Maggie Philbin traces the remarkable history of IT through the BBC sound archives from the birthplace of the world’s first electronic computer, Bletchley Park. From November 2013.
Maggie Philbin’s Programme This is the header but the 3 hour programme is marked as being unavailable. But there is a segment we have on the LCS Website Lyons Electronic Office and the people which was captured by Neville Lyons
BBC Radio 4 Extra at Bletchley Park Read More »
LEO: Celebrating The Pioneers: A short film sponsored by GOOGLE made to
highlight the contribution of the team behind LEO computers, to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of it taking on its first “office job” on November 17th 1951.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrn24SdW64I
LEO: Celebrating The Pioneers: Read More »
Recording of the week:
Frank Land OBE – from Nazi Germany to the tea shop electronic brain
This week’s selection comes from Dr Tom Lean, Project Interviewer for An Oral History
of British Science. https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2019/06/recording-of-the-week-frank-land-obe-from-nazi-germany-to-the-tea-shop-ectronic-brain.html
British Library 24th June 2019: Read More »
LEO The Automatic Office, 1957 promotional film highlighting the way LEOs were
constructed and their many varied business uses, ranging from teashop inventories to
Ford’s payroll. Copyright LEO Computer Society. Business Uses Also held by Computer History Museum Silicon Valley http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/early-computer-companies/5/110/2260 and
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102705993
LEO The Automatic Office: Read More »
The Centre for Computer History Exhibition of LEO history 18-19th
November 2017, including presentations by Peter Byford and colleagues. Peter Byford’s
presentation available on You Tube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zyZG0OxFI
The Centre for Computer History: Read More »
Episode 4 of 5
Thu 7 Jan 2016
09:30
BBC RADIO 4
The company that brought computers into business was Lyons, known for its cakes and teashops. Aleks Krotoski tells the story of how this technology transformed office work.
BBC Radio 4 Hidden Histories of the Information Age Read More »
LEO The Electronic office.
Radio 4 Series 1 Episode 2
First broadcast 15th September 2015, 13:45
Duration: 13:46
Hannah Fry hears the incredible story of how a chain of British teashops produced the first office computer in the world. J Lyons and Company was the UK’s largest catering company, with 250 teashops across the country, developed Lyons Electronic Office or LEO in 1951.
BBC Radio 4 Recording
BBC Radio 4 Computing Britain Read More »
John Aris – 1934 – 2010 Educated at Eton and Oxford, with a degree and life-long interests in the classics, joined LEO as a programmer in 1958. A career in LEO and its successor companies, including Chief Business Systems Engineer for ICL in 1968 was followed by heading the computer department of the Imperial Group, then becoming director of the NCC. He retained his interest in LEO up to the end of his life becoming a prominent and active member of the LEO Foundation and the LEO Computers Society.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/26/john-aris-obituary
Antony (Tony) Bernard Barnes – 1926-2000. Tony Barnes joined Lyons as a Management Trainee after graduating in 1947 working in the Statistical Office. He transferred to the LEO programming team in November 1950 where his talents were quickly recognised. In 1955 he accompanied Thomas Thompson to the USA on a six-week tour, visiting several computer manufacturers and users. In January 1956 he became the Administrative Manager of the Design and Development Section of Leo Computers Limited and in June1959 the Production Director, reporting directly to Anthony Salmon, the main Lyons Board Director responsible for the whole LEO project. He left Leo Computers Limited shortly after the merger with English Electric.
Antony (Tony) Bernard Barnes: Read More »
Maurice Blackburn – died 2016, LEO Engineer. See also reminiscences of Anthony Robin Davies below. Tony Morgan writes “Maurice was very interesting person, a real gentleman with a small moustache. He had originally been a pilot with British South American Airways before it merged with British Overseas Airways. He was in Development at Minerva Road and his main claim to fame is in designing the Standard Interface Assembler for LEO III which connected industry compatible System 4 tape decks and also System 4 printers. This was particularly important for Post Office /British Telecom.. It had a unique type of logic element which made it difficult to understand and on which to diagnose faults. When we had problems in 1965 with what I called ‘watered down expertise’, Maurice ran two one week courses on it for engineers from around the country at PODPS, Kensington. There were a whole series of courses which I organised at that time.”
Maurice Blackburn: Read More »
