LEO editor

W.E.J. (John) Parry.
Abstract: Employed by Stewarts and Lloyds originally as engineer on their LEOII/3 computer and subsequently as programmer. Had received training as electrical engineer while doing extended National Service in RAF and in that capacity witnesses UK H bomb tests in Pacific Islands. Joined Stewarts and Lloyds at Corby after National Service and was transferred to help run the LEOII. Two mathematical jobs, Anchor problem and Best Mix ( “mineral job” ) were totally self-contained jobs that I had little or nothing to do with. Also if I remember correctly neither jobs were significantly modified to take advantage of the later addition of the Ferranti drum, which if my memory is correct had a significant impact on the performance and running of the payroll suite. Because these two jobs were considered as “extra demanding” the operations staff used to advise us engineers when they were going to run these two jobs and when I was the duty engineer I used to go and listen to these two jobs running because they generated a totally different “music” to that we heard when running payroll. We engineers learnt a lot from the “music” during 30 mins or so of morning tests and this gave us a clue to how the system was behaving! For S&L Corby the payroll was the major financial justification so why am I emphasizing these two jobs when I knew so little of what were their commercial value to the overall LEO justification I believe S&L in Corby in the early 1950s were an advanced and forward thinking company. So bearing in mind the open mindedness of the Lyons management I suppose no surprise or justification to the S&L LEO II purchase but just showed how forward thinking a company Stewarts and Lloyds was.
Subsequently joined ICL. Has recently contributed to the Corby Heritage events commemorating, inter alia, to their story of LEO at Stewart & Lloyds. Provided two articles for the May 2018 “Legends” event, including John’s Story.

John Panter LEO Engineers responding to Request to identify computer depicted in MGM 1968 film “Hot Million” starring Peter Ustinov as criminal computer operator, see entry in Film section below.
This brought back a few memories! I can make a few comments.
1. I didn’t know Fred Whittaker. I moved from Minerva Rd to Kidsgrove in summer 1965, so left before he joined.
2. The decks shown in the first picture are definitely Potter M120 drives. This is a link to the 1964 Potter catalogue I discovered:-  Potter Catalogue See page 4. These were used on late LEO III machines. Previously we used Ampex decks. The Potter decks were never used on System 4; we developed our own 4452 and 4453 decks.
3. A far as I am aware, there was never an ICL machine M505. I think this was MGM using a non-attributable name. This link gives a bit more information about the use of our equipment in the film.
http://www.starringthecomputer.com/appearance.html?f=543&c=288
4. The photo on Page 3 is definitely of the System 4 4453 high speed tape drive. (150 “/sec). I was transferred to Kidsgrove as the Project Manager for the design and development of this product. I have attached a copy of the marketing photo from which this was copied. The guy is a young (then) electronics engineer, Les Oliver, who worked for me on the project. You can see his hand on the logic rack.
5. I can’t definitively confirm any other details, but I would guess that this was a later LEO 326, one that was built specifically for the Post Office. But MGM have done quite a lot to disguise it. I do not recognise it as a System 4!

Chris Parker, I worked at J Lyons from February 1971 to 1976. My first job was working on the LEO 3/7 and LEO 4/6. I was an operator during the conversion to an IBM365/65 over my first 6 months and, when all the systems had been copied (via a System 4 deck), the LEOs were deconstructed. I have, somewhere in the loft, a circuit board from the LEO 4/6. I read your article in the U3A magazine with interest. I’m not sure what memories I have that have not already come to your attention, but I would be happy to discuss them with you – if you are interested?

W.E.J. (John) Parry.
Abstract: Employed by Stewarts and Lloyds originally as engineer on their LEOII/3 computer and subsequently as programmer. Had received training as electrical engineer while doing extended National Service in RAF and in that capacity witnesses UK H bomb tests in Pacific Islands. Joined Stewarts and Lloyds at Corby after National Service and was transferred to help run the LEOII. Two mathematical jobs, Anchor problem and Best Mix ( “mineral job” ) were totally self-contained jobs that I had little or nothing to do with. Also if I remember correctly neither jobs were significantly modified to take advantage of the later addition of the Ferranti drum, which if my memory is correct had a significant impact on the performance and running of the payroll suite. Because these two jobs were considered as “extra demanding” the operations staff used to advise us engineers when they were going to run these two jobs and when I was the duty engineer I used to go and listen to these two jobs running because they generated a totally different “music” to that we heard when running payroll. We engineers learnt a lot from the “music” during 30 mins or so of morning tests and this gave us a clue to how the system was behaving! For S&L Corby the payroll was the major financial justification so why am I emphasizing these two jobs when I knew so little of what were their commercial value to the overall LEO justification I believe S&L in Corby in the early 1950s were an advanced and forward thinking company. So bearing in mind the open mindedness of the Lyons management I suppose no surprise or justification to the S&L LEO II purchase but just showed how forward thinking a company Stewarts and Lloyds was.
Subsequently joined ICL. Has recently contributed to the Corby Heritage events commemorating, inter alia, to their story of LEO at Stewart & Lloyds. Provided two articles for the May 2018 “Legends” event, including John’s Story.

John Paschoud on printing Braille programmes. See also Tom Brooks above. I don’t know if I can add much to the Blind Programmers story. I never actually met any (of theblind programmers), and I think it must actually have been when I was Ops SDPO at Barbican NDPS Computer Centre (which was trials and EE System4, rather than production and LEO326, with most of the programmer teams based at Docos House a short distance away). But they were very similar to the barrel line-printers on the 326s at Charles House, Kensington CC. The process involved fitting a rubber sheet about 0.5mm thick between the hammer array and paper, and removing the ink ribbon, so that printing dots in Braille code would leave raised dots on the paper. Then adjusting the hammer force carefully so they didn’t actually puncture the paper.
I used the same technique a few years later, on a much later timesharing mainframe (a DECSystem-10) because a completely blind little boy joined the Cub Scout pack where my wife was a leader. So we found software to translate the text of some of the Cub Scout Handbook into Braille, and I made a Braille-print kit for our lineprinter and ‘borrowed’ it for a few evenings.

Tony Priest, visited Cambridge Centre for Computer History, May 2018 and was really happy to hear about partnership with LEO Computers Society and LEO heritage plans. He worked at Hartree House. He was employed as LEO II was being decommissioned and worked on LEO III there. He left a comment on our Facebook page over the weekend: “What a nostalgic visit! The Centre is doing great work to preserve so much that is important, especially the vital importance of the pioneering British computer industry. From the LEO displays – my first job was programming for LEO III – to the development of home computers and games consoles. The incredible computer power now available at such low cost. Keep it up please. And all the best for your Lottery funding bid for the LEO archive material project.

Geoff Pye: Sporting Reminiscences

Tennis.

LEO had a team of 6 made up of 3 pairs, organised by John Gosden, to play other Lyons Departments on the courts at Lyons sports club. On each occasion each pair played one set against each one of the other department’s 3 pairs thus totalling 9 sets. The tournament was spread over several weeks, one department opponent at a time. My partner was usually Earnest Roberts. Other team members included Alan Jacobs, Joe Crouch, a New Zealander whose name escapes me – all programmers – and Charlie O’Brien, an operator. Leo’s performances were “average”!
Cricket.
I remember playing a couple of matches, but do not recollect LEO matches being a regular feature, so probably not a league competition. TRT was an enthusiastic, agitated and critical spectator! Doug Comish was in the team and he may recall more details.

Cynthia Reid, I was born in Headingley, Leeds in 1935 and from an early age had an
interest in science which was encouraged by my parents. I attended Brudenell Primary
School, Bennett Road Junior School and Leeds Girls’ High School. In 1954 I was offered
Exhibitions to both Oxford and Cambridge Universities and I elected to read Mathematics
at Newnham College, Cambridge. At the end of my first year I switched to Mechanical
Sciences and graduated in 1957 at which time I was recruited by John Pinkerton to work
in LEO’s engineering design department at Minerva Road in Park Royal, Northwest
London. I had little knowledge of electronics or computers but it seemed an interesting
challenge and I was there for four years until moving on to IBM. There were no other
women engineers at Minerva Road, but this was a situation I was entirely accustomed to
and never really thought about. I had been the only female undergraduate in the 2000-
strong Engineering Faculty at Cambridge, the first and only woman member of the
Cambridge University Air Squadron (I believe there were no more until the 1980s), the
only female pilot at Yeadon (now Leeds and Bradford) Flying Club where I got a
scholarship to attain my PPL whilst still at school and the only woman in the LEO motor
cycling group where I rode a scarlet Norton 600cc Dominator. I guess being ‘the only one’
was just a fact of life that I accepted without question – and I am happy to say that I have
never experienced prejudice on this account (although I did have to ceaselessly pester the
Air Ministry for 2 years before I was finally accepted into the Air Squadron – even with
my pilot licence). At Minerva Road I worked on the very early attempts at OCR (optical
character recognition) where we were trying to design an input device which retail
departments could use to order stock from a wholesale or central distributor. I think we
just about managed to detect a very thick black pencil stroke across a precisely
circumscribed quarter-inch square! It was an exciting time in that we were moving from
thermionic valves and mercury delay line storage to transistors, printed circuit boards and
solid state memory. I think I still have somewhere the soldering iron I was issued on my
first day at Minerva Road! The only names I recall of my days there were my immediate
manager John Bruce, our lab assistant Ernie Aylott and a couple of fellow design
engineers Ivan Boskov and Yoram Azar.

Cynthia Reid, a member of the Cambridge
University Air Squadron, at the controls of a De Havilland Chipmunk in 1956, shortly
before she joined LEO
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7laoprvaell0b1a/Cynthia%20Reed%20Memoir.docx?dl=0

Chris Reynolds Born 23 March 1938 in Hertfordshire. Brought up in Somerset &
Devon; Six schools attended before age of 13. Dartington Hall School, Totnes, Devon
1952-56 (very progressive and unconventional). University College London 1956-1959 –
BSc in Chemistry. Exeter University 1959-1962 – PhD in Theoretical Organic
Chemistry. After starting a career as an Information Officer at a public institution decided
on a career move – for a higher salary – with Shell-Mex & PB in 1965 as a programmer
working on their LEO III computer, but joined EELM as a Systems analyst/ sales
consultant in 1967.. Worked on a number of projects but became dissatisfied with the way
applications were described. He proposed the development of a language (first named
DORIS later extended and renamed CODIL) designed for users being able to define their
own systems and interested the LEO management in its development. Joined Pinkerton’s
team in Minerva Road for further work on his notions. Despite progress EELM did not
take the ideas further and in 1970 Chris left, first for a job with Plessey as a systems
analyst and then in 1971 joined Brunel University to start an academic career, finishing in
1988 with the title Reader. Much of his research was focused on the development of
CODIL resulting in a spate of Conference presentations and Journal articles. Ill health and
poor relations with new head of department led to early retirement followed by some
lecturing at De Montford University and much local history work in Hertfordshire , but
also some further work on CODIL. Active member of LEO Computers Society . See
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jt6vmfovwjumamm/Chris%20Reynolds%20Career%20History.docx?dl=0

Dropbox link broken

Mike Smith, Trivial Reminiscences of a LEO Man. Mike had two separate
careers with Lyons. From 1952 to 1959 working in the Bakery Division, leaving Lyons for
what proved a bad choice, selling insurance, and returning in 1960 as an Operator on LEO,
first in Elms House on LEO II and later transferred to Hartree House to work on LEO II/5
and LEO III. Appointed shift-leader after 10 months and later promoted to Chief Operator
under Bob Woodward. Subsequently asked to lead a team in the new role of acting as
operating consultants to LEO clients. The interesting reminiscence are filed in Dropbox at:
https://www.dropbox.com/preview/LEO%20Oral%20History%20project/LEO%20Memoi
rs%2C%20Reminiscences%20and%20Anecdotes/Mike%20Smith%20reminiscences.doc?
role=personal
or can be obtained on request from Frank Land – f.land@lse.ac.uk

Dropbox link broken