Digital audio of a recorded interview with Alan Jacobs who worked as a programmer on LEO I and LEO II.

Interviewer: David Phillips
Date of interview: 17 October 2018
Length of recording: 1h48m59s
Format: original .mps recordings (58.31MB+41.63MB), transferred to .mov vieo for presentation on YouTube (179.78MB)
Copyright in recording content: Alan Jacobs and LEO Computers Society

Transcript editor: Frank Land, undated
Alan Jacobs DOB: 15/06/1931
Joined LEO: 1957

Abstract: Alan, born in Stoke, took a degree in History at St John’s, Oxford, commencing in 1950, after National Service in the RAF and tried a number of jobs as management trainee, but was not inspired by them. Tempted by LEO advert and after interview was invited to join as programmer. Involved with a succession of service jobs rising in seniority. Despite his admiration and like of working at LEO decided to further his career by leaving LEO, first for BEA and then other organisations none of which had the sense of knowing what they were doing he had found at LEO. When the opportunity came in 1962 he re-joined BOAC to join the team being built by Peter Hermon to develop a comprehensive Airline Reservation System. Alan headed a team developing ground-breaking Airline Departure system. Alan left British Airways and was recruited by Sainsbury’s as their Director of IT helping to transform the business. After Sainsbury’s Alan retired.

Transcript :

LEO COMPUTERS LIMITED  -  Oral History Project
Interview with Alan Jacobs by David Phillips
Editor:  Frank Land

[David Phillips]:   It's Wednesday the 17th of October, 2018.  I am David Phillips and I am interviewing Alan Jacobs to give us the story of his involvement with LEO Computers from the earliest days.  So  Alan, good morning.
I thought we would start by, if we may, talking a bit about your early days before we start on the LEO period. First of all may I ask, if you don't mind me asking, when were you born?
[Alan Jacobs]:   The 15th of June 1931.
[David Phillips]: Well you look very fit for your age. Where were you born?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Stoke on Trent.
[David Phillips]:  What were you doing in Stoke, or what were your parents doing in Stoke on Trent?
[Alan Jacobs]:   My father had a radio and television shop in Stoke.  My grandparents had come over from Lithuania and they settled in Stoke.  And they were originally, I believe, supplying bits and pieces to the pottery industry, you know, sponges and bowls and all that sort of thing.  And then my father went into the Army in the First World War, and he was put to work on the electrical engineering side.  When the war ended radios began to become part of the domestic scene and he converted the business from general supplies for the pottery industry to a radio, plus, eventually, a television business.
[David Phillips]:   Did your mother work?
[Alan Jacobs]:   No, no, not at all. No, the bad old days.
[David Phillips]:   Were you the only child?
[Alan Jacobs]:   No, no, I have an older brother.
[David Phillips]:   May I ask if he, is he still alive?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh, yes.  He's ninety and he was a doctor. 
 [David Phillips]:   So you were brought up knowing something about electronics or electrical equipment would you say?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh no: I left that to my father, and it was a huge surprise when eventually I found myself in computing.
[David Phillips]: Tell us about those early days.  Where did you go to school, in Stoke?
[Alan Jacobs]:   In Stoke, yeah.  I went to the primary school in Stoke and then we moved from an area called Hanley, which is one of the five towns, towards the country, Newcastle under Lyme. From there I went to Wolstanton County Grammar School.  Then I went into the Air Force and then I went to Oxford.
[David Phillips]:   So you were conscripted for National Service
[Alan Jacobs]: Yes, I didn't go voluntarily. There was an arrangement actually at that time that if you knew you had a University place you could enter the forces, at a younger age than normal.  And that would give you  the time required for National Service, eighteen months,  and then get back to your University career.  So I was seventeen when I went into the Air Force.
[David Phillips]:   Yes.  When did you go into the RAF?  
[Alan Jacobs]:   It was March ’49.  That gave me the prescribed period for National Service, so that I could get out in time for University term in 1950
[David Phillips]:   So aged seventeen at the grammar school you had been awarded a place at Oxford? And what were you going to study there?
[Alan Jacobs]:   History
[David Phillips]:   History!  No indication of interest in things like mathematics?
[Alan Jacobs]:   No, on the contrary. I was in the Arts stream. The school was very, very much what you might call a humanities school, very little science, especially during the Second World War.  All the younger teachers were out there doing their bit in the War, and we got all sorts of odds and sods as it were coming in to help out. There was little “professional“ science teaching.  And the headmaster was a classicist and he wanted his best people to go to Oxford.  And it was as simple as that.
[David Phillips]:   Which college did you go to?
[Alan Jacobs]:   St John’s.  
[David Phillips]:   And what did you achieve during that time?  Did you participate in any activities?
[Alan Jacobs]:  I was enjoyed it great deal actually, alongside the usual the stresses and strains of growing up.   I took part in a lot of things, both at college and across the University. I suppose the most important part of my life in those days was political; I became Treasurer of the University Labour Club and that took quite a lot of time and I made a lot of friends in that area.  But I was also Captain of the college Soccer team, and played Tennis and Squash for the college. - I had quite a full life.  
[David Phillips]:   But you found time to study?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Not much.  [Laughs].  I came back with a terrible degree. I got a third! I found that History studies at Oxford were quite demanding in many ways. It's nothing like History that one had ever had at school and I found it perplexing in terms of the amount of material that you really could put together, from so many different angles, with only a couple of weeks to do your essay. With everything else I was doing that was very challenging.  And very interesting.  And, of course, the tutorials were very good.  I lived on the same staircase as the Senior Tutor, who was also my History Tutor as it happened. He was a very nice and interesting, oldish man, who had been an Infantry Officer in the First World War. He understood young people and their general aspirations and thoughts, and was able to relate what we were talking about in historical terms to current, ongoing life .
[David Phillips]:   What happened next?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Well, the first thing was that I got a so called graduate trainee job at Northern Dairies when I came down.  The reason I went to Northern Dairies was that I had a cousin there already who was a statistician, a Cambridge man, and he suggested I might be interested.  I thought ‘why not?’   So I went to Northern Dairies for a short period working as a graduate trainee, mucking around, getting to know the business. In the end, I spent most of my time at Northern Dairies at their major manufacturing unit, the Creamery where they produced cheese, condensed milk and chocolate crumb and things like that.  Again, basically familiarizing,  doing  office work, and trying to analyse the efficiency of the operation.
[David Phillips]:   Was it leading you towards anything in particular?
[Alan Jacobs]:   No, it wasn't.  Moving on, sadly .
[David Phillips]:   In what way?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Well,  I got on very well with the Northern Dairies people around me, and became very friendly with the MD’s family and social circle. But I didn’t feel I was making much progress fundamentally, and personal relationships with the family got complicated and difficult. It was decided that I had better move on. 
So I left Northern Dairies to go back to Stoke, to join the Michelin Tyre Company. There I became a so called Methods Officer.  I thought this might be a bit more organised and suit me better, you know.  And Michelin, as a French concern, operating in the UK, was quite interesting.  But very different. And I was absolutely astonished at the way in which the French management thought they had a different, superior way of thinking, and kept on saying, you know, ‘you English don't know how to analyse things properly’, and so on.  It was quite funny.
[David Phillips]:   Were they right, do you think?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh no, no, they weren't, they were very narrow minded .  No they just felt themselves superior.  Anyway that took me to London, because whilst the factory for Michelin Tyres UK was in Stoke , the main UK office, sales/marketing office was in London, in South Kensington. I kept on going up and down to London for that. I can't quite remember what I was doing in detail but it was some sort of analysis work. That settled it; I felt that I was in a bit of a backwater in Stoke, I wanted to get a job London,  And I saw a LEO ad in a National paper inviting graduates, any graduates, to discuss the possibilities of joining them. [David Phillips]:   The ad specifically mentioned ‘Arts’?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh yes, LEO was a very broadly based and intelligent operation. Of course they wanted mathematicians for mathematical and scientific work, but they were very conscious of the fact, correctly,  that basic business computing, which is what they were primarily interested in, was essentially modest in terms of its requirements for what you might call ‘mathematical’ skills.  All they wanted was people who could think reasonably clearly; they expected Arts graduates to be equally capable of thinking reasonably clearly, if not more clearly in having broader horizons.  And so I found myself amongst an amazing collection of people, -Theologians, Historians, Geographers, Linguists,  everybody, you name it, Classicists, - and I found that a tremendous breakthrough, very stimulating.  
[David Phillips]:   Let's just go back to the advertisement itself.  It was asking for people to join a computer company? Did that mean anything to you?  What did it mean?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Not very much, I was astonished. I had just about heard of Electronic Brains, but knew nothing about them, but the ad made it encouraging in terms of you didn't have to be someone who was specially skilled, so I thought I'd have a try.
[David Phillips]:   So tell me about the interview, can you remember the interview?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh, I can remember the interview very well because the man who was interviewing me was a man I knew very well at St John’s, a mathematician - a brilliant mathematician, Peter Hermon.  (Editor: Peter Hermon’s Oral History can be found in Dropbox and is summarised in LEOPEDIA. He is co-author of LEO: The Incredible story of the World’s First Business Computer). Peter Hermon figures a lot in my life. He got a double first in maths, and was a top University mathematician, and he was the man who interviewed me.  So it was all really very straight forward. We were able to relax and he was able to explain what it was all about and whether I might or might not fit in.
[David Phillips]:   So we have a very talented mathematician talking to a history graduate?   Could you communicate?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh, yes, we could communicate. As I say we knew each other well.  He  had a room very close to me in the college, and I knew him  as a bit of a melancholic, and I used to try and sooth his melancholia from time to time. I was also Captain of Soccer and he wanted to get a run around from time to time.  He had no idea how to play but we let him run around.  So I knew him well.
[David Phillips]:   So what was the first job at LEO?
[Alan Jacobs]:  The first job was working on a series of tables for the Institute of Actuaries.  I was very surprised to find myself involved in that sort of work. But in fact, from the computing point of view, it's very straightforward as long as you can just put the equations together.  Having said that, I was certainly a bit apprehensive, and I was helped enormously by the man who was in charge of that little section, Roger Coleman (Editor: Roger Coleman’s Oral History is held in Dropbox and summarised in LEOPEDIA).  He was a very nice young man. Unusually, he wasn't a graduate. It was just surprising, that, with his evident ability, he had not been to University.  He really taught me the practicalities of computing, after I had gone through the programming training course. (Editor: Roger Coleman describes his decision not to go to University in his Oral History held in Dropbox).
[David Phillips]:   May we talk about the course?
 [Alan Jacobs]:   It was a five week training course as I recall and there were both Internal LEO Trainees and people from the outside – LEO customers.  And they just took you through the fundamentals of computing, the structure of the machine as it were, and the basics of programming and coding.
[David Phillips]:   And what, this was machine coding?
[Alan Jacobs]:   It was Assembly code – basically it was machine language but it was encapsulated in a form which made it much easier than trying to code in pure machine code . (Editor: The LEO I assembly code provided: a decimal number instruction code, Macro instructions composed of bundles of machine code, relative addressing, and a parameter driven loading routine)
[David Phillips]:   Can you elaborate a little bit about how you found this complete change of direction?
[Alan Jacobs]: I was a bit worried that this was all going to be beyond me,   But I quickly palled up with people on the course and people giving the courses, who were really very friendly, and I gradually settled into it.  And I particularly palled up with another Internal Leo Trainee, John Lewis, and we decided to share a flat together.  He was a mathematician from Oxford and I got great support from him whenever I found myself in difficulty. 
The programming course was basically designed to provide a simple understanding of the logic of the way in which machines worked and the way in which programmes were put together.  And so it wasn't overwhelmingly demanding. But, of course, it had its confusing moments.  I got those cleared up by having John Lewis at my side, and then there were people like Leo Fantl who were around who were, very helpful. (Editor: LEO Fantl’s brief biography can be found on page 202 of Peter Bird’s book, LEO: the first Business Computer) 
 And so In the end I found it enormously stimulating. After messing around with graduate trainee jobs, which didn't seem to be getting anywhere, to be working amongst very bright people in an exciting environment was a great relief.  
The course was very well run, for something like 15-20 trainees. I was eventually involved in giving parts of those courses myself.  We were all roped in to that sort of thing over a period of time - you joined in on the training as well as doing the actual programming.
[David Phillips]:  Returning for a moment to your first programming job, did you have to do all the programming or only a component?
[Alan Jacobs]:   A component, yes.  Each of us in this group of people working under Roger for the Institute of Actuaries, had particular specific tables to produce.  And so there was an equation for the particular calculation that was needed and then one had to perceive how that fitted into the requirement for the production of tables.  And that was it.
[David Phillips]:  I assume the mathematicians would produce the equations
[Alan Jacobs]: Yes, actuaries of course. Roger showed me how the equation worked.  I didn't need, to be a mathematician. it was just a matter of understanding the elements of the equation and putting them together into a programme and getting that programme to work.
 [David Phillips]:   What computer were you going to put this programme on?
[Alan Jacobs]:   LEO I. At Cadby Hall. (Editor: the Headquarters of J. Lyons & Co). And, of course, it was an amazing machine in terms of its size.
[David Phillips]:   Tell me your first impression of seeing this machine?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I was staggered that it could calculate six hundred additions a second.  And so was everybody else that I took around subsequently - it seemed just such a phenomenon at that time.  And, of course, there was a large room full with rows of these huge cabinets containing, literally, thousands of valves and, you know, lights flashing.  And then you had the console with lights  flashing and  bits and pieces, you know, bobbing about on the cathode ray tubes; it was all very impressive. It really was. 
Showing people around I felt proud to be associated and know something about it.. I knew how to programme, and more or less what was going on in the machine.  But the people I took around were always simply overwhelmed by its calculating speed, six hundred additions a second, and the sort of things that we were doing. This was all good for my ego.  
[David Phillips]:   Tell me, how did you get your programme from coding sheets to the computer?
 [Alan Jacobs]:   You write your programmes out on paper;  it gets punched on to paper tape and then it is punched on to cards, and ‘hey presto’, the programme may or may not work.  
[David Phillips]:   Were there problems with the actual machinery - processors, printing, preparing the cards or the paper tape
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh no, no, that was all very simple.  The transfer from your written code  on to paper tape, was done by other people.  There was a data preparation team, girls largely, hammering away at the application data, as well as knocking up programmes. The paper tape got converted into cards via the computer, and that became the programme pack . That was all very straightforward.  
[David Phillips]:   And then you would test it on the computer?
[Alan Jacobs]:   And then you'd test it, and that would be the interesting part.  You write your programme and you'd have someone check it. This was one of the fundamentals at LEO.  You had somebody, one of your colleagues, would go over it and they'd try to debug it before you were allowed to take the next step - machine time was precious.  And then you'd submit it to the machine and keep your fingers crossed, and all sorts of things would happen.
[David Phillips]:   Like what?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Oh, oh it didn't work ,of course! There were obvious errors, where the machine just could not proceed further, and less obvious ones when the programme failed to produce the results for one reason or another. And then you would take a printed dump of the contents of the computer store and try and see what had gone wrong.  
But on one occasion I remember vividly where the whole thing just went straight through and printed the results, and we couldn't believe it. It just didn't happen normally!  Even very good programmers normally expected that there would be the odd thing that would not be quite right first time round.  So I had this amazing experience of having a programme which actually produced the results first time through, and we couldn't believe it.  So we ran it again, it was mad actually, that we ran it again, - we were just so taken aback - , and it came out the same way again.
If you can put your thoughts together in a reasonably disciplined logical way you can be a programmer.  Lyons had understood that right from the very outset. They just wanted people who could think logically.  The actual translation of those thoughts into Assembly code is not all that difficult; it's just a matter of getting to an understand how to put clear thinking on to a logic diagram, through flow charts.  You don't have to be a genius to be a programmer.
[David Phillips]:   Just tell me a bit about that, the logic diagrams?  Who supplied these?
[Alan Jacobs]   The key thing is to put a flow chart together which shows exactly what happens from step to step to step, and where a choice has to be made which path to follow, and then how it splits into more pathways.  If you get that laid out properly, then the translation of the particular logical steps that you have to put into code is really not very difficult.  This is something that Lyons had understood from the very beginning, and that's why they had this amazing collection of Theologians, Historians, Classicists, Linguists, and so on.  But for me It was undertaking some abstruse calculations for the Institute of Actuaries, - what they all added up to I had no idea, I was just going through the equation parameters, working my way through them.
[David Phillips]:   So you're working with the Operators of the computer? They would be assisting you?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Yes, LEO had established a very good interface with the Operators, in the disciplined way in which you set up Operating Instructions, clearly set out for Operators to be able to use when you're not around, after the programmes had been handed over for production. The layout of Instructions was very well designed so that the Operators could run the jobs on their own.  In the first instance, of course, when we were doing our programme testing, we would do it all ourselves. We would assemble and set up the programs and the test data. So we would be following the program, from its birth as it were, until it was clear that it was working satisfactorily, and could be handed over for production.
[David Phillips]:   What contact would you have with the management of LEO?
[Alan Jacobs]:   It was generally a very relaxed relationship.  But David Caminer was a dominant figure.  To many of us he was an awesome, sometimes irascible figure.  But relations with everybody else, at every level, were very easy and relaxed.  People who had been there for a long time and were very experienced, like John Gosden and Leo Fantl were simply very helpful.  It was a very, very collegiate exercise in that sense.
[David Phillips]:   What about getting customers for LEO, getting programming work?
[Alan Jacobs]:  As I saw it, that was essentially through David Caminer and T.R. Thompson. Gradually people got to understand that Lyons had been very successful with LEO in applying it to business and, perhaps a little bit nervously, people came along and said, ‘well, can you do this for us?’ An obvious candidate was Payroll.  We had a Payroll running for Lyons , and it was pretty obvious we could do payrolls for other companies.  And, of course as LEO grew, the more senior people in the various teams would find themselves directed by David Caminer or T.R. Thompson, to go and talk to ‘x’ and ‘y’ and ‘z’ to see if there was anything there that was worthwhile for both sides, and that way more, and different work came along all the time.
Then there were jobs like the calculation of tax tables and ordinance tables, and things like that - which were obviously mathematical.  In those days Leo was in fact one of a small set of computers capable of handling large scale “mathematical” computing, and we were able to offer a bureau service. So people who needed “mathematical” work done came to us for our service and time on the machine 
People weren't taking computers on board as installations for themselves in those days. That is not altogether surprising given the cost/rarity of available computers, and everything that was involved in trying to install the array of associated equipment, including cabinets with thousands of valves which required specialist air conditioning. And, of course, all the new skills which were needed in support.
[David Phillips]:  So, the LEO team would be looking at the Lyons’ business operations? Replicating what you've learned from LEO, Lyons
[Alan Jacobs]:  Not “replicating”,- rather, ”building on the experience”. We could show people what we were doing and they became familiar with what we were doing.  They were amazed, and the jobs were amazing. The major Lyons applications on LEO were enormously well-conceived and constructed, by people who really could see how to use the potential of a computer, even though, by today’s standards, the capacity, in every respect, was incredibly limited.
[David Phillips]:   Were these LEO people?
[Alan Jacobs]:    T.R. Thompson was in charge at the top and, close to the Board. Even from where I sat, I could sense that he was a driving force, working in close association with David Caminer, who was from the old Lyons Methods office.  Oh they were very, very bright people.  (Editor: David Caminer had been the Manager of the Systems Research Office before being seconded to LEO)
[David Phillips]:   Can you remember your first commercial job that you did for LEO?
 [Alan Jacobs]:   I really have thought a lot about this, and the answer is No We were very relaxed in terms of being available as a team of programmers.  So that as people needed us, and as systems which were on the machine were being developed, people were switched around to provide help where it was needed.  And, again, the documentation was so good, the whole thing was so well organised, that you could quite readily pick up other people’s programmes to progress any necessary development work.
[David Phillips]:   Tell me a bit about your career at LEO then?  So, you gradually ascended. 
[Alan Jacobs]:   You gradually ascend, this is what everybody did, gradual ascent. (Editor:  Some faster than others; John Gosden, for example, rose rapidly through the Lyons and LEO management hierarchy). You start off being a basic programmer, guided by your mentors, and gradually you are given charge of a little team, and you start guiding them. Then you find yourself exposed to the outside world, either Lyons or outside customers.  It was a fairly straightforward process of gaining experience.  And as you gained experience and were seen to be competent you were given more responsibility.
[David Phillips]:   The personnel count was increasing and the offices were getting bigger?
[Alan Jacobs]:   There was one big office, as far as I was concerned, in Elms House, opposite Cadby Hall.  It was just that one office, the Goldfish bowl we called it because it was surrounded by all these windows, both facing the outside and Cadby Hall, and internally within the building.  I suppose there must have been thirty or forty people there. (Editor: for a good account of the seating arrangements in the goldfish bowl see the Brian Mills Oral History).
[David Phillips]:   Were there any developments with the machine itself that you were aware of? Its capabilities for instance?
[Alan Jacobs]:   We knew we were going from a LEO I to a LEO II. They were incompatible, you couldn't run a LEO I programme on LEO II, they used different programme instruction codes.  (Editor: Peter Bird lists the LEO I and LEO II programme instruction codes in his book “LEO: The World’s First Business Computer”)  Once the capacity of LEO I was filled, - it was used for both Lyons work and the ongoing bureau jobs -, more and more work was conceived in terms of LEO II.  
We all had our problems with LEO I.  It was a machine which used to break down quite frequently, and we were careful to make provision for this, with programme restart facilities. But we knew that LEO II was coming along as Pinkerton and his team of engineers were putting this new machine together which was faster, had greater capacity and was expected to be more reliable.  (Editor:  Despite the reliability problem with LEO I Jacobs notes, LEO I never failed to deliver a time-critical job in time)  
[David Phillips]:   Did you have a new team of programming people to work with LEO II?
[Alan Jacobs]:   No, as LEO II was coming along, we just took on board LEO II, so we were doing work for both LEO I and LEO II. (Editor: Although LEO I code and LEO II programmes were incompatible, the basic coding structure was similar, so that converting from LEO I coding to LEO II coding was not at all difficult)
[David Phillips]:   But, were you contributing to the development of the programming language?
[Alan Jacobs]:   No, not directly; people around me were, people like Roger Coleman and John Gosden .  They were interpreting the way in which the computer was being used and the efficiency of it all.  And people like Pinkerton were translating this into the design of the machinery – LEO II
[David Phillips]:   What about your activities, at this stage were, you were running a team? 
[Alan Jacobs]:   The first point of time at which I came to be running a team was when I took on board the project for the London Borough of Greenwich.  They wanted the Payroll done and I got that as a project.  So I wrote the specification, I got the specification agreed and I had a team of people and we wrote the programmes and we got the thing running as a Bureau job for the London Borough of Greenwich on a LEO II.
[David Phillips]:   What was the relationship like with the people at Greenwich?  How did they respond to working with a computer expert?
[Alan Jacobs]:   It was a little bit tricky actually.  They had taken the initiative to put their work on LEO as a  joint operation with several other neighbouring London Boroughs.  They all got together, and saw this as a joint project.  They had people at the top there who were really very nice, very bright - the senior executives in the Councils.  But I remember very vividly the man they sent to me to sort out all the details of the Greenwich Borough payroll itself, Gerry Kaner. He was a pleasant, friendly man, but he did have a bit of trouble keeping in touch with our endeavour.  He was a bit out of his depth. He found it quite difficult to relate to the computer project.  Well, of course, in the 1950s computers were so novel, people had very little idea what they were about.  - Not surprising then, it wasn't his fault, he just wasn't familiar with the sorts of thing a computer could do.  
[David Phillips]:   When, what sort of period are we talking about now?  
[Alan Jacobs]:  It would be 1956 - 58, that sort of period.  We got a demonstration of a Payroll running for demonstration for the various Councils involved. 
There we were, programming in the Goldfish bowl, with the first, newly installed Leo II adjacent, and we could see people streaming in for their different demonstrations. . And I well remember that sometimes the demonstrations went very much awry, and you had to improvise a great deal as you were presenting them to customers. 
By that time the business computing world in the UK was opening up, there were a lot more organisations interested in using computers, there was more interest in what we were achieving.  So the market was opening up in terms of potential for people who had computer experience.  And I think I saw the Greenwich Borough Payroll job , - I wrote quite a lot of it myself  -,  as my platform to go  to get myself a better position elsewhere.  One particular opening at the time was British European Airways and that sounded quite fun.  I thought I could go and lord it at British European Airways with their computer.
[David Phillips]:   Did you not see opportunity from LEO itself?
[Alan Jacobs]:  There was great splurge of activity as the established Business Consultants began to take an interest in offering Computer Consultancy as a service, and their people were being sent to us for training.  I came into contact with quite a lot of people from other organisations that way.  Other companies set themselves up as specialist Computer Consultants, - there was, particularly, a firm called Diebold, which became very influential.  (Editor: John Diebold an American computer consultant teamed up with a leading British Management consultancy Urwick Orr to form Urwick Diebold)
But returning to opportunities at LEO It wasn't quite so clear cut at that stage, that there were straight forward, formal Managerial opportunities with LEO.  It felt a little as if we were still in the Sergeant’s Mess, nicely treated and so on, but we weren't Managers in the formal sense. Rather, established Managers from Lyons itself were occasionally being drafted in for training, and it was somewhat discouraging when one of their number, a nice, able man, Doug Comish, then became a Leo colleague. It wasn't that there was a blockage, it was just that we seemed to be in a fairly static state. I remember that quite soon after I left things began to open up, the general approach changed, and senior Leo people, my old friends and colleagues, were formally made Managers at last.
[David Phillips]:   But you got to the point that, when you were fairly senior in as much as you ran a group and you dealt with clients etc., but you then decided to leave.  What efforts did LEO make to keep you?  Because you'd be a valuable member at that point, you'd been trained, you knew what you were doing.  
[Alan Jacobs]:   I think it was all very amicable, I'd been there quite a few years, and people had come and gone, When I was going to BEA, I was going to an organisation that had ordered an EMIDEC computer from EMI, and that was designed by an ex-LEO man who had gone off to EMI and produced a machine which was very similar conceptually to the machine that he knew, but improved and built on solid state hardware.
[David Phillips]:   Can you recall his name?
[Alan Jacobs]:   John Grover. (Editor: It was actually Derek Hemy, one of the earliest Lyons managers to join the LEO team.  John Grover joined Derek Hemy at EMI a little later)
[Alan Jacobs]:    I got to know John Grover,  a very able man, because I went on a Programmer training course at EMI which he was directing,  So there was a certain amount of movement already. I wanted pastures new.  BEA seemed to provide a nice prospects: air travel was was still a relatively novel thing and the idea of being part of an airline and getting airline travel didn't seem to be such a bad idea.  So that was it.
[David Phillips]:   What was your first assignment?
 [Alan Jacobs]:  The computer team at BEA was in a fantastic mess.  They really did not know how to design a computer system. They were all over the place, they couldn't see the wood for the trees.   They'd already ordered the Emidec. They had been told the computer would do ‘a whole series of jobs for BEA but, without any practical experience, it was extraordinary to find how they fumbled. And they didn’t seek/get much help from the Emidec team.  I really did find the situation extremely disturbing and tiresome, and it soon made me feel I'd done the wrong thing in leaving.
[David Phillips]:   What did you go there as, what position were you in?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I think they called me a Programmer/analyst. One of a team, but a very frustrated member.   In stark contrast to the people I had been working with at LEO , who really knew what they were doing, could see the wood for the trees. We are talking about reasonably bright people at BEA, but without experience, and finding it all very difficult.
[David Phillips]:   So what was your career progression at BEA?
[Alan Jacobs]:    It didn't last very long – I was just there for a year, ‘59/’60.  By then there were quite a lot of other opportunities, as business computers began to take off. 
National Cash Registers (NCR), with its background in office machinery was one of the more prominent organisations engaged in selling to business.  NCR came out with quite an interesting machine, the 315, and they needed people to help with the development of its market .  NCR had a large customer base from its cash register/accounting machine business - a lot of customers who were used to NCR machines. So NCR were recruiting people with computer experience as best they could, at quite high salaries, .  When I saw that NCR were interested in setting up more experienced teams, I went to them, hoping that the environment would be more like my LEO experience. 
NCR were very closely associated with Elliott Automation. A were a very, very bright company, based in Borehamwood.  They were trying to do things which were very imaginative and novel with computers.  They were building computers for NCR, which were being sold as National- Elliott machines, the 405 and 803, alongside NCR’s own machines from their parent company in America.  Then, when they found themselves involved in some work which was related to Airline Reservations, and got to know of my background from BEA, I got involved with Elliott Automation. . 
[David Phillips]:   Were you well paid as programmers?
[Alan Jacobs]:    Ah, I got a lift up every time I moved.  Compared with the various Business Consultants such as Urwick Diebold, who were, we learnt, very well paid, we were not all that well paid. We weren't in quite the same league. But we were comfortable, very comfortable.
[David Phillips]:   Before we go further, let's just step back for a moment and talk about the relationship between the LEO team and Lyons, because Lyons is a commercial organisation in the food industry, whereas you were part of a rather a rarefied group working on computers?
[Alan Jacobs]:    Yes but doing work for Lyons, in general was pretty relaxed.  I  think there was a certain suggestion of rivalry between the Lyons Methods people and the more “glamorous” LEO people but I never felt it.  I never felt other than being part of Lyons.  (Editor: Until the merger with English Electric LEO employees were part of the Lyons organisation, subject to its management practices and part of the Lyons social practices including sports facilities and clubs, canteens, and social activities such as choirs. LEO was a part of Lyons like any other department or group even when it was formally a subsidiary though ruled by the Lyons Board of Directors.  The merger with English Electric in 1963 changed attitudes.)
[David Phillips]:   Did the Lyons people appreciate what you were doing?
[Alan Jacobs]:    Oh yes, they did. What we were doing was absolutely fundamental to the business.  The computer systems were integral with their whole business thinking, and were tremendously well executed, in fine detail. For example, in the Teashops job there was a very clever system for getting the right lorries into the confines of the Cadby Hall yard for loading deliveries and get them out again to meet delivery schedules.
[David Phillips]:   After BEA and NCR you then joined, or re-joined, LEO, what brought that about?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I was working on a number of jobs with Elliott’s, and, as I said, the people there were very bright and very helpful, and, believe it or not, we were trying to to develop a novel Airline Reservations system and a Message Switching system, on quite small machines.   Elliott Automation was very successful in marketing other novel systems, process control for steel works and things like that, but our efforts on commercial side never took off.  We couldn't get anybody really interested, and our potential customers were quite right, we weren't really equipped for it, we didn’t have the necessary depth of support   In many ways I enjoyed working there, - sometimes, I remember, working over-night to get use of the computer I needed -,but  I could not get the stimulus and support from the people at Elliott’s of the kind which I got at LEO.  Everybody around me  at LEO was a part of a business computing team and knew what business was about.  At heart Elliott’s were more concerned with different kinds of industrial processes, like running steel works and furnaces.  The people right at the top particularly were very creative, very bright indeed, I liked them a lot and I had a great respect for them, but we never made any impact with the commercial work that I was doing.  I just got a bit frustrated.  We didn't actually sell anything, just developed prototype systems and demonstrations and all that sort of thing. It was all quite interesting, but we weren't getting anywhere. I decided that the best thing was to go back to LEO.
 [David Phillips]:   How did you bring that about?
[Alan Jacobs]:   As well as my flatmate, John Lewis,I had lots of friends at Leo such as the Land brothers, and Brian Mills, and we were still in contact. Through them I just said, ‘I want to come back’.  But the thing that I came back to was interesting and different.  At that particular time, Lector the document reader, was just beginning to emerge.  Lector was designed to read marks made on paper documents, and it was designed and produced by LEO people.  It was thought through in terms of what you needed in business.  How can you use paper documents in an ordinary way in the office which can then be handled automatically thereafter? Lector wasn't a bad device, and it was much more satisfactory concept than the alternative “mark sensed cards”. At LEO they devised a system where you could use ordinary paper documents on which a user could make marks with a pen or pencil, which could be optically scanned, to produce paper tape as output.. At the time that I wanted to return they had just begun to produce the first prototypes and they were trying to put machine onto the market . They hadn't got anybody assigned, so I was taken on board , to get on with that.  At that time the machine didn't have a name and I suggested Lector  -and they said, ‘fine’. (Editor:  A good account of the genesis of Lector and its on-line successor Autolector is provided by Peter Bird in his book “LEO: The World’s First Business Computer” Chapter 5, pages 140-`43 and pages 146 – 152, including photos of mark sensing forms)
[David Phillips]:   So were you a team?  Did you head a team?
 [Alan Jacobs]:    I was virtually on my own on this, and my first move was to bring on board ICT (Editor: International Computers and Tabulators).  We got them interested and  we set up a joint marketing operation.  Lector was conceived and developed by a man called Daniel Broido.  (Editor: Chief Mechanical Engineer of LEO Computers Limited working with John Pinkerton.  A brief biography of Daniel Broido can be found in Peter Bird’s book “LEO: The World’s First Business Computer, page 200).  Conceptually, they'd thought through the problems and, in principle, had come up with a very interesting, practical approach,  (Editor: For a description of some of the problems see “A Conversation between Frank Land [FL] and Antony Bryant)  This was paper, you could print on it, you could write on it, do all sorts of things to guide the user, and clearly distinguish areas in which you needed to put your mark . It was a very good idea but the execution was somewhat underdeveloped, and it was often a real problem to get the machine to work smoothly.  This was not character reading, we hadn't got that far. But the machine was prone to all sorts of paper handling problems.
Returning to ICT.  One of the first things I did was bring ICT on board, and they undertook to market it with us. So I was working a lot with a man from ICT , Basil Sheldrick. ICT bought a small initial batch and, together, we got quite a lot of potential  customers to come along and see the machine down at Minerva Road, (Editor: The LEO factory premises in Park Royal, London) at the factory and to explain its potential. ICT would sell it as an ICT machine and we would sell it as a LEO machine. Basil was very enthusiastic and ICT did sell a few machines.  Relations with ICT were totally at arm’s length. This was a piece of equipment that they could sell, just as we bought Ferranti paper tape readers and Bull printers etc for LEO.
[David Phillips]:   But you were becoming a salesman then were you?
 [Alan Jacobs]:    That was alright, it was quite interesting. But I was very disappointed  by the modest level of sales we achieved.
And then I was involved with trying to go a stage beyond Lector, which was a hand fed device producing paper tape for entry into the computer, to Autolector which was directly linked to the computer for mass online data entry.  The Autolector design was based on a device designed for reading football pool coupons, by Parnell, a firm in Bristol.  It was a huge machine which took a stack of the football coupons and put them through the machine, and optically read the Xs on the coupons. We worked with them to adapt it so that could read the sort of document forms that we saw as the requirements of business. I was involved in all this.  I did all the marketing, producing the promotion materials and documentation.  Autolector was a very large, expensive piece of equipment, a serious purchase for an organisation which had a really big load of data. This was a novel means of by-passing data preparation and getting the documents straight into the computer.
[David Phillips]:   Were you involved with LEO III?
[Alan Jacobs]:    No, I only came in on it after it was well advanced.  I think the first LEO III that I saw was at Hartree House in Bayswater, Whiteley’s building.  And maybe that was the first one.
[David Phillips]:   But were your programming days over then?
 [Alan Jacobs]:  Programming days, yes. I was deeply involved in marketing the Lectors, .  
 [David Phillips]:   Was it difficult to market the LEO range?
 [Alan Jacobs]:   Yes there was this huge fundamental problem that Lyons was thought of as a food business, producing cakes and buns and operating Teashops; understandably, potential customers just found it difficult to see Leo as Hi Tech manufacturers.. And the fact that Leo knew what business computing was all about and that some of our competitors didn't, was rarely appreciated fullyd. Potential customers were strongly inclined to see a computer  in terms of the hardware, with equipment to be sourced from mainstream electronic manufacturers. Without having had the direct experience or getting engaged in-depth in what was involved in business computing they couldn't see the difference between a Leo and an ICT 1301, National Elliott 405, or IBM 650, machines which sold in quite large numbers, - They  couldn’t appreciate  what LEO computers had to offer in terms of business computing experience. We didn't have much credibility.   (Editor: Alan Jacobs underlines some of the problems, but in practice LEO had a significant proportion of sales of medium sized business computers up to the launching of the IBM 360 range, and its customers included a number of blue chip companies)
[David Phillips]:   LEO was, essentially acquired by English Electric?
[Alan Jacobs]:   It wasn't simply a merger of equals, that's perfectly true. English Electric was a large Hi Tech manufacturing company well established in the scientific computer market with some very advanced equipment, notably the KDF9, and had a marketing arrangement with RCA in the USA  or supplying business computers, which had brought them modest success. .On the other hand as far as business computing was concerned I think many people at English Electric did appreciate that LEO had a business pedigree which they lacked and that their machines weren't really designed for business computing.  The RCA computer they were trying to sell to business at the smaller end, the KDF6 ,was very unsatisfactory for most business computing. (Editor: English Electric had also marketed a version of a larger RCA computer, and sold it in the UK as the KDP10 with limited success,; Schweppes the soft drinks group was one of their customers.  The KDF6 was a modified version of the very successful KDP2 process control computer. The KDF9 became the most widely used computer in British Universities). 
[David Phillips]:   What was the impact of the merger on you?  
[Alan Jacobs]:   I did appreciate that in many ways the merger was the right thing to do.  LEO was  a modest manufacturing outfit, and English Electric provided a very valuable manufacturing association . However I was very displeased with the immediate outcome for me personally; I was subsumed in a general marketing group.
  [David Phillips]:   And did you have more credibility with the LEO, with the English Electric people?
[Alan Jacobs]:   We had a degree more credibility, but by that time we were really being outgunned by IBM with its 360 range of  computers.  The 360 was really beginning to make a huge impact and there was no way in which we were able to compete in terms of marketing skills and getting the message across. But we had a fair degree of success with people who knew and could understand the quality of expertise that LEO could offer.
In the end management decided to adopt and manufacture the new range from RCA in America, long established partners of  English Electric, who were developing a set of IBM compatible computers.  These were modified and marketed and sold as EELM System 4.  (Editor: At the time of the merger both LEO and English Electric were planning new ranges of machines to replace LEO III and English Electrics KDP10.  It was felt that the new range had to be compatible with the market leader IBM. As  RCA were intending to launch such a range themselves and given English Electrics prior experience with working with RCA it was decided to base the new EELM range on the RCA model).  System 4 was a pretty good machine.
[David Phillips]:   So, how long were you with LEO the second time round?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I got back to LEO in ’62 and believe it or not it was only four years. When Ralph Land moved from the City office  to concentrate on European marketing I took over from him, and then, in 1966  I moved to BOAC.  I was head-hunted, I was asked by Peter Hermon whether I'd like to join him at BOAC, - he'd already moved to BOAC.  And that sounded great. At BOAC Peter was going strong, He had established himself in a very significant position as Management Services Director, and had very interesting plans .He gathered together a strong team, including quite a lot of people from LEO;   there was already quite a collection of Leo people at BOAC, including John Lewis, my flat mate.
[David Phillips]:   But they didn't take a LEO computer?
[Alan Jacobs]:    No, and for good reasons.  Airline computing is a specialist area.  Over the years IBM had begun to develop a series of very significant capabilities in that area and so IBM was the natural way to go. When BOAC began work with IBM on the joint development of its Reservations system the software used by American Airlines was known as PARS[ Programmed Airline Reservations system]. At that time Sabre was the name given to its implementation by American Airlines.  For BOAC and IBM PARS was a great platform from which to start, but It was essentially designed for US domestic carriers and had to be enhanced very substantially by BOAC and IBM for use by international carriers to become IPARS [International Programmed Airline Reservations system]. This enhanced version, IPARS, much developed, became the basis for the “Sabre" service adopted by 400 airlines, many years later. Peter was very hard headed about this and he was quite right, of course 
[[David Phillips]:   What did you join as?  What was your function?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I was to be a Project Manager for a new system they wanted to set up called ‘Departure Control’, which was to handle the airport systems for both passenger Check In and Load and Balance.  First of all we set up our own Reservations system and got that going, and that was a fantastic, novel and exciting exercise.  And then, when we implemented The Departure Control system, integrated with Reservations.  Departure Control was a completely novel real time system, and in the end we got the Queen’s Award, for Technology, because we had built up quite innovative expertise in putting different parts of the real time airline operations together as a truly integrated system. In the following years We also sold the Departure Control system to many other airlines, including Aer Lingus, Swissair, KLM, Pan Am, United, Qantas, SAA, Air New Zealand, NAC and El AL. Subsequently BA computer systems got another Queens Award, for Export Marketing, in which the Departure Control system figured prominently. There were many other airlines that just wanted to use us as a bureau. In the first instance, for example, for EL Al we had a line to Tel Aviv, running their Reservations and Departure Control systems out of London; that was quite a sensitive and elaborate operation.
[David Phillips]:   And then BOAC merged with BEA?
[Alan Jacobs]:    That's correct.
[David Phillips]:   And BEA, I suppose, disappeared at that point, it went into boxes?
[Alan Jacobs]:    It didn’t disappear, loyalties run very deep. I am afraid we remained either BEA or BOAC men for a long time.
[David Phillips]:   Did they have a similar system, a computer system?
[Alan Jacobs]:   Yes, they had a wholly incompatible set of computer systems, including a UNIVAC Reservations system. I can't remember what they used for Departure Control, but it wasn’t very sophisticated, they didn’t believe in checking in passengers by name.  It was a very hostile situation in which the different sides were vying to come out as top dog.  Peter was much more skilled at this than his opposite number and we reckoned we had better systems anyhow. 
Peter became the Group Management Services Director whilst I became Group Computer Development Manager. And, after a lot of infighting and unhappiness BABS [British Airways booking system] emerged, based on the BOAC system as a joint Reservations system for both the long and short haul operations.  And then we implemented a common Departure Control system. It took a long time to rationalize and integrate our joint facilities overall, but we got there in the end. 
Happily, as the British Airways demands on our central resources grew we were jointly able to take some interesting, even “bold” hardware decisions in harmony, notably the extensive deployment of cost effective IBM plug compatible hardware, including powerful Amdahl and National Semiconductor processors, and the use of an independent maintenance contractor to support the full complement of the diverse equipment.  All of this was very satisfying and worked well.
[David Phillips]:    How long were you with BOAC and British Airways - BA?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I joined in ’66 and left in 82. In the end I had some “strategic” differences with Peter.  It was another interesting period in computing when things were expanding at a fantastic rate in terms of capacity and public understanding.  ATMs were appearing in the high streets and so on.  There was a tremendous amount of pressure, particularly from one “futurist” ex BEA Senior Manager, to automate many of the processes at the airport, in addition to  Departure Control .  People had very grand ideas, most of which have now finally come to fruition, but which, at that time were very difficult to conceive as wholly practical.  Peter and I fell out, basically, because unlike Peter I thought that, whilst most of the schemes which were being proposed were great conceptually, it was too early to try and implement them, we just weren't in a position to do it, both technically and culturally. Particularly culturally. Even for experienced travellers a busy airpot can be a stressful experience. I didn’t think our passengers were ready yet to look after themselves at an airport using self service machines, when, at that time, quite a lot of people still found ATMs a bit daunting  Little ventures we had in that direction just weren't working out.  So we drifted apart.  Having said that, we remained good friends. And I can remember that a couple of years after I left Peter generously sent me a cutting from one of the Sunday broadsheets which projected the way in which airport computer self service systems might develop , but made the point that whilst much had been conceived little had yet been achieved  
[David Phillips]:   So you left, where did you go?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I went to Sainsbury’s as Director of IT.  With John Sainsbury and Roy Griffiths at the helm Sainsbury’s was ambitious to expand the use of computer systems throughout  the business, including the branches, to make use of the large scale computing facilities becoming available. It was bit like Lyons and LEO; they appreciated that there was great potential, but understood that the way forward had to be thought through very carefully.  The amount of computing capacity they had at that time was quite modest, some ICL 1900  and small IBM 4300 Head Office systems, and the IT team was not very well equipped.  It just happened that, fortuitously, I was at a loose end then, and they wanted somebody with experience of large scale systems to help carry forward their ambition. So I went to Sainsbury’s. I got tremendous support from the top management, and we were able to install a whole raft of effective systems which were ahead of our competitors, including the first UK branch wide installation of product scanning, integrated with customer card payment processing.
[David Phillips]:   Was that your last job?
[Alan Jacobs]:    That was my last job.  I retired from there.
[David Phillips]:   Do you keep in touch with LEO in any way?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I like to get together with LEO people whenever I can. Until recently Peter and I frequently had lunch in town together, but now sadly Peter is not well enough to do that any more. My wife and I and  see Brian Mills and his wife regularly, and it is great to see the Lands occasionally.  And I try to get to the LEO reunions.
[David Phillips]:   How do you find computers today?
[Alan Jacobs]:   I think I can appreciate the amazing progresss better than most . I am absolutely astonished how much computing power there is and the way in which the interaction between people and computers has now been so  well developed and refined.  There are so many examples. In detail,I see the invention of the mouse and the graphical interface as sheer genius, and I marvel all the time at its User friendliness.  And the capacity we have on our PCs is simply awe inspiring,
 David Phillips]:   Are you still writing programmes?
[Alan Jacobs]:    No, thank you very much, I try not to. I am just not that  familiar with the Mac’s facilities. Every now and again I get caught up in a little bit of “programming” but not very much.
[David Phillips]:    Do you have children?
[Alan Jacobs]:     A son and daughter.  
My son is now a very eminent doctor, Dr Sir Michael Jacobs. He is the senior  Infectious Diseases Consultant  at the Royal Free Hospital. He was was knighted for his services throughout the Ebola crisis. He was deeply involved with government policy decisions, looking after patients at The Royal Free, and bringing patients back from West Africa.  Now, he is working part time with the Department of Health, setting up UK systems and procedures in the event of possible similar emergencies in the future. He is a UK representative at the WHO in Geneva, and is constantly in demand for advice from all around the world. 
My daughter is a finance director at JWT, within what was WPP group, the  worlds largest Advertising Agency.  So that's a big job. But just at this time she is under a certain amount of strain as WPP is in the process of being reorganised, following the departure of the Founder/Chairman, Sir Martin Sorrell.(Editor: JWT largest PR agency head and founder Sir Martin Sorrell retired in the mid 2018’s.and that combined with changes in the industry has resulted in a severe downturn in the business).
[David Phillips]:   Well, Alan it's been a very, very interesting conversation with you and I am very grateful for your very full responses and giving your time to help the LEO Computers Society’s Oral History Project.
[David Phillips]:   It's being extremely interesting.  And, if you don't mind, I'm going to read a few lines we are obliged to put at the end of the recordings.
[David Phillips]:   Okay.  So, this interview with Alan Jacobs has been recorded by the LEO Computer Society.  And the Society would like to thank him very much for his time and reminiscences.  The interview and the transcript form part of an Oral History Project to document the early use of electronic computers in business and other applications, but particularly in business.  Any opinions expressed are those of the interviewee, that is Alan Jacobs, and not of the Society.  The copyright of this interview in recorded form and in transcript remains the property of the LEO Computer Society 2011.
[End]

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Recording made by the LEO Computers Society as part of their ongoing oral history project.

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