Whether you like a good story, social history, computers, or are
just nostalgic about Joe Lyons' "caffs", A Computer Called LEO
is an appealing tale, illustrated with black and white photos,
about the advent of the first computer. Georgina Ferry conjures
up the image of some 300 female accounts clerks, clacking away
continuously on their Burroughs mechanical calculators checking
bills against takings for the 250 or so J Lyons & Co high street
teashops in the 1930s. The manager of the accounting operation
in pre-war times was a bright young man called John Simmons.
According to Ferry, as Simmons surveyed the room "all he saw was
a waste of human intelligence" and he began to dream of the day
when machines would be invented capable of doing all this work
automatically. Within 10 years he made the first stage in that
dream a reality by persuading the board of Lyons that their
company must become the first in the world to build its own
electronic digital computer. A Computer Called LEO is the
wonderful story of t