LEO editor

We are organizing a new series of Zoom Meetings.

See Below

Wednesday Online celebrations!

During the past year we have discovered that online forums and presentations have been a great way to get our members together. Zoom has allowed former colleagues, now living in different continents to reminisce together and for, 22nd September 17.00 BST AGM including updates on all our activities and a vote for Trustees. This will be followed by a discussion among members on ideas for the future. 

Tuesday, 19th October 10.30 BST   We hope to bring you a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. As many of you will know, TNMoC has a reconstruction of EDSAC, the computer built at Cambridge which Lyons helped to fund so that they could develop a commercial computer for themselves.

Wednesday, 17th November 15.00 GMT  Our new LEO Film! By this date in 1951, LEO was almost ready to run its first regular clerical run working on the Lyons Bakery Valuations Job.  As part of our National Lottery Heritage Fund programme, we have had a 15 minute film made about LEO. This will be given its press launch in late November to chime with the actual anniversary itself, but we have managed to arrange for our members to be given an exclusive pre-launch viewing. The film will be followed by an opportunity for members to comment and for a discussion with the filmmakers.


 

Zoom For LEO Computers Society Members Read More »

The BBC programme Antiques Road Trip made a stop off at Cambridge to visit the Cambridge Computer History Museum and interviewed Jason Fitzpatrick the Museum founder. Jason covered many interesting topics including early calculators, EDSAC, LEO and the BBC Micro and ARM chips.

You can hear and view the section from Cambridge Here

Antiques Road Trip Read More »

LEO Matters from May 2021 in desktop published format. Edited by Hilary Caminer and published by Bernard Behr.

Contents: (Clicking on the highlights below will take you straight to the page containing the item highlighted. – Note on slow Internet connctions this may not work and you will be taken to page 1 in all cases).To open the whole document click on the image of the front page.

Date : November 2020

LEO Matters May 2021 Vol 9 Read More »

2021 marks LEO’s 70th Anniversary Year – unfortunately the Trustees felt they had to postpone the Reunion from 2021 but replace it with a series of Zoom events to celebrate the events of 1951 (see the post on the new Zoom dates) The new date for the Reunion at the Victory Services Club is Sunday, 10th April 2022

See Here for the new Zoom dates

70th Anniversary Read More »

On 15th February 1951, a LEO diary note read: ‘It can be said that on this day, LEO performed its first programme before HRH Princess Elizabeth.’

On this day 15th of February 1951 Princess Elizabeth visited Cadby hall and was give a demonstration of the Lyons Electronic Office

LEO I was still under development at that time but later in 1951 LEO ran its first programme.

The Society Secretary wrote to the Queen earlier and received this reply a few days ago.

Ernest Lenaerts who was one of the designers of LEO I kept a detailed diary with technical notes and recordings of events left the following entry in his record of 16 February 1951
16-2-51 
HRH was no more and no less impressed than I had expected. The information printed by the Teleprinter was unintelligible except of course for the message printed at the bottom which provided some light relief. Fortunately LEO made few mistakes – obviously not subject to stage fright and the Demo went off smoothly. A little more interest was shown I think in the interior of the machine when she saw the complexity of the circuits – how many of this machines like these in existence?
Only one other in working condition – No others on commercial clerical problems. This auspicious occasion called for an enormous improve in general tidyness of the lab and I must make an effort to preserve this. My own desk was clear for the occasion – the first time in months. Work on the machine can go ahead again and I have been given a more or less free hand to proceed on which problem I deem the best tackled first. The object will be to bring the machine  to full operating condition as soon as possible so that Caminer & Co can get [[weaving]] on some of the programmes that they have kept up their sleeves for so long. The first and most obvious fault to be cleared is the corruption in the Teleprinter which I Think are due to breakthro in the output Unit. Other troubles to be cleared are occasional “1”s being added into the store. These have the effect of spoiling all of the test programmes received from Cambridge ” 

Princess Elizabeth’s visit to Cadby Hall on 15 February 1951 Read More »

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