Allen Coombs

Allen William Mark Coombs (1911-1995) was a British electronics engineer known for his work at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill. He was a principal designer of the Mark II version of the Colossus computer, used for codebreaking at Bletchley Park during World War II. Coombs later worked on the MOSAIC machine and made contributions to optical character recognition. He frequently lectured on pattern recognition and was known for his facial tic.

Coombs headed the scientific side of R14, the division working on optical character recognition for postal mechanisation, which moved to the new BT Research Centre at Martlesham in Suffolk. His work on pattern recognition led to the development of an early postcode-reading machine.

Allen William Mark ("Doc") Coombs was a British electronics engineer and early computer designer at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, known for his work on the Colossus and MOSAIC (computer) computers.

• In 1977, Randell published an article The First Electronic Computer in several journals.