The Eliot 903 was an 8-bit computer manufactured by Elliott Automation Limited in 1965. Was the follow-up to the popular military computers of the time (Nimrod, 920M) and was also intended for educational institutions. It had no refreshable display; all input and output was done with paper. It came with 8-64k of memory (an 18-bit word means this was roughly equivalent to 144k in an 8-bits per byte system). Upon delivery, it was the size of a small desk. This included the paper I/O, a ferrite core, and a Teletype keyboard. Peripherals such as a plotter, a line printer, magnetic tapes, sensors and machinery interfaces, and refreshable displays could be as large as desk sized also.

An Eliot 905 had double the maximum storage.

An Eliot 920 was produced

There were about 1000 made. They also ended up being used in hospitals.

Algol, Basic, Coral, Fortran, and SIR assembler languages were available.

The machine operated on BIOS only but operating systems on magnetic tapes were later produced to make the computer capable of real-time operations.

The machine could beep. The hardware would also make noise. Between beeps and hardware noise, tunes could be played.

"As a sixth former, my school's computer club has use of the 903 at a local technical college via a postal service. Initially we were taught FORTRAN II and I then progressed to Algol 60 and SIR. I was privileged to be allowed to deliver the club's coding sheets to the college and collect the previous week's output on games afternoons - my contribution to the school's sporting prowess being dismal. The college let me operate the machine and pour over the documentation much of which I laboriously copied by hand and still have." - Andrew Herbert
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