A Computer Called LEO: Lyons Tea Shops and the World's First Office ComputerThis is the eccentric story of one of the most bizarre marriages in the history of British business: the invention of the world's first office computer and the Lyons Teashop. The Lyons teashops were one of the great British institutions, providing a cup of tea and a penny bun through the depression, the war, austerity and on into the 1960s and 1970s. Yet Lyons also has a more surprising claim to history. In the 1930s John Simmons, a young graduate in charge of the clerks' offices that totalled all the bills issued by the Nippies and kept track of the costs of all the tea, cakes and other goods distributed to the nation's cafes and shops, became obsessed by the new ideas of scientific management. He had a dream: to build a machine that would automate the millions of tedious transactions and process them in as little time as possible. |
Contents
The Electronic Brain | 28 |
Made in Britain | 49 |
A Computer for Lyons | 79 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
A Computer Called LEO: Lyons Tea Shops and the World's First Office Computer Georgina Ferry No preview available - 2003 |
A Computer Called LEO: Lyons Teashops and the World's First Office Computer Georgina Ferry No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
American Anthony Salmon automatic Automation Bakery began binary Bletchley Park Booth Britain British computer build built business computers Cadby Hall calculating Cambridge Caminer's catering clerical clerks commercial customers David Caminer David Wheeler departments device Douglas Hartree early Eckert and Mauchly EDSAC EDVAC electronic computers engineers English Electric ENIAC factory Fantl Goldstine Halsbury Harry Salmon Hartree Hemy idea input installed John Pinkerton John Simmons Laboratory later Laver Lenaerts Leo Computers Leo Computers Ltd LEO III LEO team LEO's London Lyons board Lyons teashops Lyons's manageresses mathematical mathematicians Maurice Wilkes ment mercury delay lines merger Montague Gluckstein Moore School needed Neumann Office Management operation orders organisation output paper tape payroll printer problem punched card puter Raymond Thompson says scientific Simmons's staff Systems Research Thompson and Standingford took tube Turing United Kingdom UNIVAC users valves