As it was very interesting reading for me and, I think, for others, I
here citate
from an article (
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008023617_caminerobit29.html
):
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
<http://search.nwsource.com/search?sort=date&from=ST&byline=DOUGLAS%20MARTIN>
The New York Times
David Caminer, who as an employee of a legendary chain of British tea shops
found the earliest ways to use a computer for business purposes, including
standardizing flavorful, cost-effective cups of tea, died June 19 in
London.
He was 92.
The death was announced by the Leo Computers Society, whose purpose is to
keep alive the memory of LEO, the computer Mr. Caminer helped develop for
J. Lyons & Co. It was the world's first business computer, a distinction
certified
by Guinness World Records.
Lyons was the first company to computerize its commercial operations,
partly
because it had so many: It had more than 200 teahouses in London and its
suburbs,
with each Lyons Corner House daily generating thousands of paper
receipts and
needing scores of fresh-baked items.
In addition to running the tea shops, Lyons catered large events such as
tennis at
Wimbledon and garden parties at Windsor Castle; it also operated hotels,
laundries,
and ice-cream, candy and meat-pie companies. And tea plantations.
. . .
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.
LEO performed its first calculation on Nov. 17, 1951, running a program
to evaluate costs,
prices and margins of that week's baked output. At that moment, Lyons
was years ahead of
IBM and the other companies that eventually overtook it.
. . .
Thomas Berg
====== john gilmore ====== wrote 2008-06-29 16:27:
The Lyons Corner Shops predeceased him, and David Caminer has now joined them.
One of the principal designers of LEO, the first business computer, he was a programmer of genius and an anomaly: Think, as a British obituary writer suggested, of McDonald's designing the Internet to get some notion of just how unprecedented his achievements were.
He is not nearly so well known outside the UK as he should be, and it is too bad that a spate of obituaries should be the occasion for putting an end to his obscurity elsewhere.John GilmoreAshland, MA 01721-1817USA
_________________________________________________________________
Enter the Zune-A-Day Giveaway for your chance to win — day after day after day
http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/ZuneADay/?locale=en-US&ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Mobile_Zune_V1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
--
__________________________
Mundus Vult Decipi
__________________________
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
- Groucho Marx
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
