Editing LEO (computer) (section)

== Fate and legacy ==

In 1963, LEO Computers Ltd was merged into [[English Electric|English Electric Company]] and this led to the breaking up of the team that had inspired LEO computers. The company continued to build the LEO III, and went on to build the faster LEO&nbsp;360 and even faster LEO&nbsp;326 models, which had been designed by the LEO team before the takeover.

English Electric LEO Computers (EEL) (1963), then English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM) (1964), later English Electric Computers (EEC) (1967), eventually merged with [[International Computers and Tabulators]] (ICT) and others to form [[International Computers Limited]] (ICL) in 1968. In the 1980s, there were still [[ICL 2900]] mainframes running LEO programs, using an emulator written in ICL&nbsp;2960 microcode at the [[Dalkeith]] development centre.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/images/Leo%20III%20DME%20Story.pdf |title=THE DME LEO DME STORY |author-first=Tony |author-last=Morgan |year=2012}}</ref> At least one modern emulator has been developed which can run some original LEO III software on a modern server.<ref>{{citation|url=http://sw.ccs.bcs.org/leo/index.html| title= LEO III software preservation | author-first= David | author-last=Holdsworth}}</ref> ICL was bought by [[Fujitsu]] in 1990.

Whether its investment in LEO actually benefited J. Lyons is unclear. [[Nick Pelling]] notes that before LEO I the company already had a proven, industry-leading system using clerks that gave it "near-real-time management information on more or less all aspects of its business", and that no jobs were lost when the system was computerized. In addition, LEO Computers lost money on many of its sales because of unrealistically low prices.<ref name="pelling2002">{{cite web |url=http://www.nickpelling.com/Leo1.html#Part3 |title=The Case for the First Business Computer |date=2002-03-26 |access-date=2013-06-25 |author-last=Pelling |author-first=Nick}}</ref>

In 2018, the [[Centre for Computing History]] along with LEO Computers Society were awarded funding from the [[Heritage Lottery Fund]] for their project aiming to bring together, preserve, archive and digitise a range of LEO Computers artefacts, and documents.<ref name="computinghistory_50073">{{cite web |url=http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/news/50073/Centre-for-Computing-History-and-LEO-Computers-Society-win-Heritage-Lottery-Fund-support/ |title=Centre for Computing History and LEO Computers Society win Heritage Lottery Fund support |work=Centre for Computing History website |date=2018-10-08 |access-date=2021-01-30 |author-last=McGerty |author-first=Lisa}}</ref> The Centre's museum gallery has an area dedicated to LEO, and {{As of|2021|lc=y}} they are also working on a LEO [[virtual reality]] project.<ref name="computinghistory_55785">{{cite web |url=http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/55785/History-in-the-Making/ |title=History in the Making |work=Centre for Computing History LEO VR blog |date=2019-08-09 |access-date=2021-01-30}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> In November 2021, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the first successful full program run on LEO I, the project released a film about the history of LEO, which went on to win Video of the Year in the Association of British Science Writers Awards in July 2022.<ref>{{Citation |title=LEO: The Story of the World's First Business Computer – Computing History UK |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzu68nRVwtE |language=en |access-date=2022-07-16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=We Won Video of the Year! – Computing History |url=http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/news/68945/We-Won-Video-of-the-Year/ |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=www.computinghistory.org.uk}}</ref>