Electronic abacus

OPINION is for the moment divided on the place of electronic calculating methods in ordinary business. A year or so ago, a suggestion that one of those thinking robots, the electronic brains, should be put to tasks so mundane as the counting of pounds, shillings and pennies for a weekly wage packet would have been greeted with general scepticism. Now that it has actually happened, preconceived opinions about the type of machine suitable for office and accounting work have received a severe jolt. For the past month, the wages of the bakery staff of J. Lyons, Ltd., and good many routine office calculations besides, have been worked out on a full-sized electronic computor at Cadby Hall. To Lyons, the introduction of electronic computing on this singularly practical scale appeared the logical step to take if the company's accounting methods were to be kept streamlined and up-to-date. As other specialists in business methods did not see eye to eye with Lyons on this matter at the time, the company was driven to designing and building its own computor (see article).