A lesser-known computer pioneer
The New York Times has an obituary of a computer pioneer who was not well-known outside of his native Britain. I certainly was unaware of the work he did in computerizing the famous British teahouse chain Lyons. Already in the 1950s (!) David Caminer set up a business computer system for Lyons. According to the obituary:
In addition to running the tea shops, Lyons catered large events like tennis at Wimbledon and garden parties at Windsor Castle; it also operated hotels, laundries, and ice cream, candy and meat pie companies. And, of course, tea plantations.
As a result, the company required exceptionally efficient office support. So it was only natural it would look at the “electronic brains” that scientists in the United States were developing for scientific and military purposes as a way to streamline its own empire. Mr. Caminer’s role was finding ways to retain traditional clerical rigor while speeding up the company’s logistics and finances many times over.
The result was LEO, its name derived from Lyons Electronic Office. The Economist magazine called it “the first dedicated business machine to operate on the ‘stored program principle,’ meaning that it could be quickly reconfigured to perform different tasks by loading a new program.”
“LEO’s early success owed less to its hardware than to its highly innovative systems-oriented approach to programming, devised and led by David Caminer,” Computer Weekly said last year.
The system was used from 1951 to 1965 and was used by other companies and also government agencies. Why didn’t this very early success lead to bigger things?
But the Lyons computer operation merged into a succession of companies, which chose to use American technology, not least for its universality. Many have compared LEO’s experience with that of the de Havilland Comet, which was the first commercial passenger jet in production but which lost out to Boeing jets.
Mr. Caminer, who was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1980 for developing a computer system for the European Common Market, had many explanations for the failure of Lyons to press its advantage. One was that it had no idea how rapidly technology would advance. Another was: “We were too often arrogant about always knowing best.”
More about the “Leo” computers can be read at this link.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.