Dead At 92, Business Computing Pioneer David Caminer

Brooklyn Bob points out this fascinating obituary of David Caminer, the first systems analyst. "The tea company he worked for developed their own hardware and software — in 1951! Quoting New Scientist: 'In today's terms it would be like hearing that Pizza Hut had developed a new generation of microprocessor, or McDonald's had invented the Internet.'"

Comments

Daily Telegraph - same story, no registration reqd

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2188963/David-Caminer.html

This would be an American article then...

[The Famous Druid]

From TFA: So it was only natural it would look at the electronic brains that scientists in the United States were developing for scientific and military purposes as a way to streamline its own empire

Why do Americans have this urge to claim the credit for everything?

The Germans built a computer during WWII, and the brits built Colossus computers to break German codes. The University of Manchester built their first computer in 1948, and another in 1949, even the aussies had built CSIRAC in 1949, two years before LEO, and yet the NY times has to claim the LEO was based on what 'American Scientists' were doing.

There's a whole big world out there, and America doesn't have a monopoly on innovation.

Deal with it.

Re:This would be an American article then...

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I recall the history, they didn't ask Americans anything. They were examining business methods round the world, and had discussions with other businessmen - both in America and Europe - as a matter of course. Computers (or Electronic Brains!) were being thought about at the time, and Lyons staff wrote a report saying that they should be investigated.

So a meeting was held with Maurice Wilkes of Cambridge, and the upshot was that Lyons sponsored the manufacture of the first commercially designed computer (and, more importantly, the first Business and System Analysts). There was no particular pressure or direction from any other company or country.

Oh, and another error - Lyons was NOT a tea company. It was a chain of restaurants, placed in city centres; they were called 'Lyons Corner Houses' because Joe Lyons, the owner, figured that a corner position got trade from two streets simultaneously. They typically served the office lunchtime trade - their waitresses were known as 'Nippies', because of their fabled speed of service. Tea would have been served, or coffee, and cakes, sandwiches or light meals. It's like calling McDonalds a Dairy Farmer because they serve milk shakes....

   

Re:This would be an American article then...

[mangu]

Why do Americans have this urge to claim the credit for everything?

People in most nations seem to have this urge. Brazilians claim the airplane was invented by a Brazilian and Italians claim the telephone was invented by an Italian.

When you consider a "computer" as a generic machine capable of performing calculations, maybe it could be claimed the Greeks did it, but if you limit your definition to an electronic equipment doing calculations by binary logic, then it's true, an American has the earliest claim.

Tea and bombs

[Dynamoo]

It's not about tea - but as the New Scientist says, the exact equivalent to Lyons is something like Pizza hut. Lyons were the absolute masters of logistics in their time - they ran a huge network of outlets to a consistent quality with a very large turnover. So, they were really an ideal company to experiment with this new technology. Lyon's logistical expertise was such that during the Second World War they ran one of the largest bomb making factories in the world, just a couple of miles from where I live. One in seven bombs dropped on Germany came from the Lyons factory at Elstow.