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Reflections on the History of Computing pp 22–42Cite as

Remembering LEO

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Part of the IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology book series (ISURVEYS,volume 387)

Abstract

It is now more than 60 years since the world’s first business use of a computer, the valuation of bakery output, was rolled-out on the LEO I computer at Cadby Hall in London, the headquarters of the food production and catering company J. Lyons and Company. LEO I had been designed and built as a computer to be used for business data processing by a team of engineers recruited by Lyons, with a basic design following the design of the Cambridge University EDSAC. The story of the Lyons initiative has been recorded and explanations of how a company in the food business came to build a computer has been told in books and articles in the last decades (- see Appendix 1 for a comprehensive bibliography of material relating to LEO). This chapter remembers the contribution made by LEO.

Keywords

  • Business computers
  • J. Lyons and Company
  • LEO

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emeritus Professor, Information Systems and Innovation Group, Department of Management, London School of Economics and LEO Computers Society, U.K

    Frank Land

Authors
  1. Frank Land
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management and Information Systems, Victoria University, City Flinders Campus, PO Box 14428, 8001, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Arthur Tatnall

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© 2012 International Federation for Information Processing

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Land, F. (2012). Remembering LEO. In: Tatnall, A. (eds) Reflections on the History of Computing. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 387. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33899-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33899-1_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33898-4

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