of five generations of the Salmon and Gluckstein families behind the rise of J Lyons and Co. written by a member of the family. William Heinemann 2019 ISBN 978 – 17851- 50883
I would like to thank the enthusiastic support and assistance of the members of the LEO Computers Society for their agreement to use material from their archives in the preparation of this proposal, and for their review of the resulting scripts. Acknowledgement is given to Wikipedia (The Free Encyclopaedia) where its links are used to point to additional supporting information.
LEO and EARLY COMPUTER DEVELOPMENT:
A time-line for all the possible computers developed worldwide around the 1950’s and their applications is a challenging task. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/cgi/computing-timeline.pl https://archivesit.org.uk/themes-and-topics/the-history-of-it-timeline/
The military commission for ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) began on May 31, 1943. The machine wasn’t introduced officially until November 1945, when the war had ended. However, the military continued to use ENIAC for computations such as hydrogen bomb design, weather forecasting, cosmic-ray investigations, thermal ignition, random-number studies, and wind tunnel design. ENIAC inventors, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, proposed the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic computer) construction in August 1944. Unlike ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was designed to be a stored-program computer. A contract to build the new computer was signed in April 1946 with an initial budget of U.S. $100,000. EDVAC was delivered to the Ballistic Research Laboratory in 1949. The Ballistic Research Laboratory became a part of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in 1952. John Von Neumann's EDVAC monograph, First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, proposed the main enhancement to EDVAC design that embodied the principal "stored-program" concept that we now call the Von Neumann architecture. This was the storing of the program in the same memory as the data. The British computer EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) at Cambridge (and the Manchester Baby) used this architecture. EDSAC was the first computer to provide general computation and practical support for mathematical and scientific calculations. LEO I followed these general principles, but was designed to process commercial and manufacturing data, and to follow the business processes of a large and complex commercial organisation. Later computer architectures have embodied separate processor caches for the instructions and data for performance reasons, with separate pathways into the processor for each. This is one form of what is known as the modified Harvard Architecture to distinguish it from the Von Neumann architecture. LEO was more than a United Kingdom achievement. IBM's first experiments with computers in the 1940’s and 1950’s were modest advances on the card-based system. IBM’s breakthrough came in the 1960’s with its System/360 family of mainframe computers. IBM introduced its first computer a year after Remington Rand's UNIVAC was first delivered in 1951. The IBM 701 was introduced in 1952. In 1951 LEO I was already commissioned and running bakery applications for the Lyons business. This appears to confirm that in the field of applying digital computing to business processes for a large commercial company, LEO was then ahead of the progress in commercial and business application in the U.S., and elsewhere. CSIRAC (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer), originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia’s first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-generation electronic computer (the Zuse Z4 at the Deutsches Museum is older, but was electro-mechanical, not electronic), and was the first in the world to play digital music. In 1949, Zuse (Germany) founded Zuse KG, in Haunetal-Neukirchen; in 1957, the company's head office moved to Bad Hersfeld. The Z4 was finished and delivered to the ETH Zurich, Switzerland in 1950. At that time, it was the only working digital computer in Central Europe, and the second computer in the world to be sold or loaned, beaten only by the BINAC, which is reputed to have never worked properly after it was delivered. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, up to Z43, were built by Zuse and his company. Notable are the Z11, which was sold to the optics industry and to universities, and the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on magnetic storage. MESH (Russia), BARK (Sweden), SAPO (Czechoslovakia), ODRA (Poland), were either electro-mechanical or were not delivered until late 1950’s or later.
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