Professor Paul Ceruzzi, Smithsonian Institute Washington
“Most surveys of the history of computing mark the beginning of the commercial computer age with the delivery of the first UNIVAC in 1951. The better ones note the first delivery of a UNIVAC to a commercial, not government, customer (General Electric) in 1954. Only the best histories mention LEO, a computer built by the British catering company J. Lyons & Co. and first operational in September 1951, as the real beginning of commercial application of the stored-program computer.”