Thanks to Mark G. for passing along this 30 minute BBC radio episode which explored the origins of LIFFE. Here's the synopsis from the link,
In this episode of In Living Memory, Chris Ledgard meets the men who set it up. He talks to traders who were there on day one, to journalists who covered the early weeks, and to one of the financial wizards employed to explain how it worked. And, he asks, is there any connection between this kind of speculation and some of the disastrous financial events of recent times?
It's not possible to embed the audio so click the link here.
*Book update - yeah more continued delays regarding the file conversion to .epub and .kf8 files and it now has to be farmed out to a specialized conversion house to get the formatting right. I've learned how that electronic books are really simple for plain vanilla designs/graphics but digitizing what's almost the equivalent of a coffee table book in the right format is an entirely different story.