Laser-Scan

Laser-Scan was a British technology company based in Cambridge, England, which produced world-leading graphics hardware and then software for computer graphics, digital mapping, charting, and geographic information handling.

Read the LSL History for a summary of the company, and then see below for illustrations.

LSL Logo 2

Photos

Two of the founders of the company are in this photo of a sweepnik with the Prof (Otto Robert Frisch), and Graham Street whose Ph.D. in the Cavendish was at the heart of the design of the Sweepnik, and who left the Cavendish to become the first MD of the company.

In the early days at Laser-Scan, we had many VIP visitors. Here is me with Prince Philip, me with Prince Charles, and others (Peter Woodsford and Martin Fulford) with Margaret Thatcher.

When I passed 25 years with Laser-Scan, I was given a presentation during a company gathering. Here is a photo of me in the crowd, and another receiving the presentation.

Taken at the Laser-Scan/1Spatial 40th, this photo shows (left to right) Mike Sanderson (previous MD), Sir Maurice Wilkes (head of the Computer Laboratory, whose backing helped Laser-Scan get the ACTP backing for the HRD-1), Sir John Bradfield (former Bursar of Trinity College and father of the Cambridge Science Park), Graham Street (who's Ph.D. in the Cavendish was at the heart of the design of the Sweepnik, which became Laser-Scan’s first product), Peter Woodsford and David Rhind (former Director-General of the Ordnance Survey who took the critical decision to invest in Laser-Scan software for the Fastrack programme that created MasterMap).

Laser-Scan built its software first on DEC PDP11, then VAX and Alpha minicomputers and workstations, running VMS. We had one of the very first VAX/11-780 minis, which can be see in this photo of the 780 with the 750 that supplemented it.


Go up to Hardy home page