Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd

Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd was an early computer company of the 1950s-60s in the United Kingdom, tracing its descent from a firm of instrument makers founded by William Elliott in London around 1804. The research laboratories were based at Borehamwood, originally set up in 1946. The first Elliott 152 computer appeared in 1950. Elliott's was a pioneer of Head-up displays - HUDs.The well-known computer scientist, Sir Tony Hoare was an employee there from August 1960 for eight years and wrote an ALGOL 60 compiler for the Elliott 803. He also worked on an operating system Elliott 503 Mark II for the computer, although this was less successful and abandoned along with "over thirty man-years of programming effort." (c.f. The Emperor's Old Clothes)John Lansdown pioneered the use of computers as an aid to planning; making perspective drawings on an Elliott 803 computer in 1963, modelling a building's lifts and services, plotting the annual fall of daylight across its site, as well as authoring his own computer aided design (CAD) applications.