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On Jun 15, 2006, Tom Potts was like: > Has anyone else read 'A computer called Leo' - its about the Lyons tea > rooms central valve computer from 1952 or so I worked in the Clerical Department at Joe Lyons Hammersmith office in 1952. Lyons was a lot more than tea shops; they sold tea, coffee (including rather nasty powdered stuff called Quoffy), cakes and ice cream. I regret to say I did not work on Leo but I did meet T R Thompson. The switches were valves and the memory was mercury delay lines, derived from the Cambridge Edsac (I or II?). You fired a sonic pulse at one end of the line, read it at the other and fed it back. At that time Leo was running the accounting system in parallel with the manual system and I was involved with the latter, which meant a panic every quarter and we would have to work late until we got the accounts to balance to within 10000 pounds or so, which was regarded as good enough in a turnover of several million. Later Lyons hived off the computer side to form a separate company that merged to form English Electric Leo Marconi. Where are they now? (I must read the book ...) Btw solar heating is a viable option in this country. Modern panels can heat water even when the sky is overcast. Tony Sumner -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html