Jeff Goodenough, LEO engineer. One of my main programming achievements in between mending LE-1 units, was to add the “om tiddly om pom – pom pom” tune to the end of a little program which verified (I think) magnetic tapes! (Much to the amusement of the operators.)
John Goodwin I worked on LEO II/4 for the Ford Motor company, & I’m the sole entry in your list of addressees that did genuinely work on that machine; one of the two others worked on II/11, & the other worked for LEO on II/8?, & joined Ford after II/4 had been scrapped.
I notice that you have an error regarding the attribution of II/6. The Government Pensions activity never had their own machine, having used one of other of the LEO-owned machines that operated as a service bureau. (Editors note: Goodwin’s assertion cannot be sustained as a number of LEO Computers Society members including commissioning engineers tell of visiting the LEO II/6 at the Ministry of Pensions offices in Newcastle. Geoff Pye – see Oral History gives an account of working on MPNI LEO II/6 in Newcastle)
When I went on my programming course at Whiteley’s , we were presented with a list that detailed the owners & locations of the LEO computers; that list omitted II/6, & in response to our enquiries about that, an evasive reply advised us that the presenter was not able to disclose that (so of course we all knew where the machine had been deployed). That machine was actually purchased by another Government activity – the Foreign Office, for one of their activities whose existence was never disclosed; that machine was actually located at Cheltenham, & certain of our engineers were required to work on that machine as required. I never heard of the fate of that machine, but I expect that it was simply scrapped – like all the others & no mention if it is included in any information published by Bletchley Park (it took over the work of the 11 Colossus machines). (Perhaps it’s still there?)
It was quite amazing just how much work those machines could achieve, even using punched-card for input & output of master files (some using pure binary), supported by a room full of ancillary punched-card appliances (sorters, collators, punches & interpreters + an IBM 407 tabulating machine – that I programmed using huge re-wirable plug-boards! Modern machines seem to be no more efficient, due to the increased bit usage plus masses of bloatware, & general incompetence of system designers & programmers. Our programmes were coded to run using pure-binary code, but the compiler would accept decimal input & convert to binary for execution, but I had to decode the binary & perform modifications by ‘patching’ in binary.
I worked on our LEO until it was replaced by an IBM 1410 in November 1963, & I supported & worked on a series of other machines until 2000 C.E. when I accepted early retirement, but continued working as a consultant – even to the present day. Our replacement machine was eventually replaced by a Honeywell 2200 + a 120, in a dishonest attempt to gain the company’s business by a bunch of fraudsters, since the machines were rip-off’s of the IBM 1410/7010 &c., & the software merely stolen directly; compiling a programme in Cobol, resulted in a fatal error unless the computer used was declared to be an IBM 1410 or 7010; that machine got thrown-out prior to launch, when it was found that it was not up to the claimed performance, & would take 28 hours per day to run the existing workload then currently performed on the IBM 1410; we replaced the IBM 1410 with an IBM 360-50, running in IBM 7010 emulation mode; I wrote the Post Mortem programme for it!, & spent many week-ends running both new & old machines concurrently 24 hours per day, unassisted & unaccompanied, to develop new programmes for our entire Accounting systems; people would have a fit nowadays, if anyone attempted that! The above account is archived in Dropbox at https://www.dropbox.com/preview/LEO%20Oral%20History%20project/LEO%20Memoirs%2C%20Reminiscences%20and%20Anecdotes/John%20Goodwin%20reminiscences.docx?role=personal
Broken Link
Emil Gottwald: I joined LEO Computers in 1964 after graduating from Queen Mary College in London with a degree in physics. It was right in the middle of the boom in semiconductors, and even though I had specialised in solid state physics the prospect of working with semiconductors did not appeal to me, so I interviewed with LEO Computers and accepted their job offer.
I was part of a small group [I think there were 6 or 7 of us**] working on “special projects” for JW [whose nickname BTW was ‘Fred’]. We had a small lab which housed a “research” computer consisting of components mounted on pegboard hung on the wall, and fed by paper tape. We worked on a variety of projects ranging from voice recognition [prompted by IBM’s ‘Shoebox’ voice recognition device], to thermal printing and performance analysis. This was during the time of the LEO III/F, and we built a prototype performance analyzer for it consisting of a bunch of photocells mounted on the control panel, driving a paper tape punch to record which cells had detected a control panel light. It was a Rube Goldberg affair using rubber doorstops for the photocell mounts [the screw holes were used to fit over the console display lights at one end, and to house the photocells at the other – cheap and effective]. Don’t know how that turned out as I left for the States around then. I remember JW blowing his top when he found out I was leaving, calling me into his office and reaming me out for not giving more notice. A more pleasant memory of JW has to do with his mantra to keep things simple. He once asked me to name a simple, reliable mechanism and I said “A car engine’. His reply was “How about a matchbox?
My time at Minerva Road is one of my fondest memories – I still have my CLEO and KDF9 Algol User Manuals and I seem to remember an AutoCoder manual lying around somewhere though I don’t remember if that was from my LEO days or from college.
Valerie Grose I had the somewhat dubious distinction of being the first girl in London
to complete the Gold level of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Scheme (only because I was in the
first intake of girls to start when it was introduced). On the photograph I am showing Mr
& Mrs Simmons the work two younger girls are engrossed in leading to the Bronze
stage. It was divided into four sections: Service to the community, Adventure, Hobbies
and practical skills. Under hobbies I spotted driving a car and asked my manager what
that entailed as few had a car at the time. Please laugh (or not) but a man was paid to
take me out on Saturday mornings, in a company car, to teach me. No matter how long it
took: the objective being for me to pass the test. I made my way to Cadby Hall to meet
George, plus car, and then I drove to my home in Ealing where my mother had coffee
and buns ready for us. George had a cigarette and after chatter together I drove back to
CH. We spun it out for about six months and I then passed. Although I went to work
everyday with only two weeks holiday, that company was pretty good to me. What a
privilege to have had my office (when eventually promoted to senior secretary) opposite
that of Mr Simmons with TRT’s alongside. Mr Pinkerton and Mr Caminer had offices
elsewhere but were frequently seen heading to Mr Simmons’ office. One day Diane (a
colleague) and I were called upon to serve tea in his oak panelled office to a group of a
dozen or so gentlemen. I was going on holiday next day (he must have been told that by
someone). He stopped the meeting, excuse me gentlemen, Valerie I understand you are
going on holiday tomorrow. May I ask where to if you are going away. The Isle of Wight
with my parents. He then wished me a pleasant time. My completion of the Award took
me to the office of Sir Samuel Salmon who presented me with “The Ascent of Everest”. I
still have it on my bookshelf. I met Sir John Hunt and when four more girls completed
the Gold level we were invited for lunch at the House of Commons with the MP for
Hammersmith, Mr Compton Carr. So….I never was a “LEO” but had that close
association with the key players. I have spoken to one or two people at the reunions who
were LEOs but who never met the “gentlemen”. I feel very fortunate. KR Valerie I
know so many widows, I feel I am now a member of “that” Society. Had Tony have
lived, his onward journey would not have been pleasant (wheelchair and incontinent) so I
have to come to terms with the outcome being, for him, the kindest thing.
My file was on the table with lots of other items/memorabilia. I removed a couple
items that I can always return. I must say, in all honesty, at the time I had no idea of the
role of Mr Simmons. Like several other “pinstripe-suited” gentleman he was just a very
senior manager to whom we younger employees showed great respect. He was the
Comptroller but what exactly that was we knew not: just the head of the clerical
workings of J Lyons, in the same way that schools have a headmaster (or mistress). I’m
not entirely sure I had awareness of his LEO importance/connection. When Messrs
Caminer, Pinkerton and Thompson dashed along the corridor heading to room 23 (Mr
Simmons office) I suppose we thought it was the weekly audience, such as the Prime
Minister has with Her Majesty the Queen. I was once, with another staff member, called
upon to serve tea to various managers in his office. Whilst we poured then delivered to
each person, they carried on talking but Mr Simmons said, “excuse me a moment,
gentlemen”: Valerie I believe you are going on holiday tomorrow, are you going
away? With my parents we were heading to the Isle of Wight. He wished me a very
nice time. His secretary, Miss Margery Slack went to Tangier. We lesser mortals
thought she was on some other planet: way out of our reach. Tony was with British
Airways and we returned from Washington on Concorde. Never as a young girl could I
have imagined such arrangements. Neither could I have imagined being part of these
LEO gatherings in such a grandiose building as Middle Temple Hall. I don’t have photos
that Mr Simmons took: just one with me explaining the Duke of Edinburgh’s award to he
and Mrs Simmons. Another manager, Mavis Leopold was the wife of Michael, nephew
of Reginald Leopold who conducted the Sunday evening Palm Court orchestra
programme. A Mrs Greenall, personnel manager and Miss Buzzey, secretary to the
Chief Accountant, together with Mrs Simmons all had manicures, regular hair
appointments, bags and shoes like Footballers’ wives have nowadays (Several thousand
per item: equivalent in those days). Something we younger ones could only admire and
dream of. It all seems like another world but of course is the memory of the early days
of my life. The Lyons whole operation was very labour-extensive. Would Mr Simmons
nowadays have no need of his secretary and just communicate on his mobile and
iPad? Maybe the wages and salaries to so many thousands of staff (9000 at Cadby Hall,
I recall) perhaps be part of the downfall of the company? Thankfully the organisation of
the time enabled me to have an interesting and fulfilling career. I feel very fortunate
Valerie Grose Reminiscences
I have read the fascinating article (that mentions Nigella). Actually her grandfather Mr
Felix Salmon was our “in-line direct director” with secretary, Miss Patterson. One of
my colleague’s father was Mr Felix’s chauffeur and when a child she played with
Vanessa, Nigella’s mother. As previously stated, other than Mr Frank Land I knew
most of the other ‘names’ (Messrs Simmons, Pinkerton, Thompson, Caminer). I
believe Mr Oliver Standingford had just left the company prior to my joining but I
knew Mr Geoffrey Mills with whom he co-wrote “Office Practice” I certainly cannot
claim to have known them well (being considerably younger) but my office was in the
same corridor so saw them all frequently. To measure their success is
difficult: obviously, as things eventually panned out I suppose wrong decisions were
made but they were surely the “brains” of the time. By way of comparison, “medical”
knowledge extended to patients having leeches set upon them to draw out blood but as
time passed with newer developments this soon become consigned to history. Mobile
phones were the size of bricks, became very small but curiously are now larger (albeit
slim and lightweight) but have the capacity to offer many more functions. Life has
changed beyond all recognition over the past half century with so many new
inventions, and all new technology in the future will surely pale into insignificance
with yet more inventions. Fax machines and music cassettes for instance, (good
inventions that were relatively short-lived). LEO though was of great significance
and I feel very privileged to have been an employee at J Lyons during those early
years. Even the style of dress of those gentlemen would not suit modern times: grey
suits, short back and sides hair, most smoked. Most certainly Miss Margery Slack,
secretary to Mr Simmons did, and Mrs Maureen Henley, secretary to TRT. When
entering their offices you could barely see them through the smoke! I recall walking
through the bakery department once with trolleys of bread rolls open to the elements;
people walking past coughing. Swiss rolls, as I recall were all rolled by hand as no
machine had been put together that could roll them without cracking. Imagine what
Health and Safety would say about that nowadays. The internal telephone exchange
was fascinating, headed by Mr Calder. Each call had to be individually
connected. The two dozen or so telephonists sat at terminals with thick flex to insert
into the connecting plug. When lifting the receiver to make a call, the telephonists
were trained to ask by name “Which number, Mr Simmons” but ‘ordinary staff’ were
greeted with ‘number please’ to which you replied ‘extension 645’. Daily office life
was very labour intensive with reports and minutes of meetings having to be typed
using carbon paper to produce extra copies. I was a very light typist, only being able
to produce about four readable reports so, if ten were required I would have to type
each set three times which was very time-consuming. How different my life would
have been with a modern computer/keyboard, email facility and the holiday
entitlement of today. Ten days only, plus Bank Holidays and New Year’s Day was a
working one at the time. Mr Samuel Salmon gave a New Year address over the
tannoy, “Hello and good morning, Cadby” and thanking all for their contribution to
this great company. It was just that at the time and I am pleased that aspects will have
historical significance. I rather suspect those in LEO had their heads down busily
engaged in developing the new machinery and knew rather less of what happened on a
day to day basis, as described above. Mr John Andrews has a file of LEO memorabilia
that, being somewhat of a hoarder, I have kept from my early days at
JL. Unfortunately I could not download this
(http://leo.settle.dtdns.net/LeoCode/LeoIIIdemo2.zip) Please forward this on and feel
free to ask any further questions you feel I may be able to assist with. Best rgds
Valerie
Dear Frank,
Having heard your name for several years (I have attended quite a few reunions (sadly
seeing Mr Caminer in a wheelchair at one) it surprises me that our paths never seem to
have crossed. Mr Simmons, to me, was the epitome of the perfect gentleman and
always addressed me as Valerie (no others did so)*. Geoffrey Mills smoked a pipe, as
you may recall, and somewhat amazingly lived less than five minutes from where my
son and daughter in law now reside. His address sounded so romantic (Beechcroft was
the name of his house) and to me it sounded so far away (Claygate, Surrey). * my own
boss of course used my Christian name and, to my total amazement, announced one
day that as he used mine, then I should use his. I found that extremely difficult. It just
was “not done”. Mr Simmons’ address. Hyde Park Gate. A quick Google now shows
today’s asking price, £13,000,000 but perhaps modest against the £40m of the
Beckhams! Holidays: one year my boss went to a Butlins Holiday camp (!) as felt
suitable for his two young children. Upon return he reported the children had loved it
whilst he and his wife grinned and bore it. My colleagues and I – Torquay, Isle of
Wight, Camber Sands. Miss Slack, secretary to Mr Simmons went to Tangier. We
considered either she, or the rest of us, were on another planet. I have no recollection
of the destinations of the LEO gentlemen. Not LEO but might amuse. Mr Mark
Bogod (non-family director?) due a new company car, invited his chauffeur, Geoffrey
to choose. “How about a Rover 90, sir?, and he chose the colour:grey. Very
insightful psychology. Clearly, Mr Bogod was not overly-bothered and presumably
felt if Geoffrey was happy he’ed give good service, often being required to work antisocial hours driving to functions and returning at midnight. Looking back over the
years, at the time everything, everyday was so normal but now seems…..yes, like life
on some other planet. Oh yes, just thought of this. We girls wore gloves to work,
even in summer! In winter, obviously for warmth but in summer, lacy decorative
items and as for being bare-legged: never. Nylon stockings with nice straight seams
and I never saw the gentlemen wearing casual clothes as on “dress down Fridays” in
offices nowadays. Grey suits, black shoes, shirt and tie was their ‘uniform’. I can
clearly picture the vast LEO and wish I had paid rather more attention. Opening my
Daily Telegraph one day, on the Obituaries page sadly was Mr Pinkerton. I recognised
him straightaway before even seeing his name. Then Mr Caminer. May they all rest
in peace after giving valuable service to that once great company but more
particularly that wonderful invention, the Lyons Electronic Office.
Peter Guest b.1934, died 1995 aged 61, LEO Maintenance Engineer
Margaret Guest, his widow writes: Peter’s education badly disrupted during Wartime,
leaving Wm. Penn School, Peckham, London aged 16 in 1951. Attended Woolwich
Polytechnic 1951-55 for part time day release, obtained ONC in civil engineering while
working for Sir Murdock MacDonald & Partners as a trainee draughtsman. Further HND
studies but National Service in RAF intervened including training in communication
hardware preparing to be a wireless operator and then posted to Aden where he worked for
the Commonwealth Air Forces Communications Network with the rank of Corporal.
Came back and worked for Vickers Armstrong at a factory in Crayford, Kent. At the time
he joined they were building a valve computer for Powers Samas, the PCC, which had an
immense number of problems and not many people capable of solving them! He left
when the PCC was going to be superseded by a future design done by ICT.
Early 1960 (the year we were planning to marry) Peter was employed by LEO in London
(for a very small wage for the first 6 months) while getting a good grounding in all aspects
of this new invention; engineering, testing, commissioning, etc. He was sent out to
maintain computers at Ford Dagenham (LEOII/4) and Ilford Films (LEO II/9)
while we lived in a caravan on the outskirts of Romford. He was also training on LEO
- At the time the head office of LEO Computers was in Bayswater.
Then, about 1964, after LEO amalgamated with English Electric, we moved to the South
Coast where he was sent to commission a new English Electric computer for Lloyds Bank
at Durrington, Worthing, while also troubleshooting other installations in London and the
South Coast.
After the merger with English Electric he spent a lot of time up in Kidsgrove on the KDF9
commissioning and troubleshooting.
Our next move was to Long Ashton, on the outskirts of Bristol where he was Assistan
Gloria Guy, LEO Computer Society Committee member
My very first employment was in 1952 with Jo Lyons at Elms House and have a loose
connection with Coventry Street Corner House. Sadly, I wasn’t a Nippy but once Lyons
had trained me to use a calculator in their own training school, my job consisted of adding
up all the bills from Coventry Street Corner House – all day long! I found it fascinating
and got quite cross with Lyons when they decided to promote me after 16 months to a job
which I didn’t like and with people that I didn’t get on with!
After several moves – Bakery Sales office using comptometers, then LEO doing data
entry in 1954 I had no idea I was working on a piece of history. During this time I was
studying shorthand and typing at night school and eventually worked in their Works &
Engineering department at Spike House before leaving for a secretarial career, which
stood me in very good stead for the rest of my working life.
My mother also worked at Cadby Hall and my grandfather worked at Henry Telfer
(the meat pie company owned by Lyons). See:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8km6dav1cr5wlq9/Gloria%20Guy%20brief%20bio.docx?dl=0
Michael Guy LEO Master Routine – The Birth of Software Engineering?
Michael Guy joined LEO straight from Wadham College, Oxford in 1962 with a
mathematics degree. After two years working on the Master Routine he left to do a PhD
at Newcastle University in integer programming. After two years working for Wiggins
Teape in their systems development department he rejoined what was then ICL. He
worked on VME for many years, progressing from programmer to designer, project
manager and OSTECH. When a team was created to pursue the UK Alvey projects,
launched as a response to the Japanese 5th Generation project, he seized the opportunity,
working mainly on persistent programming with the universities of Glasgow and St
Andrews. He ended his career with Teamware in what had become Fujitsu. On retirement
he went back to university, taking degrees in theology and biblical studies at Birmingham
University. After gaining an acquaintance with at least a dozen programming languages
he had no desire to program any more until twenty years later, when he found himself
helping to debug his grandson’s Python programs on a Raspberry Pi.
I worked on the LEO III Master Routine from 1962 to 1964, going straight from
university with a maths degree. It was nearly sixty years ago and my memories of that
time have been paged out and archived, and have probably been corrupted on the way.
Also I do not have a wide knowledge of the wider world of computing at the time. But I
have been encouraged to write this article in the hope of generating discussion of a very
important subject – the development of the discipline of software engineering.
John Daines writes “I have listings of the master routine and it was written in Intercode.
Intercode itself was a level above machine code and, although a instruction looked to be
an equivalent to a machine code instruction, it was often expanded by the translator
into several machine code instructions.
However, Intercode instructions 100/0/0 to 131/1/3 were one for one equivalents of
machine code instructions 0/0/0 to 31/1/3. That meant that the master routine
programmers could program at the lowest level and use specialist low level instructions
that weren’t in the Intercode set e.g. input output, interrupt handling, setting store
protection tags .etc
Interestingly, Cleo allowed for routines to be written in Intercode and, by implication
from the above, that Intercode might include machine code.”
LEO was the first computer to be used for business purposes. This meant a change in the
priorities of computer design. The first change was that it was used for data processing. It
spent relatively little time actually calculating and a lot of time reading paper tape,
printing and reading and writing magnetic tape. The role of the Master Routine was to
manage the computer efficiently and attempt to keep everything going full time. This is
what multi-programming is about
Michael Hancock I was Shell Mex and BP’s chief programmer when we acquired our
first Leo III in 1963 (no 6) and was involved in the studies and decisions which led to its
acquisition. We later acquired another Leo III and 2 Leo 326’s which were considerably
faster. Our computer centres were in Hemel Hempstead and Wythenshawe. Leo were in
competition with ICL and IBM and succeeded first because they had the most suitable
machine and second because of their skill in persuading our management that they were
right for the job. ICL had a grand machine on the stocks then but typically, it never saw
the light of day. I designed a massive sales accounting system with help from John Aris.
Such a pity that Leo did not have the resources to create the next generation. I was lucky
enough to be in another area while a traumatic transition to Univac took place.
The Leo users group brought me into contact which such as Dunlop and Imperial
Tobacco. The latter was worth a visit to Bristol as they gave away a box of cigarettes to
their visitors. An extended version of the career and memoirs is available in Dropbox at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/22dwf6tv7cid0ui/Mike%20Hancock%20Memors.docx?dl=0
Douglas Hartree and LEO (from Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hartree)
Hartree’s fourth and final major contribution to British computing started in early
1947 when the catering firm of J. Lyons & Co. in London heard of the ENIAC and sent a
small team in the summer of that year to study what was happening in the USA, because
they felt that these new computers might be of assistance in the huge amount of
administrative and accounting work which the firm had to do. The team met with Col.
Herman Goldstine at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton who wrote to Hartree
telling him of their search. As soon as he received this letter, Hartree wrote and invited
representatives of Lyons to come to Cambridge for a meeting with him and Wilkes. This
led to the development of a commercial version of EDSAC developed by Lyons, called
LEO, the first computer used for commercial business applications. After Hartree’s death,
the headquarters of LEO Computers was renamed Hartree House. This illustrates the
extent to which Lyons felt that Hartree had contributed to their new venture.
Hartree’s last famous contribution to computing was an estimate in 1950 of the
potential demand for computers, which was much lower than turned out to be the case:
“We have a computer here in Cambridge, one in Manchester and one at the [NPL]. I
suppose there ought to be one in Scotland, but that’s about all.” Such underestimates of
the number of computers that would be required were common at the time!