I had an excellent time this year as usual, even though we initially had
some unforseen problems getting rolling toward Purdue. Lots to see, and
I had a fun time socializing(and on occasion brainstorming) with those I
don't see nearly often enough. The speakers were great and very
entertaining, and Rick did a great job coordinating dinner for Saturday
night. As an exhibitor, I have to say that the turnout was way better
than I thought, especially on Sunday.
Thanks to everyone involved for making this not only a success but an
entertaining endevour as well.
Looking forward to 4.0!
Julian
I happened on the program by chance. It might have been called
Disappearing Britain. A lot of it was contemporaneous and could have
been a Lyons publicity film. (or at least bits of one). I suspect our
friends at the National Film Archive might know.
I inadvertently made an ambiguous statement. By commercial I meant its
use, not its availability for sale.
Where would you start to design such a thing? Valves yes.. 12AT7
Bistables as binary counters. Neon devices such as dekatrons as decimal
counters. RVL (Resistor Valve Logic). Storage = Ferrite Cores, Tape,
Drum possibly. I once saw a Univac FAST RAN Drum memory. What a lump!!!
Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: 16 July 2007 22:45
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: LEO (1950)
Rod Smallwood wrote:
> I just caught a part of a TV program showing pictures of and the use
> of a computer called LEO.
That wasn't the James May thing that aired last Tuesday was it? I think
it was something along the lines of 'the history of science', and I
wondered what they'd show for origins of the computer - sadly I wasn't
around when the show was on though to see.
> Anybody know of another real commercial electronic computer before
1950?
Hmm, the Ferranti Mark 1 (based on the Manchester Baby) was a commercial
machine and built around that same sort of time. I'm not sure if the
Ferranti machine was the first to be sold to someone (rather than being
used in-house) or whether the LEO was.
(Actually, I'm not sure if LEO I was ever used outside of Lyons - I
think it may have been the later LEO II that was their first true
commercial machine)
cheers
Jules
> Subject: Re: 1966 Mag: Build NE-2 Neon Bulb Computer - scan available
>
> > It relies on matching the neon bulbs.
>
> Ha! Matched for how long? After a month, I bet no two matched
> ones are matched anymore!
>
> At least the little voltage regulator tubes (0D3 and friends)
> age better.
Would zeners be a better choice?
I am looking for a Micro Vax (or any VAX) and/or materials/literature on
them. I live about 60 miles south of Denver, and do not have many $$ to
invest, but will do what I can.
Anyone have any they are willing to part with?
I would also dearly love any old Commodore equipment/literature as well!
Thank you
David
> I just caught a part of a TV program showing pictures of and the use of
> a computer called LEO.
> It was made by and belonged to a UK company called Lyons.
> They imported and sold tea, ran a chain of tea shops and restaurants,
> made and sold ice cream.
Leo eventually became ICL, I worked for them (ICL) on LEO III-26 at Charles
House in London on payroll and utility billing, my experience was on Ampex
TM2's & 4's which the Leo's uesd. The "scope" was on the engineers panel and
was for monitoring the memory, it displayed as blocks of 4 bits - 0000 0000
0000 - forget how many coloumns, in a strange variant of hexadecimal, but
the days before hexadecimal became the norm. There is an interesting website
for LEO's at - http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/pageone.htm - including all
the installations.
I just caught a part of a TV program showing pictures of and the use of
a computer called LEO.
It was made by and belonged to a UK company called Lyons.
They imported and sold tea, ran a chain of tea shops and restaurants,
made and sold ice cream.
I should know, my father worked for them and we had our own ice cream
freezer just like shops.
Boy were we popular in the summer.!!
Any way LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) took four years to build and was
up and running in 1950.
They showed a large room with closed racks, a console with meters and a
scope of some sort.
Also a punch and printer machine room.
Two applications were featured. A tea blending system and a stock
control system for the tea shops.
The tea shop application was telephone to punched card in real time.
Each teashop had a phone in time slot.
>From there it printed picking lists, allocated the stock and even did a
van route setup with LIFO loading.
It must have been all valve and would need cooling. However Lyons was an
ice cream company and refrigeration would not have been a mystery to
them.
To quote an American actor "I have got to get me one of those!!"
Anybody know of another real commercial electronic computer before 1950?
Rod Smallwood
As previously posted, I needed a power cable to connect my 11/23+
chassis to the power controller. The controller end was an AMP
Mate-n-Lok and so is the one on the switch board at the front of
the 11/23+. Thanks to Vince for the Mouser part numbers.
But the connector at the rear chassis is NOT the same. Here is a
picture of it (to the left; the Mate-N-Lok is on the right):
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=6csdoiq
The (DEC) cable is marked "70-18384-03 Rev A" and that connector
"AMP-2" and "CPH-2".
I just made a longer cable with a Mate-N-Lok on both ends, and ran
it directly from the switch board to the power controller. Anyway
I'm still wondering which connector I could have used, or if this
is a previous-owner modification.
thanks
CHarles
Omnibyte OB68K/VME1
I'm looking for any information on this board. This is a 68000
based 6U VME card and not the similarly named multibus card.
Cheers.
Lee.
What is the possibility of getting a copy of a Punched Tape.....(
92060-16044 !DSKUP OFF LINE DISC BACK UP )?
Robert Smith
Process & Support Section
Avionics & Instrument Division
402 EMXSS/MXVOPB(MAIPB) Robins AFB,GA
(478) 327-8669 DSN 497-8669
> Which means that there is at least one machine with a complete set of
> microcode and higher layers avaliable.
Great news!
> with at single RS232 channel, no software and a flat directorystructure
> with over 500 entries, this looks also to be quite a task.
By 'no software' do you mean no development tools?
If there is some way to type out the contents of a disk block, you can
slowly dump the whole disk. Binary dumps of all the files could be automated
if there is a file dump program.
> It does have ethernet, but it is the very old ( first ?) 3MB standard.
The orig was roughly 3mbits, with 256 device addressing. The specs for what
PARC developed exists, though I'm not sure that they exactly copied the design
having never seen it.
