Word: computermen
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...Computermen have even been advised to get their machines out to 'see life' by setting up communications links between them and other computers in dispersed locations. Thus, computers will eventually become as close to everyday life as the telephone--a sort of public utility of information." --April 2, 1965, from a cover story on "The Computer in Society...
...perform their increasing tasks, computers are developing into formidable adulthood. Computermen claim that their machines are now entering a "third generation" in which the new science of microcircuitry and other advances in technology will enable them to reduce the bulkiness of computers, pack more ability into their frames and make them even more reliable and economical. Computers are now being banded together into "families"-compatible groups of machines, ranging from small to large, that are able to solve problems and perform functions from beginning to end by using a single language and program. To broaden the uses of computers...
...When these new machines realize their potential," says John Diebold, chairman of the Diebold Group, Inc., consultants in the computer field, "there will be a social effect of unbelievable proportions. This impact on society is still to come." Computermen have even been advised to get their machines out to "see life" in that society by setting up communications links between them and other computers in dispersed locations. Says R. M. Bloch, a vice president of Honeywell: "The computer that lacks an ability to communicate with the outside world is in danger of remaining an isolated marvel mumbling to itself...
...computer can calculate a trajectory to the moon. What it cannot do is to look upon two human faces and tell which is male and which is female, or remember what it did for Christmas five years ago." Bellman might get an argument about that from some computermen, but his point is valid...
Some practical computermen scoff at such picturesque talk, but others recall odd behavior in their own machines. Robert Seeber of I.B.M. says that his big computer has a very human foible: it hates to wake up in the morning. The operators turn it on, the tubes light up and reach a proper temperature, but the machine is not really awake. A problem sent through its sleepy wits does not get far. Red lights flash, indicating that the machine has made an error. The patient operators try the problem again. This time the machine thinks a little more clearly. At last...