LEO editor

Helen Clews (nee Garsed)  I joined Leo Computers on 24^th September 1962, starting with the five-week basic course at Hartree House. From October 1962 to early 1963 I was in the mathematical programming section at Minerva Road, Acton.  In early 1963 I was transferred to the Training and Technical Writing section at Hartree House where I worked on writing manuals and organising and lecturing on training courses – mainly on Intercode and CLEO; but later we developed a senior programming course covering software such as The Master Programme and Compilers.  The regular courses were at Hartree, but a few were on customers’ premises.  I particularly remember giving a course at the GPO offices in the Barbican at the time when the Barbican Centre and flats were being built. I moved to Radley House in South Ealing when the Training Department was re-located there.  I can’t remember the date but guess it was in 1964.  Whilst there I continued to organise and lecture on courses in a much-expanded department.

In June 1965 I married Richard Clews, a senior programmer and systems analyst with LEO, and we went on his three-year contract to Australian Computers in Melbourne, where a branch of English-Electric-LEO-Marconi was being established.  I trained the staff of Australian Computers on programming the new System 4 machine, and was sent to New Zealand with two others from the Sydney office to give a ten-day course for the NZ Post Office, who had just bought a machine (I can’t remember exactly, but I think they bought two LEO 111s) (Editor: Sale did not succeed).   Soon afterwards, EELM merged with ICT to become ICL.  I left the company in October 1966 to teach Maths. in a local secondary school for the remaining two years of our stay in Australia.  We returned to the UK in January 1969.  Richard worked for ICL for most of the rest of his working life.  I taught at a grammar school in Chesham, Bucks., mainly concentrating on Maths., but for a short time I taught AS level computer studies, which included a component on the history of computing.  I was teaching LEO as history!  My transfer back to Hartree House was the start of my happy time with LEO.  It was a wonderful place to work and I very much enjoyed organising courses and doing technical writing.  With so many recent graduates being recruited, it was like university, but with money.  I started buying books and records from Whiteleys, we had picnics in Kensington Gardens and in the summer after work we could walk across the gardens to queue for tickets to the Proms several times a week.  Magic! https://www.dropbox.com/s/rz9or0qq7xh3mgv/Helen%20Clews%20nee%20Garsed%20Recollections.docx?dl=0

Alistair Cochrane – LEO II     I was an operator for several years on the Leo machine at Stewarts and Lloyds in Corby. Attached is a piece I wrote some years ago for the local heritage centre regarding the running of the weekly payroll for the steel works and tube works on the Corby site.  See Dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/s/31snysnmb3qg08k/Alistair%20Cochrane%20Memoir.docx?dl=0

Doug Comish:  Sporting Reminiscence
Information about Lyons Sports Day activities: I did take part in one of them but having got changed into football kit the opposition failed to turn up!
However I can recall one interesting cricket match we played at Sudbury.
The Programming section challenged the rest of LEO and I was appointed Captain of the  side.We batted first and I managed to contribute a few runs.When our opponents batted,they gradually approached our total and lost wickets on the way. They had one guy who could hit the ball very hard to deep midwicket and the situation was reached that their last pair were together and they needed about ten to win.I considered myself a safe pair of hands and so I moved myself to deep midwicket in case their batsman offerred an opportunity for a catch.
They ultimately got to within two runs of our total and their batsman went for his favourite shot and connected. I saw the ball all the way into  my hands and to my dismay right out of them!!

But it was a good match

Mike Cowlard, Reminiscences of a LEO Operator
        Left School with two O levels (Maths and English.  Joined GPO as Clerical Officer.  Always good with figures quickly promoted.  Advised that he might get faster promotion outside GPO noted adverts for computer jobs.  Tried Heinz and Lyons doing well in aptitude tests.  Offered job by Peter Bird, then operations manager of the Lyons LEO operation.  Joined Lyons as Operator in May 1968.  His 50 years in computing comprised Operator/Shift Leader/Shift Supervisor – Leo II/III,  managing the crazy Autolector.  Migrated to IBM – Operator/Shift Leader/Shift Supervisor/Programmer/System Analyst.  For full text of Mike’s reminiscence see https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qub4z79qs3l6wz/Mike%20Cowlard%2C%20Reminiscences%20of%20a%20LEO%20Operator.docx?dl=0

Dick Cromwell      Leo memories –     I went to LEO II at Elms House Hammersmith in February 1959. I left in April 1963 to start LEO III training. I started as an Assistant Engineer, then Shift Engineer and finally in July 1962 became Chief Engineer at the site. I moved on to LEO III/16 and took it to Kayser Bondor at Baldock Hertfordsire. Dick’s full account can be found at https://www.dropbox.com/s/fd5p9o24j8zh0rt/Dick%20Cromwell%27S%20LEO%20MEMORIES.docx?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0s4nweb17m4zqwm/Anthony%20Robin%20Davies%20memoir.doc?dl=0

John Daines:  Reminiscence

The Glyn Mills payroll paid people by Credit Transfer rather than by cheque**.  It was at the start of each bank branch having a sort code as well as folk having account numbers.  We produced a payslip and a credit transfer (Credit Advices on the pic).  There was a tape that contained “the Bank File” and that started to be used for more payrolls – “the standard payroll” that became an early package, requiring only “minor” tailoring for each customer.

They paid military officers (all army, half RAF or half army, all RAF I think and the input data was referred to as ”casualties”, a term used in the pic.  I seem to remember that the casualties were punched and verified twice and two tapes were input for comparison (Bob Stevenson may be able to confirm).

Glynn Mills had their offices at Osterley Park (wartime evacuation) and I remember that on one weekend I had to deliver the results to Osterley.  It was when the Hammersmith flyover was being built so it involved a lot of in-and-out under the works on the A4.

I did some googling and discovered that they were also adopters of another technology used in an innovative way. See Wireless World Sept 52 page 379 Glynn Mills use of Television for documents

Ray Dawson, Reminiscences  published in Bits and Bytes, Newsletter for ICL Pensioners. Autumn 2000, pages 3-4, and https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvn23zfn0p6ylwf/Ray%20Dawson%20Reminiscences.docx?dl=0 
JD also remembers the Master Routine: I have listings of the master routine and it was written in Intercode.
Intercode itself was a level above machine code and, although a instruction looked to be an equivalent to a machine code instruction, it was often expanded by the translator into several machine code instructions.
However, Intercode instructions 100/0/0 to 131/1/3 were one for one equivalents of machine code instructions 0/0/0 to 31/1/3.  That meant that the master routine programmers could program at the lowest level and use specialist low level instructions that weren’t in the Intercode set e.g. input output, interrupt handling, setting store protection tags .etc

Interestingly, Cleo allowed for routines to be written in Intercode and, by implication from the above, that Intercode might include machine code

John Daines November 2021

I’ve always assumed that P1, P2 and P3 are constituent programs of the L3 suite – Bakery Valuations.
From reading some of the files, these are very complicated programs and the machine was tiny.
 
The following shows the amount of time involved.

From looking at Lenaerts Notebook No 8 page 39 written on Monday, Dec 3^rd 1951, he refers to the P programme’s successful run on Friday afternoon (November 30^th) at 2:20.  Note that Len then continues with his usual pre-occupation (faults!).

Note also that on the 28^th, page 37, he notes the successful completion of P1, suggesting that perhaps P2 ran on the 29^th.
Three days therefore looks a reasonable view.

John Daines LEO III Programming and Operating Utilities
An important utility managed program changes with the Version Control utility  implemented in the Intercode Translator.  A programme had a 5 digit version number that was incremented by 1 each time the program was amended.  See Volume III, section15 at http://sw.ccs.bcs.org/leo/LeoIC6-17.htm#s15 15.1, 15.2 and 15.3 last paragraph “New Issue Number” Each line of code was numbered by the Translation when the program was first created and, if it had been amended, the program version number of the amendment was printed next to it.  All this was built in.  There was a program trials facility built into the Translator see volume III section 16 at http://sw.ccs.bcs.org/leo/LeoIC6-17.htm#s16
There were standard sort utilities 07003 (3 tape sort) and 07003 (4 tape sort).  They were string sorts where the strings were created on two work tapes from the input tape in the first pass and subsequently merged, utilising the hardware merge instruction, until the final two strings were merged onto the output file.
Printing could either be directly to a line printer, which would restrict its use by other programs, or by sending each print line to a magnetic tape file with a header, that said what type of report it was, together with any paper movement controls.  Thus a program could effectively output to any number of “printers”.  The standard print program utility 06060 would subsequently read the magnetic tape, printing all lines of a report type on each pass.  Lines of print were assembled by a table driven hardware instruction that selected data as required, changing formats and inserting £ signs as required.  All this was cross checked by the Translator.
There were also utilities to manage program libraries, copy and compare magnetic tape files and print the contents of magnetic tapes and main store.  See volume V.
More importantly, there is an extensive piece of work by Ken Kemp, who was in charge of Leo systems and programming at the English Electric-Leo Service Bureau in Bristol in the mid to late 1960’s. At http://sw.ccs.bcs.org/leo/Manuals.htm , the main index to the manuals, there is a pointer to Recollections of a Leo III user, which is at http://sw.ccs.bcs.org/leo/KenK.htm    

Barbara Dickens,   I was a LEO programmer in Intercode on the Leo 326 installed by the Dept of National Savings. I started in 1968 and was trained by the Post Office trainers before working for DNS at Lytham St Annes. I remember the days very well as I did mainly maintenance which meant finding old code to delete to make room for any amendments. After a few years I moved onto ICL System4 machines programming in Usercode and COBOL before joining SMBP and working in COBOL and machine code on Univac 1100 series.I  eventually moved onward and upward into management and consultancy but I still remember my Intercode days and the carol tunes made from holes in the printers format tapes.