Shmuel, If the "mainframe" is to be defined as an electronic computer doing commercial work - which, for example, I expect is a definition with which IBM would agree - then we in/from the UK like to propose the LEO as the pioneer. Here's a quotation snip from a BBC site:
"Fifty years ago the great catering company J Lyons, best known for its Teashops and Corner Houses, ran the world's first real business computer program, calculating the value of its bakery sales. Astonishingly Lyons had also developed and built the computer itself, and it gave it the playful name of "LEO" - short for Lyons Electronic Office." Here's a couple of URLs for the curious: http://www.kzwp.com/lyons/leo.htm http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/ Chris Mason P.S. My apologies if I have sent a blank post into the system. My first attempt to set this one up "disappeared"! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main To: <IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU> Sent: Sunday, 11 December, 2005 2:31 AM Subject: Re: public available IBM mvs machines ? > In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on 12/09/2005 > at 01:36 PM, Chris Mason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > >I just called it up and I see it starts with the birth of the > >mainframe in the 1950s! > > What birth of the mainframe in the 1950's? It was clearly earlier, and > arguably earlier than the ENIAC. > > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT > ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html> > We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress. > (S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
