Newsreel footage of LEO I filmed at the first press demonstration given by Lyons in the LEO installation room on the second floor of WX block at Cadby Hall, Hammersmith, on 16th Feb 1954.  LEO I was the first iteration of the 'Lyons Electronic Office', now recognised as the world's first business computer.

Contents:
00:00  LEO engineer Ernest Lenaerts looking at the printed output from LEO I, in front of power supplies, with audio from the tabulator
00:41  Interview with TR Thompson, Assistant Comptroller at Lyons and a key figure in the development of LEO
01:51  Punching tape in the Data Preparation Area, and running punched tape through the Ferranti tape reader
02:30 Card feed process, then oscilloscope showing data held in the mercury delay line storage
03:00 Tabulator

Copyright: Copyright in this newsreel footage is held by the BBC.  The footage has been provided online with permission from the rights holder, as part of a joint project between The Centre for Computing History and the LEO Computers Society to catalogue and digitise material relating to the history and development of the LEO Computer.  Permission must be acquired from the BBC for any further use.

Find out more about LEO and our work preserving its heritage on our project homepage: Welcome to LEO

Provenance :
Footage transferred to the LEO Computers Society by the BBC, and donated to the archive by LCS Chair, Peter Byford.

Copyright
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