Having lived through computer history and even worked on a relative of the LEO (English Electric Leo KDF6) I found the book fascinating. Gripping even. The author gives an excellent account of the early conception and development of LEO. It was clearly a superior computer ahead of it's time, developed by an enthusiastic bunch of people. It is interesting that the developers believed in strong system methodology as much as computerisation of business systems. The ending was sad to read how the machine and people faded away. ( )

Interesting impressions of a different era. ( )

A very interesting book, and an excellent read. Nice bibliography of sources on Lyons, computer history, and office history. ( )

"On Thursday, 29 November 1951, LEO took over Bakery Valuations from the clerks who had previously done the work, and became the first computer in the world to run a routine office job."

LEO wasn't the first computer in the world, nor the fastest. But it was hugely significant -- it was the first that wasn't built by, and for, scientists and mathematicians. It represented the first, uncertain steps down a road that we take for granted these days -- that of business automation. It was a computer designed to be used for the ordinary, the everyday. This book tells its story, and that of the men who dreamed and built it.

It's an interesting story, and Ferry tells it well. Much of it seems unlikely, and the whole episode deserves to be more widely known. One of Ferry's stated aims is to redress the imbalance which has seen LEO remain largely unsung and unacknowledged in histories of computing.

Computing would go on to be dominated by American firms, supported by investment from government and the military that their British counterparts failed to provide. But for a time, the leaders in the field were a handful of visionaries and pragmatists at a British catering company. Extraordinary. ( )

Ferry covers the history of LEO, the Lyons Electronic Office, the first computer designed by and for a business. Along the way, we learn about the history of the Lyons company, best known for its chain of teashops and other catering businesses, and how their management’s quest for ever better and more efficient handling of information led them to choose to develop their own computer, at a time when the only publically known electronic computers were ENIAC and similar machines designed for military use and machines developed in academia.

The Lyons company helped fund Cambridge’s EDSAC machine, then built the first LEO with numerous improvements over EDSAC. Lyons differed in their approach in another way—they wrote practical programs to achieve real business results. The teams would analyze business tasks by working with not only the people who wanted the programs, but also the people who did the work. As a result, their applications tended to work extremely well from the start.

The LEO team’s attempts to expand their business into supplying computers and consulting to other companies were hurt by management’s lack of support and understanding. Lyons’ attempts to get the British government to help fund their computer business to allow them to provide some real competition to IBM and other American companies also failed; the British government first refused to believe that Lyons—a restaurant and catering company—could provide better systems than established electronic companies, then crippled the British computing industry by forcing independent companies to merge into a muddled, ineffective, and noncompetitive company that staggered on for years before being absorbed into Fujitsu.

Ultimately Lyons failed, and LEO was eclipsed by the sales and marketing savvy of IBM and other American companies (helped, of course, by massive American government investment in these companies through the department of defense). But the Brits were there first, and their systems worked very well and continued to run into the 1960s. ( )