A Computer Called Leo

“LEO was a novelty in that its circuits hummed not with non-linear equations but with
the hours worked and rates of pay for the bakers who produced among other things,
36 miles of Swiss rolls per day .” (Ferry ,2003)

J Lyons is a British catering company that is normally recognized for there long
standing association with cakes , tea and all food fares quintessentially English . For a
period in computing history this British company became the pioneers of using
computers as not just a tool for scientists and weapons but as a tool for the workplace by
building the worlds first buissness computer L.E.O (Lyons Electronic Office).

After the second world war had ended it had brought on many new breakthroughs
in science , computers being one of them. They were being used in solving long
mathematical equations , code breaking and missile trajectories but it took the insight of
a manager from a catering company in England to revolutionize the way the workplace
of today is managed and operated . Until LEO was created J. Lyons catering company
had to use rooms of up to 300 clerks each using a mechanical calculator to add up
waitresses bills from there 250 plus tearooms. “Punching a Burroughs calculator could be
worse drudgery even than unskilled factory work for the girls who made up most the workforce.”
(Ferry ,2003).

Lyons had commissioned a group at Cambridge university to build a computer

from scratch based on the design of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer) with the nickname “The Electronic Brain” which had been developed for the
U/S army for use with ballistic missiles by the Moore school of engineering in
Philadelphia . The Cambridge version would come to be known as ENSAC . Some of
the advantages to the ENSAC machine over the ENIAC was that it did calculations in
binary rather than the decimal route which the ENIAC team had adopted. This meant
that that the computers would need only a fraction as many valves because numbers in
decimals would need a separate valve to operate for each digit in a range of 1-10 with
the third valve for example being the number three. Binary is a system that uses on off
pulses which are similar to Morse code and so with only five valves you could have a
number range of up to 31 this in turn increased the computers reliability as valves were
based on a similar design to a filament light bulb and were prone to breaking down.
When handling major mathematical equations this was a problem.
Each on off pulse would be represented as either a 1 (on) or a 0 (off) each of
theses would then take its place in a sequence which in turn would equate to a number I
have included a chart below as an example of how this works.
 Decimal Binary Decimal Binary
1 1 11 1011
2 10 12 1100
3 11 13 1101
4 100 14 1110
5 101 15 1111
6 110 16 10000
7 111 17 10001
8 1000 18 10010
9 1001 19 10011
10 1010 20 10100

EDSAC could add binary 1 and binary 1 to make binary 10 so all calculations had
to be made in binary additions sums which the computer would operate according to a
set of rules. These rules were essential for the programmers to keep in mind .

“ if both digits are 0, put 0 in the subtotal;

if one digit is 0 and one is 1, put 1 in the subtotal;
if both digits are 1, put 0 in the subtotal and carry 1 to the next column, to be added
to the subtotal at a later stage. For example:

110110111
+ 100010100
= 1011001011.” (Ferry ,2003)

When Edsac was complete they immediately went to production on LEO in many
ways they had only just begun there journey to building an office computer . Although
they would use EDSAC as a template to work from they had to produce a machine that
could work on a day in day out basis and not handle long difficult mathematical
equations but thousands of simple sums such as the payroll and this in turn created
problems as they found that they would need to double the amount of mercury delay
lines from 32 to 64 for an increased the memory capacity . They also placed the valves
on a removable racking system so that they did not have to shut down the whole system
to replace a single valve this also made for a more maintainable system.

Leo was a success it had gone from producing wage slips for less than 2000
workers to more than 10000 in a few months never failing to produce them on time.
Lyons had handled the reduction in clerical jobs well also not laying off too many staff
at once, they did not need to as they had such a large turnaround of staff they quite
simply did not fill position when someone left the company. This was truly a buissness
computer with a sole function of doing buissness task and unlike it's mathematical and
scientific counterparts it was coming into the consciousness of the public of what the
possible effects of future machines would have on there every day lives.

By Ben Stoner