Colin Hobson adds I was worked on LEO 1 and subsequent machines but am not sure
about recordings. LEO 1 certainly did make a noise but I have a vague recollection that
the speaker was not in the original hardware but in the dexion operators console, which
was a later addition.
LEO 1 was on a platform at one end of the room (hall). There was an engineer’s console
up there which the operators did not use. The dexion operators console was down on the
parquet flooring along with all the peripherals. The peripherals were aligned in two rows
with shallow metal cable runs going back to the main frame platform. The room was not
air conditioned and at times it was necessary to open several windows to allow the
operators to breathe! A warm wet day was a real problem as we had to make sure the
heat in the room was enough to evaporate the rain before we could open the
windows! Another side effect, on the operators, was the smell of cooking which often
wafted up from below!
Note: Colin Hobson was interviewed by Marie Hicks for her book Programmed
Inequality (see above) and provides one of her case studies noting the story of LEO
