I think the English Electric Leo may have been the first commercial computer. It was invented to run Lyons Tea Shops in England.
It was an interesting beast, and quite capable of multiprogramming 4 programs at once. I worked on a LEO at Shell Oil in Melbourne before the IBM 360/65 (with 640K memory) was purchased. And another interesting thing was that the programming staff of 50 (???) were half men and half women. As a trainee then, my senior programmer was a woman. I was the oldest of ten boys (no girls), so that was an interesting experience. I guess the first programmer Ada Lovelace had to wait a while to become recognised. - *Recognition and Legacy:* Her contributions weren't fully recognized until the 20th century, but now she is celebrated as a pioneer of computer science. A programming language Ada was even named in her honor. However, UNIVAC may have been first? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) ============ I asked Google's AI (gemini.google.com): "Which was the first commercial computer? LEO or UNIVAC?" After Gemini produced some history notes, the final paragraph was: *"Conclusion:* "While the first UNIVAC I was delivered earlier in 1951, the *LEO I was the first to run a regular routine business job.* Therefore, depending on how "first commercial computer" is defined (first delivered or first used for business), either could be considered the first. However, *LEO is widely acknowledged as the first computer used for commercial business applications*. " Cheers, Clem Clarke ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
