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!
