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October, 1968

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Special Feature: Time Sharing

UTER RESOURCES SHARING ··NTSA~~S
PERIODICALS SEC

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J AR ET S SAN FERNA 100 *N126
, SAN J SE CA
9~113

Susie Meyer
meetsPL/.
The story of how a singlt! language answers
the question, "Can a
young girl with no previous programming
experience find happiness handl ing bath
commercial and scientific applications, without resorting to an
assembler language?"
Let's face it. The cost of
programming just keeps
going up. So for some
time to come, how well
you do your job depends
on how programmers like
Susie Meyer do theirs.
That's the reason for
PL/I, the high-level language for both scientific
and commercial applications.
With PL/I, programmers don't have to learn
other high-level languages. They can concentrate more on the job, less
on the language.
So think about PL/I.
Not just in terms of
training, but in terms of
the total impact it can
·have on your operation.

,

Take it a step at a time.
Programmers don't have
to learn all of PL/I to use
it. Tak~ New York Life
Insurance Company for
'example. First programmer trainees get a good
grounding in computer
basics. Then a combination of PLII self-study
courses and workshops
readies them to code
meaningful and useful
programs.
As the new programmers gain skill and experience they use other
parts of the language on
tougher problems. Most
importantly, they learn
while doing.

Load Module
(executable)

Freedom of expression! That's what it's
all about. The same features that make PL/I
easy to learn make it easy
to use. First of all, programming time can be
shortened by using a
single high-level language. In most cases, assembler languages aren't
needed anymQre.
also a feature
tla1;~i,ml)li1ies coding for
rienced program. It automatically
a choice among al·ves. The language
provides a new ease
writing. It's neither
cryptic nor verbose. The
result is a new freedom
of expression - freedom
from arbitrary language
restrictions-freedom to
concentrate on application development.

A bright future for
Susie. PLII has growth
built iIi. As your system
grows, PL/I will grow
right along with it.
Continued growth of
PL/I means a brighter
future for your programmers. It also means continued use of your pro~
grams' and equipmentwith a minimum impact
on your investment.
I

r - - - - - - - - - - - It's time to get involved~ - - - - - - - - - - -

We'd like to get you more involved with PL/I. As a first step, send
this coupon for more information.
IBM Data Processing Division, Dept. 31A
112 East Post Road, White Plains, New York 10601
Name ________________________________________________
Position ___________________________________________
Company_____________________________________________
Division. _________________________________________
Add res s______________________________
City ______ State ________ ,Zip _ __

©@u1Jl) Od) M(~@ O~©
end automation

Letters To The Editor
Vol. 17, No. lO-October, 1968

Computer Training Schools
I am writing with reference to your
March issue, with special reference to
the "Test for Evaluating Computer
Training Schools" on page 25. As past
President of the New Hampshire Personnel and Guidance Association, I was
constantly faced with the problem of
giving advice with respect to the quality
of our computer training schools. The
test on page 25 would be particularly
useful in assisting some of our guidance
counselors to make an evaluation.
Is there any objection to .my making
copies of this "Test" for distribution to
the Executive Board of the New Hampshire Personnel and Guidance Association? In addition, I would certainly
like to have a copy of your March publication for my reference shelf.
VAN A. HARTMAN
Dean of Student Personnel
Plymouth State College
Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264
In your March issue there appeared
several excellent articles on EDP education. Our city has been subjected at
various times to poor quality high-priced
private schools. Although none of these
schools has survived for any great length
of time, they do manage to take a lot
of hard-earned money with them when
they move to the next city.
With your permission, I would like to
publish all or part of page 25 of your
March issue - "A Test for Evaluating
Computer Training Schools" - in our
local newspaper.
JOHN CUSHING
Director of Data Processing
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
(Ed. Note - We were glad to give Mr.
Hartman and Mr. Cushing permission
to reprint page 25 of the March issue as
they requested - wifh our standard reprint clause inserted in an appropriate
place.)

Social Issues and Science
I am a student of the social effects
of automation and technology, and I
want to express my admiration for the
courageous involvement of past issues
of your magazine in important social
issues involving science. The "technology of oppression", as described by

4

Herbert Marcuse in One-Dimensional
Man (Beacon, 1964), is increasingly
becoming of great concern, especially
to scientists who understand it and
help create it. I recommend the
above book to you and your readers.
RICHARD OCHS
Washington, D.C. 20005

Edit 01'

Edmund C. Berkeley

Associate Editor

Sharry Langdale

Assistant Editors

Moses M. Berlin
Linda Ladd Lovett
Neil D. Macdonald

Contributing Editors

John Bennett
Andrew D. Booth
Dick H. Brandon
John W. Carr III
Ned Chapin
Alston S. Householder
Peter Kugel
Leslie Mezei
Rod E. Packer
Ted Schoeters

Advisory Committee

T. E. Cheatham, Jr.
James J. Cryan
Richard W. Hamming
Alston S. Householder
Victor Paschkis

Right Answers
Slightly over a year ago you sent me
a copy of "Right Answers - A Short
Guide for Obtaining Them". In the
introduction, this one-sheet summary is
identified as a summary that is to be
expanded into a forthcoming book.
What is the status of that book?
If it has been published, where may I
order a copy and at what cost?
JAMES L. GILDERSLEEVE
Senior Systems Engineer
General Electric Co.
Phoenix, Ariz. 85029

Art Directors
Fulfillment Manager

(Ed. Note - The book of which "Right
Answers - A Short Guide for Obtaining
Them" is a part has as the tentative
title, General Science and Problem Solving, or Common Sense, Elementary and
Advanced. John Wiley and Sons will
publish the book, which I hope will be
done ,about a year from now. If you
would like to order a copy when it
comes out, please tell me, and I will
put your name on the list to be notified
of its publication and price.)

Computer Art
Your August, 1968 copy (featuring
your 6th Annual Computer Art Contest) was fascinating. I am a math
teacher in Arlington County. We have
introduced the time shared GE BASIC
System into our present math sequence.
I have just finished developing supplementary materials for our eXIstmg
courses. We in Arlington are convinced
that the computer will add much to the
curriculum, particularly in terms of a
new, stimulating approach to the existing courses.
In connection with this, I am sure the
students will enjoy seeing the entries in
your art contest.
G. P. O'SHAUGHNESSY
'Washington Lee High School
Arlington, Va. 22201

Ray W. Hass
Daniel T. Langdale
William J. McMillan

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COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

©

CQ) CFLFU CQ) [1dJ~ @ [fJ§
a [il} ~ a ~ 'li; (Q)!J'lfi) a 'If; 0@u=u

October, 1968, Vol. 17, No. 10

The magazine of the design, applications, and implications of information processing systems.

Special Feature:
Time Sharing
16

SELECTING A VENDOR OF TIME-SHARED COMPUTER SERVICES
by Alan G. Hammersmith
Specific suggestions on how a non-user should go about selecting a time-sharing or
remote-batch computer service, and how a current user should evaluate his present
service . . . with some general comments on the current state and future potential of
the time-sharing industry.

24

MULTIPLE-ACCESS, TIME-SHARING, OPERATING SYSTEM
by B. R. Smith
A case history - how the "Multiple Access Time Sharing" (MATS) System at Northern
Electric Co., ltd., Ottawa, Canada, operates.

30

A NEW CONCEPT IN TIME SHARING: DEDICATED SYSTEMS SHARE ONE
COMPUTER
by Gerald J. Smolen
A unique type of sharing in which several
tems share a computer at a neutral site.

36

disc~ete,

real-time, on-line information sys-

COMPUTER RESOURCES SHARING-SOME COMMENTS AND PREDICTIONS
by Norman Doelling
What do ti~e-sharing systems currently offer? Where are present trends likely to lead?

40

DATA PROCESSING SERVICES: BANKING'S NEW PRODUCT
by Dr. James A. O'Brien
Why banks are becoming a powerful competitor in providing data processing services.

45

INNOVATION IN TEACHING-WHY INDUSTRY LEADS THE WAY
by Nate A. Newkirk
How efforts to fulfill the purpose of industrial education - "high quality at the lowest
possible cost, and with the greatest possible speed" have led to some significant
discoveries that could save industry millions of dollars . . . and could improve the
quality of public education.

Regular Features
Editorial
6

Remote Batch Processing and Other Good New Ideas in the Computer Field,
by Edmund C. Berkeley

C&A Worldwide
49

Report from Great Britain, by Ted Schoeters

Fifteen Years Ago in Computers and Automation
51

Electronic Equipment Applied to Periodic Billing, by E. F. Cooley

Jobs and Careers in Data Processing
54

12
13

14
14

56

What Are the Challenges Facing the Computer Industry?, by J. Stanford Smith
Converting Staff to a Computer: Two Views, by Elsbeth Ganguin and Ronald Yearsley
1969 IEEE Computer Group Conference - Call for Papers
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence - Call for Papers
Who's Who in the Computer Field, 1968·69 - Entries
California Computer Products Sponsors Art Competition

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Across the Editor's Desk - Com·
puting and Data Processing
Newsletter

74

Advertising Index

73

Book Reviews

67

Business News

34

Calendar of Coming Events

4

Letters to the Editor

70

Monthly Computer Census

68

New Contracts

69

New Installations

74

New Patents
by Raymond R. Skolnick

14

Numbles
by Neil Macdonald

54

Problem Corner
by Walter Penney, CDP

50

Proof Goofs
by Neil Macdonald

Computer Salary Survey, by Source EDP

Multi-Access Forum
8
10

Departments

5

C- a
EDITORIAL

R:emote Batch Processing and Other Good New Ideas
in the Computer Field
In one of the articles of this issue ("Selecting a Vendor of
Time-Shared Computer Services" by A. G. Hammersmith) a
fairly new term appears a number of times. It denotes a
relatively new subdivision of computer activity: "remote batch
processing." With a high speed communication line between
the data station and the central processor, and high-speed input and output, the remote proce'ssing of data in batches can
often make good sense.
This new idea will become a source of millions of dollars of
income for a number of energetic, enterprising people in
the computer field. And this idea - along with a number of
other new ideas in the computer field - raises some interesting general questions:
• What is a significant idea?
• How do you tell the difference between good ideas
and poor ones?
• Where do relatively unnoticed, good ideas in the
computer field come from?
There is little doubt that the application of good new
ideas in the computer field, bursting as it is with expansion
in many directions, will help many people become millionaires, as well as help many organizations make major contributions to the advancement of society.
As explained in an earlier editoriaP, the word idea here
means particularly:
a hypothesis, a concept, an estimate, or a guess which
leads to, or may lead to, useful and fruitful results.
For example, the following idea does not exist yet, but I
can see no theoretical barriers to its future existence:
a complete and very powerful central processor unit
no larger than a football which (1) will be "plugged
in" to a console, (2) will be made of large-scale-integrated (LSI) circuits, and (3) will cost when new no
more than about $2000.
I think such a central processor unit will exist before 1978
and will be marketed before 1980.
An idea which was avidly pursued by a number of computer people for many years in the 1950's was ~he idea of
automatic translation by programmed computer from
one foreign language to another.
This idea encountered shoals and has almost been wrecked
on rocks, because nearly all the investigators tried to develop
the idea without paying attention to a major variable: meaning in context. This is the kind of meaning which produces
change in the grammatical function of the words in the following, almost-parallel, three sentences:
Time flies like an arrow : Noun, verb, pre positional
phrase.
Fruit flies like a banana: Adjective, noun, verb, object
of a verb.
Notice flies like a dragon-fly: Imperative verb, noun,
prepositional phrase.
6

It is worth distinguishing between ideas that we can call
thousand-ho,rsepower ideas and flypower ideas. 2 In mathematics, for example, the thousand-horsepower ideas apply widely
in human affairs; they give answers to many problems; they
provide ways for understanding many situations and processes; they express models that you can carry around in
your mind and that give power to understand many events
and processes in the real world. Examples of thousand-horsepower mathematical ideas include: next along a line; variable;
formula; graph; etc.
Then there are mathematical ideas that are essentially frills
and trifles, and as -far as we can see they will always remain
frills and trifles. These ideas apply only narrowly; they give
answers to only a 'few problems; they are models for understanding only a few situations; they do not give many clues
to the behavior ()If the real world. An example of a flypower
idea is this: if you take the number 142\857 and add it to
itself, you will get the same digits in the same order but
starting at a different digit, 285,714. This is an example
of what is called cyclic order. The preservation of cyclic
order when adding one number to another is unusual, amusing, puzzling - and one can find more examples; but when
all is said and done, the idea of cyclic order of digits preserved when numbers are added does not apply widely, does
not give answers to many problems, does not give power to
understand many parts of the real world. It is a flypower
idea.
In the computer field, what is called residue arithmetic,
it seems to me, is a flypower idea. I do not see any possibility
that this idea will become widely useful or important in
computer circuits. On the other hand, the idea computerassisted (as in such phrases as "computer-assisted instruction,
computer-assisted explanation, computer-assisted documentation, computer-assisted translation") is certainly a thousandhorsepower idea. The idea emphasizes something most desirable, the close interaction of computer and human being
where each contributes its forte to the solution of baffling
problems.
Where do relatively unnoticed, good ideas in the computer field come from?
Many good ideas result from new combinations of previous
ideas. "Remote batch processing" results from a combination
of "batch processing" plus "remoteness".
The idea of "scientific kit" plus the idea of "computer
circuits" has led to a number of projects in the computer
field, whereby a scientific educational kit with the content of
computing and computer circuits has been designed, produced,
and marketed.
The combination of "learner-controlh;d instruction" (see
the article by Nate A. Newkirk, "Innovation in Teaching Why Industry Leads the Way", in this issue) with "computerassisted" produces "computer-assisted learner-controlled instruction". I think this idea will produce millions of dollars
(Please turn to page 43)
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

MULTI-ACCESS FORUM

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FACING THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY?
(Based on an address by J. Stanford Smith, Vice Pres. and Group Executive, Information Systems Group,
General Electric Co., at the DPMA 1968 International Data Processing Conference, Washington, D.C., June
1968.)
Data processing managers today are operating about $20
billion worth of computer systems around the world. In the
United States alone, about 40,000 computers worth almost
$13 billion are being operated. What challenges must be
solved to move the electronic information systems from their
period of youthful promise to the condition of productive
maturity?
The following are the most important challenges facing
the industry, according to the testimony of users themselves:

1. There is a need for better understanding between
data processing management and operating management.
Operating management feels that data processing managers, for all their competence, either don't understand or
don't concentrate on the needs of the business. And of course,
the data processing managers complain about the fuzzy and
even misleading inputs they get from operating managers.
Until this gap is closed, users feel that the information systems field will be clouded by disappointment on all sides.
What can be done to close this gap? Let me suggest
three answers:
First, insist on involvement by line operating management
in information systems development. We observe that the
companies which are most successful in using computers
regularly use operating people on computer development
projects, either as members of a project team, or as shortterm members of the data processing organization.
Second, in your exploration of new projects for management approval, concentrate on what is important to the
business. The key test for a project is not computer feasibility, but relevance to the business. The key question: what
is its potential impact on company profits?
Third, become involved personally in the total business
process.
At the present time, only a handful of the people who
reach top management posts have come up through data
proce~sing. I think this wiIl change. Electronic information
systems will live up to their enormous potential as generations of data processing managers think, feel and act as
overall business managers. Men who train themselves in this
direction may well set the pattern for future executive management.

2. There is a need to find the most productive ways
to use the new time-sharing capabilities.
Three years ago, no more than 500 terminals were on-line
to time-sharing computers. Today, General Electric alone
serves more than 50,000 time-sharing customers, and the
field is one of the most rapidly growing businesses in the
world. Such rapid growth indicates that time-sharing systems
are serving a keenly felt need for users large and small. But
what is their place in your total information systems picture?
8

Objective cost studies may lead you to the use of timesharing services as supplements to your in-house batch-processing systems, for peak loads or special services. And, as
you may know, computer systems are now available which
can handle batch, remote-batch, and time-sharing efficiently,
all within· the same system. This gives you a number of
realistic alternatives to consider in planning your installations.
Users report that on-line computer services, which usually
offer a variety of program packages, can help relieve the
shortage of programmers. And above all, the simple timesharing terminal serves as an exciting introduction for management to the discipline and power of data processing.

3. The rush of technological advance must be brought
into better balance with the real needs of users.
Information systems technology is growing so very rapidly,
it is almost impossible to keep the various phases in balance
with each other. Generally speaking, the technology of the
central processor has been running ahead much faster than
the technology of input-output and storage devices. And
software has been running behind hardware.
There are two fundamental thrusts in the information systems field; the thrust toward wider and more profitable
applications, and the thrust toward better price-to-performance ratios which come from advancing technology. All
too often these two fundamental thrusts are in direct conflict.
The user can help relieve this conflict and imbalance by
accepting the value of standards in programming and perhaps by investing more at the outset in preparing his applications in a well-documented fashion. Then his basic structure can be more easily translated to new equipment, and
can even be advanced to a higher order of integration.
The manufacturer can help by providing a planned, evolutionary path forward that maintains the past user investment
without putting the user into a strait-jacket that prevents the
expansion of applications. He can also concentrate valuable
talent on developing higher level languages and generalized
data management systems.
4. There is a demand for greater speed in the standardization of systems and software.
Realistic standards can cut out wasteful re-invention of
wheels. Important work is being accomplished in the areas
of programming languages and magnetic tape standards. We
now have in COBOL an efficient and accepted programming
language for the business user. The ASCII (American Standard Code Information Interchange) is now a Federal Government standard as well as the U.S. standard for magnetic
tapes; it is also consistent with the International Standard
Code.
Standardization in these two areas will return tremendous benefits:
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

An altimeter is just one of
hundreds of components on every U.S.
Air Force plane. Each is a potential
trouble spot. The Air Force has skilled
mechanics to detect faulty parts on
the ground, and it has given them
access to a UNIVAC@ real-time computer
system to locate replacement parts
from inventory in a matter of seconds.
And, the parts can be delivered to the
flight line in about twelve minutes.
The warehouse location, quantity
on hand and cost of 65,000 parts is in
the memory of a UNIVAC real-time
computer system.
When the mechanic orders a

replacement altimeter, the computer
notifies issue clerks and indicates where
it's stored. The computer checks its
memory again. This time to see how
many altimeters should be on hand. If
inventory is now too low to meet
expected demand, it initiatesa re-order
and updates accounting records for
Base Level Supply Command.
Multiply that altimeter order by
a few hundred an hour and you have a
rough idea how much work the Air
Force gets out of this UNIVAC inventory
system. A total system with
forecasting, control and cost-cutting
functions built in.

There's a UNIVAC system at virtually every Air Force base. 166 systems
to be more precise: All equipment
and procedures are the same. Personnel
have to be trained only once to use any
of them.
UNIVAC computer systems are also
being used by people in business,
government and science. And you don't
have to own an air force to have one
working for you.

UNIVAC

Univac is saving a lot of people a lot of time .
..JL

IrspEr-«.Y RAI'D

Designate No. lOon Reader Service Card

According to the instruments
this plane is at 32,000 feet.
Air Force mechanics can ask a computer system for a new altimeter. They can get it delivered in about twelve minutes.

It will protect your investment in programs, reduce conversion time and expense, make additional programmers
available, and aid communication between equipment of
different manufacturers.
I am not speaking of standards that prematurely freeze
hardware technology or application packages in the present
state of the art. This could stunt the growth of what obviously is still a very young technology. But both user and
supplier would be able to make more progress through the
development of language standards that go beyond the code
standards on which the industry is currently working.

5. There is a most urgent need for a much broader
scale application of our nation's education resources
in preparing people to understand and productively
participate in the information revolution.
It is estimated that there are 120,000 programmers in the
U.S. today. But it is claimed that there is a need for 180,000 programmers, and that we'll need half a million by 1973.
Regardless of the accuracy of these estimates, they indicate
the dimensions of the challenge: to quadruple either the
numbers or the effectiveness of the data processing manpower now available, and do it in the next five years!
There are some things that all of us can do to improve the
effectiveness of the available people. Standardization, good
documentation, higher-level languages, and good data management systems are all good powers of people.
Every maturing profession must develop people for technical support. The computer industry needs to develop a
logical work structure that enables high school graduates,
college graduates, and Ph.D.'s each to concentrate on the

areas of work where they can make their greatest contribution.
There are at least six major ways that computers fit into
the educational picture.
1. Computer-aided instruction appears to have great potential, although it is still largely in the research stage.
2. Computers can be more widely used for the administrative work of the educational establishment. This can help
control the skyrocketing costs of education, and more effectively utilize our instruction resources.
3. Every college and university should be offering professional-level courses in the computer sciences.
4. Both high schools and colleges should be training people
for careers in programming and systems analysis.'
5. Every college student should have the opportunity to
develop computer literacy; to read and write computer languages, and use the computer as comfortably as an older
generation of engineers and figure manipulators used the slide
rule. He will need this experience to fulfill his future career
and contribute to the work of his generation.
6. A personal, hands-on acquaintance with a computer
terminal should be part of the experience of every liberal
arts student. Otherwise, he simply will not understand the
greatest revolution of our times and the computerized society
in which he will live.
The solution to the challenges facing the industry lie in
having each man and woman associated with it look up from
his daily tasks, and accept appropriate responsibility for the
good of society.
Maturity for the Computer Age will arrive as each of us,
individually, matures in his own commitment to the task.

CONVERTING STAFF TO A COMPUTER: TWO VIEWS
I. Based on a report by Elsbeth Ganguin in: The Financial Times, London, England, for August 14, 1968.
After 121 years in business, the Woolwich Equitable Building Society is about to undergo a great change. It has got
itself a computer. Within the next two years, the computer
will take over all members' accounts: 350,000 share accounts,
20,000 deposit accounts, and 15,000 savings accounts.
Many of the Woolwich's 1300 employees will be affected
by the computer, in one way or another. And though the
computer will have to be served by perhaps 65 people once
it is fully operative, in two years' time the company will
have about 150 fewer employees than it would have had
without the computer. But the company has pledged that no
one will be fired.
From the start, the Woolwich took its staff into its confidence.· Even before management consultants were called
in, the general manager sent a note around stating what was
afoot. This practice was continued when, a year later, the
decision was made to install a computer, and again when the
computer had been ordered.
Having been fully informed, the staff took the anticipated
changes calmly. The first step was to appoint a data processing manager. He was a Woolwich man from the onranization and methods department. In fact, only one senior
man, the systems and programming manager, came trom
outside.
Next the Woolwich asked for volunteers for four jobs as
systems analysts. About 20 volunteered. They were given
aptitude tests. The four best candidates were picked and
sent to several courses before their appointments as analysts were confirmed. They were then set the task of preparing the "systems" to be adopted by the computer once
it arrived.
10

A few months later the Woolwich sent around another request for volunteers, this time for six programmers. About
35 employees volunteered. Again aptitude tests were given,
and the six best candidates were sent to school. This process
was repeated again for more programmers and computer
operators.
In order to keep faith with its employees, the Woolwich
decided on an introductory period for the computer of two
years, since a natural wastage of 150 employees could be ex.
pected in that time.
But such natural wastage does. not, of course, solve the
whole problem; it just solves that of numpers. For the rest,
there is the need for a re-deployment program. For example,
the Woolwich now has some 30 senior control clerks, many of
whom have been with the organization for over 30 years.
They will be hit, because their jobs will vanish. So they have
to be transferred to jobs which, in many cases, someone
younger could do. This can be a delicate situation.
Then there are the girl specialists, like addressograph,
accounting machine of comptometer operators. Their jobs
will go, as will anyone's "ledger" occupation. But they will
be needed until the computer is fully operative. To help
bridge this uncomfortable gap, the Woolwich has hired some
married women on a two-year engagement only.
So some problems remain. But complete frankness with
the staff, the endeavor to fill the new computer vacancies
from within, and, no doubt, the pJedge to retain employees,
seem to have guaranteed smooth r\mning-in of the changes.
Indeed, everyone has been invited to see computer films, in
office hours, just to make sure that all loopholes are filled.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

SOFTWARE PROFESSIONALS

We have plenty of solutions. What we
need are problems ••• and people who are
good at thinking them up.

they'll be creating more worth than problems, even though they're still creating
problems.

We're lucky to have some of the most
outstanding software people in the countryout here in Sunnyvale, California. And
we need the best. Because our assignment is the total information system segment of orbiting satellite systems. Includes planning, commanding, data management and post flight analysis. We not
only design information systems to fill
present needs, but anticipate and project
information system segments of space
systems that will most likely be needed
in 1970 or '75.

Get it?

It should come as no surprise to learn we
have more operational software development and more operating on-orbit experience in complex spacecraft than anyone
in America.
Now, since most people are trained as
problem-solvers, the people we hire will
be quite extraordinary. In a way, we're
asking for trouble. That is, we're asking
for people who habitually create more
problems than they're worth ••• to most
other companies.
What we'll do when we find them is make
their problems worth more. With us,

If you do, you may have real problems.
The kind we're looking for.
If you're one of the professionals with a
degree in EE, Physics or Math and have
2-10 years applicable experience, see if
you can create problems for us in any of
the following areas:
MATH SPECIALISTS-COMPUTER APPLICATIONS Provide detail design, development, maintenance, modification and
improvements for command and control,
event and data evaluation computer programs for use on assigned satellite projects.
PROGRAMMERS Coordinate with systems
engineers, ops analysis engineers, and
users and/or the customer to determine
basic requirements for computer program
development and modification. Document, design, flow chart, code, check-out
and validate computer programs.
ANALYSIS ENGINEERS-COMMAND AND
CONTROL Provide technical coordination to assure compatibility of computer
software programs and data base for op-

erational vehicles and on-orbit operational support for the hardware/software
interface areas. Background in analysis
and operation of airborne systems and
sub-systems with emphasis on digital
command and telemetry systems. Knowledge of computers, associated software.
An understanding of software logic and
Jovial language required.
SPECIALISTS - VALIDATION AND TEST
Establish test procedures, at the system, sub-system, and module level from
preliminary and final design specifications of software programs. Conduct extensive validation tests to ensure compatibility with all developed programs.
Please send details of your educational
background and experience, including
salary requirements, to Mr.E.Cutter, General Electric Co., Space Sysiems, Room
40-K, 1003 West Maude Ave., Sunnyvale, California 94086.
Command & Information Systems
Operation

SPACE SYSTEMS

GENERALe ELECTRIC
An equal opportunity employer (m/f).

II. Based on a reply to the above by Ronald Yearsley in The Financial Times, London, England, for August
16, 1968.
The report by Elsbeth Ganguin concerning the computer
staffing policy of a leading building society, commendable
as it was in solving its problems by extensive internal recruitment and training, could be a model of doubtful validity
for other organizations.
The following case history reveals some of the weaknesses
of internal recruitment. A particularly well-established engineering company decided after little thought to purchase
a computer, which was ordered and scheduled for delivery
in 18 months. The company decided to recruit its systems
analysts internally, because the applications to be put on the
computer were considered complex and it was thought external recruits would take too long to understand the company's
routines and philosophy.
Hence, three senior clerical staff were appointed as systems
analysts. They were sent on a computer manufacturer's
course for three weeks, which gave an introduction to computing and programming. On their return, they began to
design the new computer system. This system was based
largely on the old routines of the company's punch card installation. The senior management of the company took no
direct interest and gave little guidance to these men.
At that time there was little formal systems training available. Because of their lack of understanding of programming,
these men had no chance to comprehend the potential of the
proposed computer (and its limitations), and produced a
"hodge-podge" of. a system which would use the new computer merely as' a. fast printer repeating some of the sterile
and redundant routiiles of the punch card installation.
It was later discovered that the computer selected had too
small a configuration to cope with the system that had been
designed. The computer configuration was' increased, and its
delivery delayed by 11 months. In that time some of the
system was redesigned and senior staff recruited externally.
The cost to the company of this experiment was a little over
£50;000.
This is a tragic tale, for nowhere else in the organization

,,,ould one expect to find a function of comparable importance carried out by people with so little training or experience. The reason for such practices providing an easy
alternative to external recruitment is the rapid growth of
computing in this country, which has out-stripped the supply
of adequately trained people. The average user finds it difficult to staff his installation with a good mix of business and
computing skills. The analyst, in particular, requires the
qualities of a good detective, with curiosity, observation and
logical power, coupled with a comprehension of the capabilities of the software of the computer at his disposal.
A computer installation is as good as the people who staff
it, and good people are demanding inflated salary levels at
the moment. But high salaries alone are not the answer.
Employers must remember that the retention of staff is
equally as important as recruitment. In order to achieve
this, the installation needs to be well managed and needs to
operate in an enlightened company where there is high-level
support for the computer department.
The advantage internal recruitment does bring is to solve
to· some degree the prublem, so apparent in mobile computer
people, of staff turnover. This posture, however, does have
the danger that the installation will be inbred, and easily
satisfied with its performance in the absence of external
yardsticks. The external recruit does bring new ideas and
act as a catalyst of change.
Peering into the future may be rash, but in the short term
we can see the heavy demand for trained staff continuing.
.' Training programs undertaken by such firms as the Woolwich Equitable Building Society will help to some degree in
solving the problems. But quality rather than quantity is
crucial and is not easily attained if the proportion of experienced people in a given installation is low. There is little
point in the recruitment externally of a few able technicians
who will spend the bulk of their time teaching the uninitiated
analysts and programmers recruited internally how to reinvent the wheel.

1969 IEEE COMPUTER GROUP CONFERENCE - CALL FOR PAPERS
Donald L. Epley
Technical Program Chairman
1969 IEEE Computer Group Conference
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Univ. of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa 52240
The 1969 IEEE Computer Group Conference will be held
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 17-19, 1969. The purpose
of this Conference is to report and explore recent, original
developments in "Today's World of Real Time Systems."
Subjects of interest include real time systems for process
control, message switching, inventory control, time sharing,
command and control, and biomedical computing. Papers
are invited describing new developments in software, languages, system organization and interface design including
peripheral equipment, special purpose systems, system models
and analysis, and hardware.
Potential participants are requested to submit for consideration by the Conference Program Committee a 50-word
12

abstract suitable for publication in the Computer Group
News, and alOOO-word illustrated digest suitable for publication in the Conference Digest. The phone number and
complete mailing address of the senior author should be
specified for possible later questions and revisions. Four
copies of the abstract and digest should be submitted by
January 10, 1969. Authors will be notified 8f the Program
Committee's decision by March 1, 1969.
In addition, authors may submit complete papers for independent lIeview and consideration for publication in a
special issue ! of the IEEE Transactions on Computers.
All material should be sent to the address above.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

INTERNATIONAL JOINT CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - CALL FOR PAPERS
Dr. Donald E. Walker
Program Chairman (U.S.A.)
The MITRE Corp.
Bedford, Mass. 01730
The first International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence is scheduled for May 7-9, 1969, in Washington,
D. C. The Conference was initiated by the Special Interest
Group on Artificial Intelligence of the Association for Computing Machinery. Other co-sponsoring groups currently include: American Federation of Information Processing Societies, American Society for Cybernetics, Association for
Computational Linguistics, British Computer Society and
its AISB Group, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Computer Group, Man-Machine Systems Group,
System Sciences and Cybernetics Group), Pattern Recognition Society, Simulation Councils, Inc., Society of Instrument
and Control Engineers of Japan. Additional organizations,
both in the United States and abroad, are considering sponsorship.
Papers for the Conference are requested in the following
areas:
-

theoretical foundations of artificial intelligence (limi-

-

tations of specific machines, mathematical models)
heuristic problem solving (frameworks for learning,
game-playing)

-

-

-

-

theorem proving
pattern recognztlOn

(feature extraction, learning
techniques, patterns in 1, 2, 3 dimensions, related
linguistic processes)
computer "understanding" (question-answering systems, self-organizing systems)
linguistic research relevant to artificial intelligence
integrated artificial intelligence systems (robots, learning control systems)
hardware and software specifically relevant to artificial intelligence (higher-level languages, sophisticated graphic and acoustic I/O devices)
man-machine symbiosis in problem-solving
psychological and physiological modeling (of aspects
of intelligent behavior in biological systems, perception, neural networks)
applications of artificial intelligence work

Manuscripts must be received by January 15, 1969. Specifications for their preparation can be obtained from the Program Chairman. Please submit manuscripts and address inquiries about the program to the address above.

........~"""''''''' oxide... . ..... the. life ofmagrietictape
Ahd it breeds still more dust as it is ground into fast·runningta
MS~200 Magnetic Tape Head Cleaner sprays oxide dust away. MS~20
recommended by leading tape head manufacturers, prescribed by a maj
broadcasting network, used at hundreds of data processing installations.
don't lose your head; use MS-200 Magnetic Tape Head Cleaner.

~ miller.stephenson

~ chemical co.,inc.

Price: $2.75/can in cartons of 12 I6-oz. cans;
Trial order: 4 cans @ $3.60/can.
Prices f. o. b. Los Angeles, Chicago or Danbury, Conn~

Route 7. Danbury. Conn. 06813

u. S. and foreign patents pending.
Designate No. 13 on Reader Service Card

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

13

WHO'S WHO IN THE COMPUTER FIELD,
1968-69 - ENTRIES
Who's Who in the Computer Field 1968-1969 (the
Fifth Edition of our Who's Who), will be published by
Computers and Automation during 1969. The Fourth
Edition, 253 pages, with about 5000 capsule biographies
was published in 1963. The Third Edition, 199 pages,
was published in 1957.
In the Fifth Edition we hope to include upwards of
10,000 capsule biographies including as many persons as
possible who have distinguished themselves in the field
of computers and data processing.
If you wish to be considered for inclusion in the
Who's Who, please complete the following form or provide us wi th the equivalent information. (If you have already sent us a form 'some time during the past eight
months, it is not necessary to send us another one unless
there is a change in information. )

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

WHO'S WHO ENTRY FORM
(may be copied on any piece of paper)
Name? (Please print) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Home Address (with Zip)? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Organization ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Its Address (with Zip) ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Your Title ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _-'--_ _ _ _ _ __
Your Main Interests?
Applications
( ) Mathematics
Programming
Business
()
Construction
( ) Sales
Design
()
Systems
Logic
( ) Other
(Pleas.e specify)
Management
( )

C·a
NUMBLES
Number Puzzles for Nimble Minds
- and Computers
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
A "numble" is an arithmetical problem in which: digits
have been replaced by capital letters; and there are two
messages, one which can be read right away and a second
one in the digit cipher. The problem is to solve for the digits.
Each capital letter in the arithmetical problem stands for
just one digit 0 to 9. A digit may be represented by more
than one letter. The second message, which is expressed in
numerical digits, is to be translated (using the same key)
into letters so that it may be read; but the spelling uses
puns or is otherwise irregular, to discourage cryptanalytic
methods of deciphering.
We invite our readers to send us solutions, together with
human programs or computer programs which will produce
the solutions.
Numble 6810:

S PEE C H 'was given to man to
X
HID E
PIE DElI P S-

o
7.
8.

Year of Birth?_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Education and Degrees ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
9. Year Entered Computer Field ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
10. Occupation ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
11. PublicationS', Honors, Memberships, and other
Distinctions ? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

PS

O ElH E O' A P
M. C'~;_H S I
TE'-D~

E

= P G ~ H S.. G{A . A C S,
+ H P A:T E H C HAD T

= HI

~

GUM = DOG

THO UGH T S

and perhaps

75327 84901

37107

96

(attach paper if needed)
12. Do you have access to a computer?
a. If yes, what kind of computer?

)Yes (

)No

Manufacturer _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Model ________________________________
b.

Where is it installed:
Manufacturer? ____________________
Address? ____________________
c. Is your access: Batch? (
Time-shared? ( )
Other? ( ) Please explain: _ _ _ _ _ _ __
d. Any remarks ?___________________

13. Associates or friends who should be sent Who's Who

entry forms?

CALIFORNIA COMPUTER PRODUCTS
SPONSORS ART COMPETITION
CalComp Awards
Suite 523
2975 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, Calif. 90005

Name and Address

(attach paper if needed)
When completed, please send to:
Who's Who Editor, Computers and Automation,
815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160
14

California Computer Products Inc. is sponsoring an international computer-plotter art competition, offering scholarships of $5000, $3000 and $2000 to accredited colleges or
universities selected by the first three winners, plus cash
awards of $500, $300 and $200, with additional awards of
$50 each to 50 runners-up.
Deadline for entries is November 1, 1968. Requests for
additional information and contest entries should be sent to
the address above or any CalComp branch office.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Computer time-sharing services
are all alike ...right?

wrong...here's why

Your time-sharing service should have certain
features. Most services have some of them. Graphic Controls has them all! For example: 0 Programming
classes, application seminars, plus Technical Consultants in all disciplines, to help you get full benefit
from the service 0 24 hour computer service 0 Advanced communication techniques for local dial-up
service 0 Around the clock programming assistance 0 Your choice of several completely conversational
programming languages including the latest, BASIC+ DThe best hardware available ... always ... because
we're not limited by computer manufacturer affiliation. For the full story on why we're different and why
it's important to you,
write or phone Ken Draeger, Marketing Manager. Area Code 716-853-7500.
~--

COMPUTER SYSTEMS DIVISION

-.. ........ - G RAP Hie CON T R 0 L seD R P 0 RAT ION
. . . . . 189

VAN

RENSSELAER

STREET,

BUFFALO,

Designate No. 21 on Reader Service Card

NEW

YORK

14210

SELECTING A VENDOR OF
TIME-SHARED COMPUTER SERVICES
Alan G. Hammersmith, President
Time-Sharing Enterprises, Inc.
251 DeKalb Pike
King of Prussia, Pa. i9406

((Time-sharing systems cannot be compared directly on the basis of
cost. Some systems may appear, from reading pricing schedules of vendors, to be much more expensive than other systems. This may not be
true."

Selecting a vendor of time-shared computer services is becoming increasingly difficult because of the many vendors
and types of services available today. Many of these vendors
are using the same computer with "special features", lower
cost, better response, better customer service, etc. For new
users the question becomes, "which service should I select
for: my particular use and applications among all of the
various services being offered?" For experienced users the
question becomes, "am I using the right system for my particular kind of applications?"
Section I of this article deals with some general information relative to time-sharing and the systems available. Section II is directed toward the non-user and how he should
go about selecting a vendor. Section III is for the user already using time-sharing. Section III points out the various
changes that have occurred recently and provides some food
for thought in evaluating whether or not you are using the
right system. Section IV gives some conclusions and comments about the industry in general.
Many companies are using time-sharing for a variety of
reasons and applications. This article does not contain all
of the answers; it merely attempts to point out some of the
items to consider when evaluating and selecting a vendor.

I. TIME-SHARING/REMO'TE BATCH:
GENERAL COMMENTS
It is currently estimated that there are over 5,000 companies using time-sharing services. For an industry that is
less than four years old this represents a rapid growth. There
seems to be no "typical user" of time-sharing. Some companies with one or two employees are making heavy and effective use of the service. Some very large companies with
their own in-house systems are also heavy users of timesharing. However, it is generally agreed that once a company tries and uses time-sharing it is likely to be a continual
user.
The General Electric Company is undoubtedly the largest
supplier of time-sharing services in the United States. IBM
ranks second. Com-Share, Inc., ranks third, relative to the

16

Mr. Hammersmith is president of Time-Sharing Enterprises, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in TimeSharing/Remote Access Systems with publications covering the various aspects of this industry. He was formerly
associated with Com-Share, Inc. (as a senior sales engineer), and with General Electric Co. He received a B.A.
in mathematics at the Univ. of Calif., and pursued
engineering studies at the Univ. of Sydney, Sydney,
Australia.

number of users. Many new vendors have appeared in the
market place recently. New companies are being formed
every week to provide similar services. Many large corporations are getting ready to form large nationwide time-sharing
and/or remote batch networks. Although many changes have
occurred'in the past three to four years, the next three to four
years should create many new and drastic changes within the
industry.
The Market C,hanges

Up until a short time ago the market was a vendor's
market. With the addition of all the new services made
available, it is now definitely a users' market. This means
that users of these services are provided a wider choice of
systems and capabilities for much less cost. Costs are expected to drop still further because of the highly competitive
nature of this new industry.
Some of the most significant developments that have occurred within the last year or so include:
• The entry of many new vendors.
• The addition of many different types of services and
capabilities with larger and faster core and storage
facilities.
• The portable teletype, which is a vast addition in
flexibility.
• Remote batch systems, with high-speed lines and large
core.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

8

7

6

SPC-12

the new
automation computer
The SPC-12 is a new automation computer
designed for economical use in dedicated automation and control functions.
The SPC-12 is powerful-with six programmable 12-bit registers, a 2-microsecond (4K
to 16K) memory of 8-bit bytes, and a unique
memory saving "shared command" concept.
Fully IC'd for reliable 'round-the-clock' operation. $6400, including a teletypewriter
interface, control panel, and real time clock,
console lock, optional power failure restart,
and optional direct memory transfer.

That's just half the story. Most computers
require expensive engineering and black
boxes to work in a control system. Not the
SPC-12. It comes with economical functional
modules which adapt the SPC-12 easily to
instrumentation, computer peripherals, keyboards and displays, sensors and communication networks. With these functional
modules and its power, the SPC-12 achieves a
new cost/performance ratio and makes
computer control practical in your system
today. Programming aids and application software of course. Call or write for more
information about the SPC-12 -the new
automation computer.

GENERAL AUTOMATION, INC.
Automation Products Division
706 West Katella, Orange, Calif. (714) 633-1091
Designate No. 11 on Reader Service Card

The future for the time-sharing industry should be exceptionally interesting. We should see an increase in the number of vendors and capabilities in the market place. There
should also be an increased use of in-house systems, thus
changing the role of the D.P. Manager. Large data bases
with company proprietary information will be placed on
these in-house systems. The D.P. Manager will then be in
a position to provide this service plus some basic computing
power; engineers and programmers will still continue to use
outside services for their sophisticated problems and applications. High speed input/output devices will also greatly
change the industry.

(2) Interrupted run to completion. Under this type of
system the job would enter core and the system
would allocate fixed or variable blocks of time for
the job. In other words, there may be three jobs
in core and the processor would run around processing the three jobs until one job was complete
and then another job would enter the system.
Remote batch is becoming more and more popular. These
systems are used mostly for large production runs where
program interaction and fast response time is not necessary.
Also, these systems usually have high speed lines available
which allows high speed printing at the user's location.

Time-Sharing
A time-sharing system can best be described in the following example: If a user has a program to run which requires
two minutes of central processor time, the time-sharing or
time-slicing system will allocate small portions of the processor to run the job. After each time-slice or "shot" at the
processor the program will get swapped out of core to a
drum or disc. Some systems allow the program or portions
of the program to remain in unused portions of core. The
amount of processor time allocated for each "shot" varies
anywhere from a fraction of a second to one (sometimes
more) second ( s ) .
Let us assume that the user is on a computer system that
allows one full second of central processor time per slice.
The user in order to run his two minute program would,
therefore, get 60 x 2 or 120 shots at the processor.
A time-sharing system therefore allows the user a high
degree of interactiveness with the computer. Interactiveness can occur at any time while the user is connected with
the system. Files and programs can readily be created and
changed. Execution can be interrupted and restarted. Some
systems allow sophisticated debugging techniques whereby a
user can stop execution at various specified points in the
program and examine the contents of counters and variables.
These counters and variables can then be changed and execution continued from that point or any other point in the
program. This debugging technique allows the programmer
to make a step by step or block by block trace of his program. A remote batch system does not allow interactiveness
during execution.

Time-Sharing ·vs. Remote-Batch
Time-sharing and remote-batch systems cannot and
should not be compared entirely on the basis of "apparent"
costs. These two systems were designed to do basically different types of jobs. The person evaluating or investigating
systems should first identify whether the system is timesharing or remote-batch oriented. It is difficult enough to
compare one time-sharing system with another, let alone
compare a time-sharing and a remote batch system.
The following computer systems are generally considered
to be time-sharing systems:
GE-255
GE-265
GE-420
GE-M605
GE-635 (as offered by GE's Information Systems Department)
SDS-940
IBM-360/50
IBM-7044 (Quicktran)
The following computer systems are generally considered to
be remote-batch systems:
B-5500
G E-635 (as operated by G E's Missile & Space Division)
Philco-212
Univac 1108
IBM-360/50-65 (combination)

Remote Batch
Remote batch has probably been the most significant capability developed commercially within the last year. This
capability will drastically alter both the time-sharing and
batch-processing industries within the next couple of years.
Many production jobs that are presently being run on timesharing systems should be converted to remote batch systems.
This conversion will save the user many dollars. Also, many
in-house batch systems are greatly overloaded. Many of the
batch jobs being run today should be placed on a remote
batch system. Comparisons have shown that the cost of a
remote batch processing run can be one-tenth the cost of a
batch processing run. Use of an outside remote batch service
would reduce the load of an in-house system for other development and uses. Data Processing managers should look
carefully at this capability.
A remote batch system operates basically in one of two
different ways.
.
(1) Uninterrupted run to completion. Under this type
of system the same job as described above would
enter the system and the processor would run that
job until it was completed. The processor would
not operate on any other jobs until that particular
job was completed.
18

Confusion in Cost Comparisons
Time-sharing systems cannot be compared directly on the
basis of cost. The various systems available contain a wide
variety of capabilities. Some systems may appear, from reading pricing schedules of vendors, to be much more expensive
than other systems. This may not be true. Some systems
offer a wide range of capabilities and power. These systems
are usually a little more expensive, but the additional capabilities may greatly facilitate designing and programming
of certain types of applications and therefore reduce your
total job cost. On the other hand, if a user does not require
the special features and power of the more expensive systems,
it obviously would not be wise for him to pay this extra cost.
The following is a list of the major reasons why it is
dangerous to compare systems solely on a cost basis:
1. Response Times: Different systems provide different response times. While waiting for a response from the computer, you are paying for the programmer to sit idle at the
terminal. You .are also (usually) paying a connection cost.
This response time can be very annoying to the programmer
and his "terminal thumb-twiddling time" may cost you more
than the vendor's connection charge. Many users and potential users fail to include this cost in their comparisons.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

2. System Loading: As a new system gets marc and more
users, the connect time increases. Some systems are more
sensitive to increased number of users as well as to the increase of sophisticated users which put more of a burden on
the system. Certain vendors will load a system heavier than
others. This "sluggishness" should be temporary until the
vendor receives delivery of another machine.
3. CPU Charge for Swapping: Some vendors charge the
users central processor time (CPU) to swap them in and out
of core. This practice is more prevalent among those systems that do not have a high speed disc (or drum) on the
system. The user is therefore paying more for the system
overhead. The access time of a high speed disc (or drum)
is usually in the area of 15 to 20 milliseconds, while a low
speed disc has an access time of about 200 milliseconds. In
some cases the user can be paying up to 5 or 6 seconds of
CPU time for each second his program is actually using. As
the system load increases more and more swaps are required,
therefore costing the user more to run a program at one time
than to run the same program at another time.
4. Telephone Line Charges: If two time-sharing vendors
that you are evaluating are both in your local calling area,
telephone line charges do not become a consideration.
However, if you do have to make a long distance phone call
to a computer, these charges can become excessive - especially if you have long response times. Again, do not forget
that your cost for the programmer to sit idle may be the
major cost factor.
5. Terminal Costs: Some vendors do not allow teletypes
(Model 33 or 35) on their systems. These terminals are
probably the cheapest general purpose terminals available
today (i.e. the Model 33). The user should seriously look
into the many portable terminals available. These units are
very reliable and provide the user with additional flexibility.
Some locations have had trouble with these portable units
but this is more the exception than the rule.

II. THE NON·TIME·SHARING USER
The first question to answer is whether or not you should
be using a time-sharing or remote-batch system. There is no
easy set of rules to assist you in making this decision.
• If you suspect that time-sharing may have a place In
your company, the most reasonable thing to do is try
it for a while.
• If you have never used computers before, a timesharing system should be tried.
• If you have a batch computer that is heavily loaded,
you should try putting some of the production programs on a remote batch system.

If you have someone within your company that has used
time-sharing or remote batch, his advice should be consulted.
You can also call in an independent consultant who would be
able to assist you in evaluating the necessity of using such a
service. Assuming it is decided to try a remote system, the
consultant could then provide you with valuable assistance
in selecting the best vendor and system. If you feel a demonstration would be helpful, contact one of the vendors in
your area.

2. Consultants
If you are in an area where only one or two services are
provided, your selection decision is relatively simple. If, on
the other hand, you are in a major metropolitan area you
might have ten or more services from which to select. In this
case, it would be much cheaper for you to call in an independent consultant to assist you in the evaluation. The consultant must be familiar with all of the systems and not just
a casual user.
The consulting firm should be able to:
a) Review your operation for potential applications.
b) Outline your specific requirements with you.
c) Present to you information on the available systems
in your area including - vendors, hardware and software, description, languages, terminals and costs.
d) Select two or three vendors to be called in for discussion and/or demonstration.
e) Assist you in asking the vendor representative pertinent questions.
f) Assist in all vendor negotiations and expediting.
For example, in the New York City metropolitan area
there are over ten vendors offering this kind of service. For
you to evaluate all of them would take two to four weeks. A
consulting firm should be able to accomplish all of this in one
or two well-spent days, thus greatly reducing your evaluation
and selection costs.
3. Time-Sharing - Remote Batch
Separate all the available computers (services) into timesharing and remote batch. Decide which of these types of
services you require. If you have elected not to use an independent consultant, call in a vendor representative from each
type to assist you in your selection.
4. Vendors By Computer
The next step is then to select the computer that best suits
your needs. List all the vendors that use that computer. Some
systems are easy to use whereas other systems may be more
complicated to use but offer greater capability. Determine
whether you require simplicity or capability. Determining
this will assist you in selecting the computer that will fill
your needs. You are then left to selecting the best vendor who
uses that computer.
5. Costs
Next, compare the relative costs of the various vendors.
This comparison is admittedly not an easy task; but if you
have narrowed your selection down to a particular computer,
the task will be much easier. When talking to vendors, always
ask if there are any "other" costs that you are likely to incur.

Rating Form
The Vendor Data Sheet provided in Chart 1 should be of
assistance to you in evaluating vendors. Depending on your
experience with computers, you can select the various items
from Chart 2 (Summary of Additional Points to Consider)
to add to the Data Sheet in Chart 1 to tailor your evaluation
to your particular requirements.

What To Avoid
What To Consider
1. Identify Services
Identify all the available services within your geographical
area. This should include both time-sharing and remotebatch systems.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

1. Benchmarks
Benchmark problems can be helpful in evaluating what a
particular service will cost. We must however warn you to
BEWARE of benchmarks, for they can be misleading. An
experienced salesman can prove almost anything he wants to
19

Chart 1: Vendor Data Sheet
Vendor Name: ____________________________________
Vendor Address: _________________________________
Vendor Contact: ___________________________________
Ti tle: ___________________ Phone: ______________
Computer (s): a. Time-Sharing _____________________
b. Remote Batch ______________________________
Languages

Program Size

Features

Terminals: ________________________________________
Number of lines into area: Now: ______ Planned:
Date: _______
Costs
Minimum per month: _______________________
One-time charge: _______________________________
Connectcharge: ______________________________
Input/Output charge: __________________
CPUcharge: ____________________
Storagecharge: _________________________________
Phone charge: ______________________________
charges: _____________________________
~her

Machine Hours
Monday through Friday: __________________________
Saturday:
Sunday: ______________
Interactiveness (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor)
Modification of Data: _______________________
Modification of Program: _____________________
During Execution: _________________________________
~her

Information

with a benchmark. Do not tell one vendor what it cost or
how long it took to run the same benchmark on another system until he has run your benchmark and given you the
output. Turn-around-time and cost are sensitive to the number of people on a system at a given time. It is also critical
as to what kind of users are on the system and what they are
doing when your program was executed. Remote batch systems are much less sensitive to these variations.
2. Unique Features
Avoid any "unique features", particularly in the area of
programming language fl'atures. Many vendors use these as
strong selling points; however, if you use these "non-standard"
capabilities you will be locked into that vendor for a long
time. If at a later date you decide to change vendors, your
programming conversion costs would be prohibitive and these
time and cost saving "features" could eventually cost your
company plenty. Many users today are in this exact position
since they did not avoid the use of "unique features".
3. Library Packages
Avoid being oversold on a vendor's library and application
packages. Many users have selected a vendor based on such
packages only to find out that the packages were not general
enough to solve their particular problem. Very few timesharing users make use of the packages available. It is often
easier to write your own package than figure out the documentation on an available package. Most vendors have an
adequate supply of library routines and packages.
20

What to Expect from Your Time-Sharing Vendor

1. A Free Trial Period: Most vendors will allow you one to
two weeks of free computer time while you are trying their
system. You should ask for this free computer time. The
amount of free time you will receive will be dependent upon
the potential amount of usage by your company. Most vendors have available portable teletypes which they might loan
you during this period. You will, however, be expected to
pay any telephone charges that are incurred during this free
trial period.
2. Training: The vendor should supply you with all of the
necessary training in their system and in any programming
languages that you may desire. If you have a large numher
of employees within your organization that require programming training, you may arrange that the vendor is to train
one person in your organization who will then train the remaining people. It is not reasonable to expect the vendor to
train large numbers of people from your company; however,
some vendors periodically offer programming classes which
your people would be invited to attend.
3. Periodic Assistance & Additional Training: Each vendor
should be staffed sufficiently to provide you with periodic
assistance and allY ~L}ditional training you may require. Situations will probably arise while you are on the system concerning things that you do not understand. A simple phone
call to the vendor should readily clear up these matters. Do
not hesitate to call and ask for assistance. ,All vendors are
very anxious to satisfy you with their system and have you
understand it completely so that you can use it effectively.
A few minutes spent by the vendor can save you and your
people many frustrating hours.
Vendors will also provide you with additional training sessions as new features are added to their system and new
people arc added to your organization.
4. Updates and System Changes: It is very in.portant that
the vendor notifies you as soon as possible of all updates and
changes to their system. During the initial periods of your
negotiations, you should inquire as to what system and
procedure they use for keeping you up to date on the
modifications.
5. System Down-Time: Every computer, whether it is timesharing computer or a batch processing computer, will "go
down", become inoperative from time to time. The disadvantage of a time-sharing system is that when it is inoperative
some twenty to forty customers could be affected. If a system
does crash and your teletype is disconnected, wait five minutes or so and then re-dial. Most systems are able to recover
within a short period of time. You will, however, sometimes
experience one or two hours of down-time, but this should
he infrequent.
6. Loss of Files (Programs and Data): During certain types
of "crashes" your programs and data files can be temporarily
or permanently lost. This situation should happen infrequently. In most cases these files can be recovered. The
recovery should be done by the vendor at his expense with
your assistance.
7. Credit for Lost Time: Most vendors give credit for lost
and/or unproductive time. This time is frequently credited
against your bill; however, it is often easier for your salesman
to allow you an equivalent amount of minutes or hours on
one of his user numbers.
8. Vendor Assistance: Do not expect the vendor to spend
full time with you after your initial training period. He
should have to spend less and less time as you become
familiar with his system. Do not forget that your vendor has
many other customers that may need and require assistance.
If you do need help, however, ask for and insist on receiving help.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Chart 2: Summary of Additional Points to Consider
1.

System - General:
Response time - for unloaded and loaded system
System loading by vendor
Mix of sophisticated vs. non-sophisticated users
Front-end computer
Hardware swapping device (disc or drum)
Paging
Floating point hardware
Reduced rates for guaranteed usage
CPU charges for .swapping
Ease of use; degree of user orientation
System commands for user and management
monitoring
System recovery capabilities
Languages and subsystems available
Library programs - availability, language, and
documentation
Teletype linking - with computer operator and/or
other users
Input/Output devices (terminals)
Card, tape input/output (at computer center)
On-Line/Off-Line peripheral availability
Full and/or half duplex
Upper/Lower case characters

Binary storage of programs
Overlays, chaining, linking
Input/Output format flexibility
Assembly language capability
Assembly language subroutines in compiler
languages
Debug, trace, map
Plotting routines
Numerical cont!ollanguage
COGO/GEOM
ECAP
4.

Type of files
Flexibility of use and modification
Storage availability and cost
Maximum file size
Maximum number of files open during execution
Purging of files by vendor
Binary storage of data
Random files (identify languages)
File security features
Hardware protect
5.

2.

Organization:

Communications:
Communication cost and availability
Terminals operating on system
Terminal cost (include data set charges)
FX lines, WATS, In-WATS
Number of lines going into system
Number of high-speed lines and their usage

3.

Files:

Systems and Languages:
Editing features - ease and flexibility
Languages available
Reliability of compilers
Re-entrant compilers
Language features
Language standardization
Size of programs that can be compiled and
executed

9. Writing Programs: Vendors will not write your programs.
If you have a program you want written that has general
applicability to other users, there is a possibility that the
vendor may be interested in working with you on the program. If the program has value only to you and your company, you should expect to pay for their programming services. Your alternative would be to hire a consultant to do
your programming.

III. THE TIME.-SHARING USER
Those users that have not recently evaluated the many new
vendors and services being offered should do so soon. Many
of the new vendors are offering attractive CPU and connect
rates and, particularly, reduced storage charges. If you use
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Length of time in business
Length of time hardware/software has been
operational
Financial backing - availability
Number of computer centers
Organizational structure
Number and location of systems software people
Number and knowledge of sales and customer
support personnel
Salesmen - commission or salary
Personnel turnover rate
Procedure of correcting known system bugs
Speed of correcting known system bugs
Manuals - accuracy, clarity, ease of reference
Procedure for keeping users up to date on changes
and new feat1l;res
Availability of back-up system(s)
Additional hardware ordered

large amounts of storage, there is a good possibility that you
could reduce your total cost by changing vendors. Quite a
few of the remote batch services that are being offered and
that are expected to be offereq, can offer you extremely reasonable rates particularly on production jobs. Remote
batch systems should be thoroughly evaluated.

Changing Vendors
Changing vendors is not an easy task. The cost for converting from one system to another can be quite expensive.
Conversion costs should be fully researched before you seriously consider changing vendors. We have listed below some
of the factors that should be considered before changing
vendors:
21

1. Program Conversion Costs: If you have many frequently
used programs stored on your present system, it will be expensive and time consuming to convert these to another system. This is particularly true if you have utilized some of the
"special features" that some vendors offer within their languages. Most difficulties in converting programs from one
system to another will occur in the area of file handling.
Converting programs that use large and multiple files can be
time consuming and therefore expensive. If there are a considerable number of programs to be converted, this program
conversion should take place at the computer center where
access to the high-speed line printer is available. You can
either have a senior person from your organization do this
conversion work, hire someone from your new vendor to do
the conversion, or hire an independent consultant who is
familiar with both your old and new systems.
2. Retraining: If there are only one or two people within
your organization that use time-sharing, your retraining problem is not a serious one. Some companies have twenty, thirty,
or more people using time-sharing. Retraining all these people is not only expensive but often frustrating because of the
personal preference involved in using a system with which
each individual is familiar. The large users of time-sharing
within your organization should play an important role in
selecting a new vendor since these users are the people that
will have to spend a major portion of their time working
on the new system.
3. A New System: Initially, many new systems that are
being made available are not heavily loaded. These systems
will provide you with very quick turn-around during demonstrations and very attractive rates to run benchmark programs. When making your evaluation you should understand
that as a system becomes loaded your response time will get
longer and your cost to run a particular program may increase. Do not become over impressed with quick response
time since this may get worse as time progresses.
4. Line Availability: It is important to know the number
of lines available within your particular geographic area
versus the number of users expected to use these lines. Busy
signals are frustrating. If you have to make a long-distance
call to access a new system you are considering, be sure to
include these costs in your evaluation.
S. Control Characters: The usc of control characters in
editing programs and data can initially be confusing. On
some of the new systems, control characters play an important
role in the editing capabilities. For those users that use the
system periodically, control characters may be too confusing.
For those users who spend a considerable amount of time on
a time-sharing system, the use of control characters and the
ability to type ahead will save the programmer many hours
of editing.

6. Full Duplex Vs. Half Duplex: Many of the new systems
provide a full duplex capability. Not all of these systems,
however, allow you to "type ahead". For extensive users of
time-sharing, this can be a significant asset particularly in
the area of editing. For periodic users, this can be a confusing feature.
7. In-House Systems: With the present availability of
small time-sharing systems, increasing pressure will b~ exerted
in getting in-house time-sharing systems. It would, however,
be a. mistake for medium-to-small-size companies to get an
in-house system with the idea of making significant software
changes to the system. We visualize that in-house systems will
be used primarily to store company proprietary data bases
and also permit use of some very simple computing language
such as the BASIC language.
Any attempt to run a sophisticated FORTRAN or higher
level compiler language on an in-house system would, in most
22

cases, lead to confused and unhappy users. It would be best
for large time-sharing users to usc a combination of in-house
systems and the commercial systems being offered on the
outside.

IV. CONCLUSIONS AND THE FUTURE
The time-sharing/remote batch industry has expanded rapidly within the last several years. This expansion is expected
to continue to increase at an even faster rate within the next
several years. Many large corporations are starting nationwide networks that will have a marked effect on the existing
vendors and the cost of these services.
The largest reduction in cost should be in the area of data
storage. Larger discs are being made available at a lower cost
per storage unit. Many of the new applications will deal
with large data bases for retrieval systems and management
information systems. Some users will require that their
proprietary information be maintained on their own in-house
system. Others will allow their data to reside on a vendor's
system. The companies that are willing to put their data on
other machines will have access to a more sophisticated and
powerful hardware/software capability.
In-house personnel systems will also play an important
role. These personnel systems will contain information on
people (college graduates, etc.) being interviewed. This information will then be available to the many divisions and
locations throughout the country. Once information is on the
system it is immediately available to all other locations. This
capability will greatly reduce the cost of interviewing and
increase the "hire ratio" since corporations will then be in a
position to find the best match of person to job. Systems such
as these have already been highly successful and rewarding.
The aerospace industry and other mobile industries will
also be developing (some have already) in-house personnel
systems dealing with the background and skills of their present employees. Searches can then be conducted for contract
purposes. These two types of personnel retrieval systems
are particularly popular because of their English languag~
searches and ease of use.
Today there are many small companies offering remote
access services. It is difficult to project what will happen
when the "giants" start rolling. One likely possibility is that
these small companies will be bought up primarily to obtain
experienced people. Experienced people within this industry
are at a premium. This will be the major problem area for
large corporations in establishing nationwide networks.
Prices for remote access services have dropped considerably
since the first commercial offering in early 1965. Today it is
difficult for those companies to make a profit with the existing competition and pricing schedules.
Start-up and development costs are very high. New vendors
are finding it extremely difficult, for reasons stated earlier, to
get potential customers to leave their present vendor and
sign a contract with them. Most new vendors, although some
are very well financed, greatly over-estimate their expected
revenue and underestimate their development, start-up and
cost of sales expenses.
The above reasons coupled with the possibility of a general
consolidation of vendors, further emphasize that users should
avoid the "unique features" being offered by vendors particularly in the area of programming languages. It would be wise
to standardize as much as possible.
Time-sharing and remote batch systems offer the user
many opportunities. People today are able to take advantage
of new computers that do not exist in the batch processing
environment. Many new and valuable applications are rapidly being developed. Many users are at last able to make the
computer actually work for them.
•
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

If you're
.
acquiring data,
the703
can get it for you
wholesale.
.~

........

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1IIIIIIIlllllllllillillllllllllllllii
And that means more of it faster, and with less cost, work
and worry. Raytheon Computer's $15,000 703 has system
characteristics built-in ... 1.75 usec cycle time ... 16-bit word
... memory expandable to 32K ... byte and word manipulation
... real-time priority interrupt ... options like direct memory
access, multiply/divide, expandable I/O bus.
Peripherals? Up to 256 including all the conventional high
and low speed, mass and non-mass devices plus-from

Software? A real-time monitor, an executive, assemblers,
debugging aids, real-time FORTRAN IV and SENSOR, a
unique hardware diagnostic program that spots malfunctioning IC elements so you can plug in a new one and be back
on the air in a few minutes .
About the only other thing you'll need to get a 703 into your
system is a call to a sales engineer. Raytheon Computer,
2700 S. Fairview St., Santa Ana, Calif. 92704; Phone (714)

Raytheon Computer only-analog data acquisition instru546-7160. Ask for Data File CB-161. In Europe and the Midments like the MINIVERTER@>, 100KHz ADCs
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_
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~AYTH EO ~

Designate No. 12 on Reader Service Card

"One of the main requirements in a successful time-sharing system is a
powerful file-management package oriented towards terminal use."

MUL TIPLE-ACCESS~
TIME-SHARING~

OPERATING SYSTEM
B. R. Smith
Manager Computer Services and Applications
Northern Electric Co. Ltd.
Station C Box 3511
Ottawa Ontario Canada
J

J

J

J

-

/'"
~

../

MATS
FILES ~
j~

•

100
100

MASTER
EXEC.

REMOTE
ENTRY
JOB

--.

••
14MATS EXEC.

TASK i
OUTPUT

f4-

f

~

••

100
LOCAL
BATCH JOB

JOB 1

TASKI
INPUT

4

TASKN
JOB

MATS I/O
PACKAGE
,

-

~
-I CONSOLE

TWX
TELETYPES
8092' s

...

I

~

SCHEDULE
TABLE

QCT

JOB n

~

",-

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MATS
JOB FILE

' - JOB 1 /
STANDARD
INPUT
"-- FILE ~

'-

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Figure 1: MATS/MASTER System

24

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

The need for better techniques to utilize large computers
has been recognized for some time. There is a definite point
beyond which it becomes impractical to submit batch work
via the time honoured methods. Due to the awesome throughput power of modern computers, the Computation Center
can become swamped in cards and listings and the computer
itself will probably be inefficiently used.
It is generally impractical to spread smaller computers
around to spread the load, because of higher cost and less
efficiency.
Several steps can be taken to rectify this situation. The
most obvious one is to tie several remote load centers to the
main installation via some means and then allow these terminals to submit batch work to the central site. This in itself
is not· sufficient for two reasons:-

share of the CPU time on a cyclic basis. Such occurrences
as interrupts and priority levels tend to confuse the issue
mightily. One of these tasks being multiprogrammed is
MATS EXEC. Normally MATS EXEC is in a wait state
pending an interrupt from one of the terminals. As such it
is completely ignored by MASTER.
Whenever a user at a terminal indicates he would like
service, MATS is put in the ready string and given control.
His request is decoded and the appropriate task flagged to
handle it. A scheduling algorithm in MATS then examines
the current core available to MATS and the current mix of
tasks in action. H it is possible, it picks a task which will fit
in optimally from those which have been flagged for use.
H it cannot start a new task it puts itself in wait state on both
terminal I/O and currently executing tasks (see Figure 2).

1. Some users cannot afford the necessary remote hardware.
2. Generally speaking, such terminals are not efficient if
used in the normal batch manner. This is in part due
to the high rate of card reading and printing needed
to do normal business work.

Figure 2: Simplified MATSEXEC Flowchart

To rectify these objections a system could be set up whereby most of the source material to be submitted is kept at the
central site on some storage medium. This would reduce the
amounts and kinds of data to be transmitted from the remote
site. In order to give the smaller users a suitable environment, such devices as teletypes or CRT's could be used as
terminals. It is now necessary to produce input-output and
file management routines to support these various terminals.
We are still talking about submitting jobs strictly in a
"batch" mode. A final obvious step is to allow the terminals
to "become interactive.
Currently at our Laboratories at Northern Electric Co.
Ltd., we are supporting a file management system called
MATS (for "Multiple Access Time Sharing") which allows
users at various types of terminals to manipulate source and
data files and to submit these for multi programmed queued
batch. We are also supporting an interactive computational
language.

Wait on
TASKS
and
I/O

Yes

Reset Tables

> - - -.... Issue Pending
I/O to Port

Decode
Command
for
Port

Terminal Oriented File Management
One of the main requirements in a successful time sharing
system is a powerful file management package oriented towards terminal use. It must be easy to use and must impose
a light load on the host computer. It must be able to efficiently handle high speed devices such as readers and printers, as well as low speed devices such as teletypes and CRT's.
To be practical the file management system must be
capable of handling efficiently the extremely large jobs which
are encountered in any general time sharing computer. It is
this latter restriction which makes the design of a package
like MATS extremely difficult.
Associated with this file management system must be an
effective interface to the normal batch stream in the computer. In order that the terminals be effective, users must be
able to quickly and easily submit their jobs irrespective of
their size or complexity. Typically, in our system, these jobs
may encompass scientific work, sorts, or large simulations.
It was recognized rather early in the development of our
terminal system that we could not afford either the core or
peripheral units required to base the design of our package
on the time-honoured concepts of core swapping, etc. We
decided that it was more practical to build both our file
management and interactive terminal languages around a
good multiprogramming monitor rather than vice versa.
The flow of control in the MATS/MASTER systerri is as
shown in Figure 1. Typically, several jobs are simultaneously
being multiprogrammed. Each task in the system is given a
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Flag TASK
to be Used

No

No

Pick Next
Port all String
Waiting for
Command

Issue
Command

25

With one exception all MATS tasks are allowed to run
wllcurrently with MATS EXEC. This exception is a utility
routine used to examine or rectify faults in the MATS tables.
Once a task has been given control, it has access to the necessary tables to allow it to continue processing user requests
independently of MATS EXEC. This feature can reduce
overhead substantially.
It has become apparent that the response time at a terminal under heavy load conditions can be changed markedly by
varying the scheduling algorithm in MATS EXEC. For light
load conditions it appears to make little difference. Under
maximum l~ad conditions MATS EXEC will handle up to
five ports simultaneously. All others must wait until the resources in use come free.

LAST BLOCK

FIRST BLOCK
Lo :

Record
Length

10

Ln
SEQUENCE NO.
I

FILE SIZE

I
I
I

Header
Record

I

2
17000000

End of File
Record

17nnnnnn
-noon-nnnn

77737777
77773777
L1
SEQUENCE NO.
I
I

File Structure
We have tried to keep the files manipulated by MATS as
compatible as possible with those of the MASTER monitor
system. Due to the algorithms used in MA TS so~e differences must exist. MATS will operate on two kinds of files
which will be called MATS files and MASTER files.
MASTER files are made up of variable length records
blocked in the standard MASTER fashion. MATS must
recognize this type of file for two reasons:1. All output returned to files from FORTRAN, etc.,
is in this format and this output must be listed at
the terminals.
2. Large data files are typically read in at a card reader.
There is generally no need to convert them to MATS
files; thus, if MATS will handle them correctly, overhead is saved.

MATS files have the following attributes (see Figure 3):1. A header record which identifies a file as being a
MATS file.
2. A trailer record which is in reality a software EOF
mark.
3. A binary sequence number at the beginning of every
record.
Some thought was given to using line numbers to identify
particular records rather than sequence numbers. This idea
was however dropped as our users preferred sequence numbers. The use of these sequence numbers would have been
simplified if fixed length records had been used and the
sequence number inserted at the end of the record, for this
is how such records are treated by MASTER. Due to limitations on random access this was not possible. (Variable
length records give better than a 2 to 1 reduction in mass
storage usage.)
Periodically, files get damaged due to hardware or software failures. MA TS keeps a continuous check on all currently open files and will signal a user who has a bad file.
Several routines are available which will recover files in most
cases where they have been damaged.
MATS files are protected in a rather stringent manner.
The default protection is by department and user number.
The non-default condition is - Filename (ACCSEC).
ACCSEC - S

BLANK -

files which can be altered only by Systems
Group, but are available to all groups for
copying
- D
- files are protecteq by department number
- N
- no protection
- Other - other than the above options can be used.
In this case, the files are protected by department, user and the specified security
characters.

26

-

gives default protection

User
Record

I

L2
SEQUENCE NO.
I
I
I

,1;/

~~
~

J~~~

~~

/

./

L
SEQUENCE NO.
I

I

00000000

Zero Word After
Last Record in
Block

Figure 3: MATS File Format

MATS Language
Generally speaking we tried to keep the MATS language
as simple as possible. It was believed that the commands
available to the users at the terminals should be completely
divorced from the realities of the operating system. The
same philosophy was followed with respect to all diagnostics.
In some cases specific system diagnostics are printed out;
however, this is a rarity.
Such details as file security are handled automatically by
the system. Unless the user specifies otherwise the standard
MATS security options will be applied to all files created
by MATS.
The commands can be categorized under the following
headings:- IDENTIFICATION
- FILE CREATION
- FILE MANIPULATION
- JOB SUBMISSION
-I/O
- UTILITY
They are summarized in Table I under the above headings.
Rather than try to describe each command a typical MATS
session is given in Figure 4 and the purpose of each command will be explained here.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

user ends each command or line of data with the ":" character which causes MATS to interpret the information.
We will examine these commands as they are used in this
example.

Table I
Mats Commands
Identification
LOGIN, Case No., User No., Dept. No.
LOGOUT

LOGIN,X.543,49000,8630:

I/O Cornrnands and File Creation
INPUT, Filename (Accsec)
CONTINUE
OUTPUT, Filename(Accsec), Start Seq. No., End Seq. No., Characters/Line
READ, Filename (Accsec), Device
SPOOL, Filename(Accsec) ,Device,Start Line,End Line,Abandon

Before the user can issue any useful commands he must
"log in" using the LOGIN command. MATS checks that the
user and department numbers are on the file of valid users
kept by the Computation Center and if so prints the teletype number and allows the user to continue.

CATALOG,ULIB,DLIB:

1'1 Ie Access Connnands

OPEN, Filename(Accsec)
CLOSE, Filename (Accsec)
DELETE, Filename (Accsec)
File Manipulation Commands
APPEND, Filename (Accsec), Start Seq. No., End Seq. No., Resequence
DUPLICAT, Filename(Accsec),Start Seq. No.,End Seq. No.,Resequence
ERASE, Start Seq. No. ,End Seq. No.
INSERT, Start Seq. No. ,Seq. No. Increment
LOCATE, Seq. No.
MOVE, Seq. No., To Seq. No.
REPLACE, Seq. NO.,Start Character Position,Data
RESEQUEN, First Seq. No. ,Seq. No. Incr:ement
SAR, /Character String to be found/ ,ALL
SAR, /Character String to be found/, /New Character String/
HATS/MASTER File Conversion Commands

This command lists information about the categories of
files specified. ULIB and DLIB request a list of all files belonging to the user and to his department respectively. In
this case BRIDGESA and TEST are user files and SIMULATE is a department file (see Figure 5).
MATS Identification:

MATS
ACCSEC

JOBFILE, From Filename (Accsec), To Filename(Accsec)
MATSFILE, From Filename(Accsec), To Filename(Accsec)

FILENAME (ACCSEC)

MASTER IDENTIFICATION
OWNER

FILENAME

ACCESS SECURITY

Job Submission Cornrnands
JOB, Filename (Accsec) I, •.•.•• , Fi lename (Accsec) 20
Utilit'y Commands
CATALOG,Option 1, •••••• ,Option 20
DATE
DUHP, Teletype No.
FIXFILE, Filename(Accsec)
HELP, Start Seq. No. ,End Seq. No.
TIME
TO, Teletype No., When
TABS, Position 1, •...•• , Position 4
QUEUE, Options ••••••
UTIL, Options ••••••

BLANK

MATSXXXX

FILENAMEYYYYYYYY

BLANK

D

MATSXXXX

FILENAME

BLANK

N

MATS

FILENAME

BLANK

S

MATSYST

FILENAME

BLANK

MATSXXXX

FILENAMEYYYYYYYY

OTHER

where XXXX

MATS ACCSEC

is the User's Department Number

Figure 4: Specimen MATS Session
YYYYYYYY is the User's Employee Number
> LOGIN, X-543, 49000, 8630:
TTY NO IS 04
> CATALOG, ULIB, DLIB:
CREATED EXPIRES LASTUSE SC TIMES SIZE
USED
OWNER
081967
091967
C82067
02 00005 00015 00014 MATS8630
081767
091767
083067
04 00026 00047 00047 MATS8630
Oel967
091967
01:12067
01 00001 00001 00001 MATS8630
END OF CATALOG LIST
>OUTPUT, TEST, lUO, 400:
000100 $JOB,X-543,49000/TS,8630,2,400 .. BRIDGES TEST
000200 $SCHED, CORE=29, SCR=3, LIB=l, OUT=*I'R4
000300 $FTN(L, X)
000400
PROGRAM TEST
>CLOSE:
(
) CLOSED
TEST
TABS, 10,20,30,40:
INPUT, TESTDATA:
000100 67117811826113:
000200 661179119281132:
000300 @
>OUTPUT:
000100 67
78
826
3
000200 66
79
928
32
>LOCATE,200:
-SAR, /928/, /828/:
000200 CORRECTED
> OUTPUT, 200:
000200 66
7~
828
32
>CLOSE:
TESTDATA (
) CLOSED
>JOB,TEST, TESTDATA:
JOB :m 02 ACCEPTED FOR LIB=l
>LOGOUT:
TIME 00/01/30

The other
FILENAl1E
ERI DGESA00049000
SH1ULATE
00049000
TEST

The control characters used in this example are:> MATS is expecting a new command from the user
(when output by MATS)
End of command or line of data
# Software TAB character
AL TMODE (shown as @ in Figure 4) End of INPUT
data
Figure 4 shows both the input by the User and the reply
by MATS; after most replies the > is printed to show that
MATS is expecting a new command from the user. The
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

~~TER

Identification Parameters are standard

for all MATS files in both MATS and MASTER formats:Modification Security:

Blank

Edition:

Blank

Usage:
Block Size:

0
1280 Characters

All files are allocated on device type 854, Class B, in
Sector Mode and Segmenting Permitted.

Figure 5: MATS File Identification

OUTPUT,TEST,lOO,400:
The user has previously set up a MATS file called TEST
containing a FORTRAN program and he is using the
OUTPUT command to check the control cards in the first
f~ur records. As it is a MATS forn;J.at file, each record is
printed preceded by its sequence number.
CLOSE:
This command introduces the concept of an 'open' file.
The user may have one file open at a time. Many commands
do not includeoa filename in their parameters and act only
on this open file; other commands may have the filename
unspecified and are then assumed to be referring to this
open file. The OUTPUT command used previously has
27

opened the file TEST and the user is now closing it to
enable him to have another open file later on.
TABS, 10,20,30,40:
MATS has a software TAB facility for ease of inputting
data or programs. This command sets up the four available
tab positions to character positions 10, 20, 30 and 40.
INPUT,TESTDATA:
This command allocates and opens' a file with the MATS
filename TESTDAT A and sets the teletype to INPUT mode.
It now expects successive lines of data to be input, each line
being a 'file record. MATS prints the next sequence number
on each new line before switching the teletype to INPUT
mode.
The user now types in numeric test data, four items to a
line, separated by tab characters (#). He completes his file
by typing the AL TMODE character. This causes the MATS
end of file record to be written and the teletype switched
back to COMMAND mode.
OUTPUT:
The user prints the open file of data he has just formed
using the OUTPUT command (without a filename specified
as it is the open file). Notice that the data in the file has had
its .tab characters replaced by the correct number of spaces.
LOCATE,200:
The user notices he has an error in the line of data with
sequence number 200. He uses the LOCATE command to
set a pointer to this line.
SAR,/928/,/828/:
The SAR command (Search and Replace) is now used to
correct the data. This command looks for the character
string 928 in the record pointed to by the previous LOCATE
command and replaces it by the string 828. The first character in each string is used to define the end delimiter character for that string; in this example the character "/" is used
though any unused character will do. The command acts
on the characters inside the two delimiters. This system
enables the normal separator character comma to be part of
the character string.
OUTPUT,200:
CLOSE:
The corrected line is printed and the file closed.
JOB,TEST,TESTDATA:
The lOB command writes the JOB request to a mass
storage file. A background routine called Queue Control will
then pass the job over to a MASTER STANDARD input
file, converting files from the MATS fOTmat to the required
MASTER format and checking the SlOB and $SCHED
cards in the first file TEST. The input file is then handed
over to the MASTER Operating System for queued batch
execution. The intermediate file of job requests is necessary
for two reasons:1. Recovery in case of system hangup, and
2. A pool for job requests when the MASTER schedule
table fills up.
The control cards were printed out by an earlier OUTPUT
command (see Figure 4).
The SlOB card is in the format required at Northern
Electric; an extra field for department number has been introduced between the standard MASTER fields of User
Identification and Time Limit; the User Identification field
is also restricted to:'User Number/Two Alphabetic Characters'
The user number and department number must agree
with the LOGIN information of MATS.
The $SCHED card has two additional options introduced:28

LIB = 1 specifies this program is to be executed on the
computer system presently running MATS. (LIB = 2
would have specified the other system.)
OUT = *PRN specifies the MASTER OUT file is to
be spooled to a printer identified as *PRN. OUT =
*XXX would have specified that the OUT file is to
be written on the file *XXX and the omission of the
OUT option would cause the standard computer system printer to be used.
LOGOUT:
The user has now finished his MATS session so he releases
the teletype with the LOGOUT command. The processor
time is printed out and the user is charged for a combiriation
of this time and the real time between the LOGIN and
LOGOUT commands.

MATS Error Diagnostics
MATS attempts to provide as complete a set of error
diagnostics as possible both to assist the user in his use of the
language and the Systems Department in correcting program
faults. A large part of the MATS coding is associated with
these diagnostics and with methods of preserving the users'
files if a system error or machine fault occurs.

User Error Diagnostics
These arise when the MATS command does not understand the information typed in or is not able to successfully
complete the command. Examples of the diagnostic message
returned to the user are:ILLEGAL COMMAND
INVALID USER/DEPT. NO.
FILE DOES NOT EXIST
FILE IN USE
INVALID SEQUENCE NUMBER,

System Error Diagnostics
These diagnostics arise when the MATS program finds one
of its safety checks has failed or when MASTER returns an
error after a file handling request. In general they are typed
in a standard format on the teletype from which the command waS issued.
AA Bn ERR DD
AA is a two letter code identifying the individual MATS
task.
B is a one letter code identifying the function.
n is a single digit code to further identify B.
DD is the error code returned by a MASTER request.
e.g. CT Ll ERR 41
would be a LOCATE error 41 III the CATALOG task and
is an attempt to locate to a block number outside the allocated area of the file.
Some diagnostics are returned to the console typewriter
and an example of these would be:ILLEGAL TTY NO
when the command has found the teletype number passed to
it by MATS is out of range.

Summary
A brief description of the Northern Electric MATS system has been given. The present system is the result of two
years of effort and provides a good remote batch entry and
file management system. Much future work remains to be
done, mainly in the areas of time-slicing and the conversion
of MATS into a more flexible package designed for a broader
spectrum of usage.
•
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Much better.
PDP-10 is the only computer now available that does real-time, batch processing, and time-sharing simultaneously.
PDP-10 is a better computer now,
measured in cost-effectiveness, than
any other machine even promised!
Beats the others cold.
In this environment, BASIC® is beautiful. 64 simultaneous users won't even
slow the machine down. Processing in
microseconds, rather than minutes.
BASIC, FORTRAN, AID, MACRO, DDT,
TECO, EDITOR. Pick the language. Pick
the mode.
All together now.
BASIC goes better with PDP-1 O.

PDP-10

~DmDDmD

COMPUTERS· MODULES

Maynard, Mass.

® Registered: Trustees of Dartmouth College
Designate No. 17 on Reader Service Card

A New Concept in Time Sharing:
DEDICATED SYSTEMS SHARE ONE COMPUTER
Gerald J. Smolen) Manager
Transportation and Communications Systems
ARIES Corp.
Fairfield) N.J.

"The combining of several discrete, real-time, on-line information
systems in one computer at a neutral site has obvious advantages to a
great many businesses for which such a system on a proprietary basis
would be too costly."

In a unique type of sharing, four dedicated real-time,
on-line systems share one computer concurrently, and three
similar systems share another, at our company's new data
processing center in New Jersey. Although hardly "time
sharing" in the usual sense of the term, this technique provides the same basic advantage: each user enjoys the benefits af a real-time EDP system for a fraction of what it
would cost, for hardware, software, and operations, to establish a comparable in-house capability.
The seven separate shared, but dedicated, systems include
a hotel/motel reservation system, a rental car reservation
system, a military troop movement control system, an airline
reservation system, a container control and freight administration system, and two steamship line reservation systems.
Additional systems could be added to either of the two
computers, the only limitation being the maximum response
time which anyone of the separate systems could tolerate.
This type of sharing of dedicated information systems would
be appropriate to virtually any system requiring immediate
reference to up-to-the-minute information.
An unusual aspect of· these two computer-sharing systems
is that, although the hardware is owned by one of the
subscribers in each case, the computers are located at a
neutral site and operated, under contract, by Aries Corporation. This assures protection of proprietary information. It
also has the advantage that system design, programming, and

Before joining Aries Corp., Gerald J. Smolen was
Project Supervisor and Senior Communications Analyst
on the staff of the Director of Communications Projects,
Information Systems and Services Div., Westem Union
Telegraph Co., and Senior Systems Analyst for the Data
and Information Systems Div., ITT. He attended Newark
College of Engineering and is presently pursuing a degree
in mathematics at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

.10

operation are performed by experienced Aries personnel, relieving the subscriber of the necessity of employing a large
EDP staff merely to make such a system operational.

System Requirements
All seven systems presently sharing the two computers have
the .following requirements in common:
1. Large mass data storage.

2. Real-tit:ne operation.
3. Conversational communications mode.
4. Random intermittent processing.
The real-time, on-line hotel/motel reservation system is
an excellent example. Many remote stations must be able
to communicate at any time with a central computer having
access to a large file of current information. Yet actual processing requirements are completely random. They depend
only upon the receipt of individual requests for reservations.
Thus, actual processing time is only a fraction of that available, but it must be available when requested.

Computer Operation
Each dedicated system shares a mass storage device while
operating concurrently with the other systems within the
central processing unit. Processing time is not distributed
between users on a time basis, but is used as needed by each
system.
Every system communicates with the computer through
dedicated lines, and only one entry is necessary to begin
processing. The line through which the message is received
identifies the subscriber and determines and confines the
programs and storage area to be used. This is in contrast
to conventional time-sharing techniques in which an introductory conversation is required to identify the user and the
proper program .
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Spend 3 minutes reading this.
It can save you hundreds of manhours and thousands of dollars.
Once your company is beyond the basic commitment to
data processing the major problem you face is puting that
expensive hardware to productive and efficient use. As you
broaden utilization into areas
of greater sophistication these
questions must be faced: What
new applications should be
added? Where will the software
come from? Will you develop
programs internally or will you
wade through the ever-growing
reservoir of packages in hopes
of finding which ones are best
suited to your needs? Should
you augment your internal processing capabilities with timesharing?

ages. All of these factors, added
to an already busy schedule,
make objective evaluation virtually impossible.

Help is on the way.

Until now
you've been all alone.

N ow there's someone you
can turn to for help. System
In teraction Corpora tion. We
believe that the proper analysis
and evaluation of Applications
Packages, Systems Packages
and Time-Sharing Packages is
a full time job. So we've made
it OUT full time job.
We constantly study and
evaluate software packages
and file all pertinent data in
our library. As new packages
are introduced and old ones updated they are added to our
library.

The perplexing problem of
which road to take is one that,
until now, you've had to face
on your own. The difficulties
of decision making have been
compounded by the lack of time
to devote to analyzing the
alternatives, the need to talk
to and sort out the exuberant
claims of salesmen, and the
sheer number of available pack-

With this background of
knowledge we can study your
needs, weigh them against all
available options and present
full recommendations to you.
The analysis and recommendations are, of course, totally objective. Should we suggest the
use of an existing package we'll
point out its limitations as well
as its capabilities.

Now, about those savings.
Through the services of System Interaction Corporation
you'll save man-hours of work
that can mount into the hun-.
dreds. You'll eliminate meetings with salesmen. You'll
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read, study and weigh their
lengthy proposals. Instead,
we'll provide a concise analysis
of those options that are suited
to your needs. New applications
will be in operation faster because we'll help you find the
answers faster than you can
find them yourself. Initially,
you'll save money by eliminating this costly evaluation process. You'll save even more
money in the future because
you'll be utilizing the operating
procedures that provide maximum efficiency.

Your next step.
If you're a computer user
faced with this utilization dilemma, or if you're evaluating
the use of data processing for
your company, you can get full
details on our services by calling or writing today.

system interaction corporation
DATA PROCESSING CONSULTANTS 8 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10018/ (212) 279·3847

Designate No. 9 on Reader Service Card

Also, programs are dedicated and specific to each system,
rather than general, as is the case with more conventional
time sharing. This design eliminates introductory dialogue,
affords complete protection of each system's programs and
data, frees message texts and formats of inhibitions imposed
by usual time-shared programs, and permits unlimited flexibility in the selection of remote equipment. The two system
schematics illustrate (but do not limit) the diversity of remote equipment which can be employed.
Only control programs are permanentl.Y core resident. All
application programs are stored on the drum. Message processing is initiated on a first-come, first-served basis, but
subsequent processing is intermixed.
This technique ta:kes advantage of the ,fact that the core
executes program instructions in microseconds, whereas. peripheral operations take milliseconds. For instance, if two
. messages arrive simultaneously, one is partly processed and
then referred to the appropriate peripheral - to the drum
for execution of an application program, let us say. The
core is now free to switch from the control program for the
first message and accept the second message. When that
message is referred to the appropriate peripheral device, the
core again switches programs, either to receive a third message for partial processing, or perhaps to receive the data
requested from the drum in response to message number
one. Thus, a portion of each program is executed in the
core, then a portion of another, and so on. Processing of
messages i"n this interleaved fashion increases core efficiency
by eliminating the long waits for information to return
from the slower peripherals as in sequential processing ..
Although all programs appear to be executed simultaneously, the computer is constantly switching from one unique
dedicated system to the other. Each message is handled in
its tum, but the computer is able to take advantage of those
fractions of a second during which each message does not
actually require processing in the core memory.
Systems Description
As previously stated, two computers are presently operating with shared, dedicated systems. The older system, which
has been in operation since early 1967, combines three separate reservations systems and a military troop control movement system using a Univac 491 central processing unit with
a 32K, 30 bit-word memory. (See Figure 1.) Peripheral
equipment at the computer center includes one (1) Univac
Fastrand' II drum with 128 million character storage capacity
and an average access time of 90 milliseconds, four (4) Univac VIC tape drives, and one (1) Univac 1004 printer,
punch, and card reader. This equipment is fully duplicated
to insure 24-hour operation 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Reservations Systems
The three reservation systems presently employ 1,800 remote Rixon Agents Sets located throughout the United
States, including Hawaii and Canada. They communicate
with the computer through 58 low-speed (10 characters per
second) and 4 high-speed (2,000 bits per second) communications lines.
The hotel/motel system provides an interconnecting realtime reservation service for chains which either do not have
the message volume to justify, or which want to avoid the
capital outlay required by a proprietary system. The system
also enables subscribers to offer a much wider choice of
accommodations than a single-chain proprietary system, and
thus better customer service.
The rental car reserva:tion system provides real-time
reservation service for a national car rental company. It can

32

HOTEL/MOTEL
RESERVATIONS
TRAVEL
AGENTS

- - WASHlNGTOIi; Del
BUNKER

I

UN~:E~~AL

I

CONTROLLER

I
I
I
I

I MILITARY
TROOP
L.:
____
_ _MOVEMENT
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ JI

Figure 1
make reservations by type of car desired for up to a year in
advance.
The airline reservation system is not yet in service. When
it is, it will use identical remote equipment and the same
communications lines as the other two reservations systems.
The purpose of this system is to connect travel agents
throughout the country with the automated reservations
system of a national airline. Travel agents will no longer
have to telephone for reservations, but will be able to reserve
space on over 80 percent of the scheduled domestic airline
flights in the same manner as presently done by computer
through airline offices.
The two reservations services presently in service handle
an average of 33,500 messages per day with an average response time of 2 seconds.
Troop Movement Control
The military troop movement control system is designed
to determine the most efficient and economical method for
moving troops within the continental United States. The
computer is connected to a single remote control center
containing the following equipment: 9 Bunker Ramo CRTs,
1 high-speed Univac DCT 2,000 printer, 1 Bunker Ramo
paper tape reader, 1 Bunker Ramo paper tape punch, and 1
Bunker Ramo RIO printer. This system handles 4,000 messages per day.
Second System
The second shared computer handles three separate dedicated systems. It is a Univac 418 central processing unit
having a 32k, 18 bit-word memory. (See Figure 2.) Peripheral equipment, storage, tape drives, printers, etc., is identical
to that of the first system. Communication with remote sites
. is by means of 7 low-speed and 5 high-speed lines.
The first system on line with this computer is designed
primarily to control the movement of shipping containers
from the time they arrive in the United States until they
embark again fora foreign port. Eventually, upwards of
15,000 of these "seagoing boxes" will be tracked through the
system. Remote stations include sixteen (16) ASR 33 TWX
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

--,

r;,NTAINER CONTROL

- - - - - - - - --1

I I
I I
I I
I
I
I

UNIVAC
OCT 2000

I

I

I

---~

I

®
®

IL...:..
FAIRFIELO,
N.J.
___

I I
I

_

r-------

I

I

I STEAMSHIP PASSENGER

I

RESERVATION

UNIVAC

I

I I
I I
I
I
I

I

1004

I

-.J

COMMUNICATION LINES:

I

CD

2000 BPS, 1/2 DUPLEX

I

®

TWX, 100 BAUD, 1/2 DUPLEX

@

PRIVATE, 100 BAUD, 1/2 DUPLEX

I

L
Figure 2

sites and five (5) ASR private line sites. This system is
presently handling about 1,800 messages per day, and information about the location and status of any container is
obtained in 7 seconds.
In addition to container control, the system is also used
for freight administration and documentation. For this purpose it is connected to a remote Univac 9300 satellite computer, a high-speed printer, punch, and card reader.
Each of the two steamship line reservation systems connects the central computer to one remote location where
inquiries for reservations are received by telephone. Reservations clerks communicate with the computer through Uniscope 300 CR Ts and can reserve space within seconds. Just
prior to sailings the computer will prepare reservations lists
and tickets.
The steamship line reservation systems are an excellent
example of the practicality and economics of this type of
computer sharing. Although the lines are competitive, system design absolutely protects the integrity of proprietary
information. However, because the programs are identical,
the two lines were able to split software costs.

Evaluation
The combining of several discrete real-time on-line information systems In one computer has obvious advantages

to a great many businesses for which a proprietary data
processing system would be too costly. Although all but two
of the systems presently operating are reservations systems,
it should be apparent that a variety of management information systems could be accommodated in this manner. Some
possibilities might be multi-list real estate systems, inventory
control, information retrieval for comparative purposes, resource allocation, and many others. The only criteria of
suitability is the need for large mass storage and real-time
operation in a conversational mode.
This type of "time-sharing" is a.lSo ideal for demonstration or experimental real-time systems or for the early phases
of systems which will eventually be large enough to justify
their own central processing unit. Rather than start out with
a smaller computer and then be forced to rewrite all of the
programs in order to move up to a larger, more sophisticated
device, the programs of the shared system can be applied directly without significant modification.
The approach also has the advantage of utilizing the talents of experienced system design and programming personnel, capable of getting such a system operational in minimum
time and with a minimum of "bugs". It is interesting to
note that several of the subscribers to these systems were able
to go "on-the-air" with a real-time system without any programmers on their own payroll. Similar systems can put
real-time EDP within the reach of many organizations which
do not enjoy its benefits at the present time.
•

"\

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

33

CALENDAR OF COMING EVENTS
Oct. 7-8, 1968: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Workshop on Microprogramming, Bedford, Mass.; contact
Thomas L. Connors, Mitre Corp., P.O. Box 208, Bedford,
Mass. 01730
Oct. 10-12, 1968: Data Processing Management Association,
Div. 4 Fall Conference, Glenwood Manor Motor Hotel,
Overland Park, Kansas; contact DPMA, Kansas City Chapter, P.O. Box 2425, Kansas City, Mo. 64142
Oct. 14-16, 1968: ECHO (Electronic Computing Hospital Oriented), Fourth Anniversary Meeting, J ung Hotel, New Orleans, La.; contact William H. Isaacs, Asst. Sec'y., ECHO,
8153 North Kolmar Ave., Skokie, III. 60076
Oct. 14-16, 1968: System Science & Cybernetics Conference,
Towne House, San Francisco, Calif.; contact Hugh Mays,
Fairchild Semi-conductor R&D Labs., 4001 Junipero Serra
Blvd., Palo Alto, Calif. 94304
Oct. 15-17, 1968: Switching & Automata Theory Symposium,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Schenectady. N.Y.; contact
S. B. Akers, Jr., Elec. Lab., General Electric Co., Syracuse,
N.Y. 12301
Oct. 18, 1968: Annual ACM Symposium on "The Application
of Computers to the Problems of Urban Society", New York
Hilton Hotel, New York, N. Y.; contact Justin M. Spring,
Computer Methods Corp., 866 Third Ave., New York, N. Y.
10022
Oct. 20-23, 1968: International Systems Meeting, Systems and
Procedures Assoc., Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, Mo.;
contact Richard L. Irwin, Systems and Procedure~ Assoc.,
24587 Bagley Rd., Cleveland, O. 44138
Oct. 20-24, 1968: American Society for Information Science
(formerly American Documentation Institute), 31 st Annual
Meeting, Sheraton-Columbus Motor Hotel, Columbus, Ohio;
contact Gerald O. Plateau, ASIS Convention Chairman, clo
Sheraton-Columbus Motor Hotel, Columbus, Ohio
Oct. 24-25, 1968: The Association of Data Processing Service
Organizations (ADAPSO), 24th Management Conference,
Detroit, Mich.; contact Jerome L. Dreyer, Association of
Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc., 420 Lexington
Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017
Oct. 28-30: Seventh Computer Workshop for Civil Engineers,
Purdue Univ. School of Civil Engineering, Lafayette, Ind.;
contact Prof. A. D. M. Lewis, Purdue Univ., Lafayette, Ind.
47907
Oct. 28-31, 1968: Users of Automatic Information Display
Equipment (UAIDE) Annual Meeting, Del Webb Townehouse, San Francisco, Calif.; contact Ellen Williams, NASAl
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 35812
Oct. 28-Nov. 1, 1968: Business Equipment Manufacturers
Assoc. (BEMA) Annual Business Equipment Exposition and
Management Conference, International Amphitheater Chicago, Ill.; contact Laurance C. Messick, Business Equipment Manufacturers Assoc., 235 East 42nd St., New York,
N.Y. 10017
Nov. 7-8, 1968: The Association for Precision Graphics (formerly The Precision Plotter Users Association), Second National Conference, The Univ. of Southern Calif., Los Angeles, Calif.; contact William G. Reimann, Nat'l Chmn.,
Assoc. for Precision Graphics, c/o Litton Systems, Inc., 5500
Canoga Ave., Woodland Hills, Calif. 91364
Nov. 25-26, 1968: Society for Information Display (SID),
1968 National Technical Conference, Waldorf Astoria Hotel,
New York, N. Y.; con tact Richard Du Bois, Wagner Electric
Corp., Tung-Sol Div., 200 Bloomfield Ave., Bloomfield, N.].
07003
Dec. 2-4, 1968: Second Conference on Applications of Simulation (SHARE/ ACM/IEEE/SCI), Hotel Roosevelt, New
York, N.Y.; contact Julian Reitman, Norden-United Aircraft Corp., Norwalk, Conn. 06856
Dec. 9-11, 1968: Fall Joint Computer Conference, Civic Auditorium (Program sessions), Brookshall (industrial and education exhibits), San Francisco Civic Center, San Francisco,
34

Calif.; contact Dr. William H. Davidow, General Chairman,
395 Page Mill Rd., Palo Alto, Calif. 94306
Dec. 12-13, 1968: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society
(DECUS) 1968 Fall Symposium, Jack Tar Hotel, San
Francisco, Calif.; contact Angela J. Cossette, Digital Equipment Computer Users Society, Main St., Maynard, Mass.
01754
Dec. 16-18, 1968: Adaptive Processes Symposium, Univ. of
California at L.A., Los Angeles, Calif.; contact J. M. Mendel,
Douglas Aircraft Co. Inc., 3000 Ocean Pk. Blvd., Santa
Monica, Calif.
Jan. 28-31, 1969: International Symposium on Information
Theory, Nevele Country Club, Ellenville, N.Y.; contact
David Slepian, Dept. of Transportation, Washington, D.C.
March 24-27, 1969: IEEE International Convention & Exhibition, Coliseum and N.Y. Hilton Hotel, New York, N.Y.;
contact IEEE Headquarters, 345 East 47th St., New York,
N.Y. 10017
March 26-29, 1969: 16th International Meeting of The Institute of Management Sciences, Hotel Commodore, New
York, N.Y.; contact Granville R. Garguilo, Arthur Anderson
& Co., 80 Pine St., New York, N.Y. 10005
April 15-18, 1969: The Institution of Electrical Engineers and
the Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers Computer
Aided Design Conference, Southampton University, So 9,
5 NH., Hampshire, England; contact Conference Dept., lEE,
Savoy Place, London, W.C.2
May 14-16, 1969: Spring Joint Computer Conference, War
Memorial Auditorium, Boston, Mass.; contact American
Federation for Information Processing (AFIPS), 345 E.
47th St., New York, N.Y. 10017
May 18-21, 1969: Power Industry Computer Application Conference, Brown Palace Hotel, Denver, Colorado; contact
W. D. Trudgen, General Electric Co., 2255 W. Desert Cove
Rd., P.O. Box 2918, Phoenix, Ariz. 85002
June 16-19, 1969: Data Processing Management Association
(DPMA) 1969 Internat'l Data Processing Conference and
Business Exposition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; contact
Mrs. Margaret Rafferty, DPMA, 505 Busse Hwy., Park
Ridge, Ill. 60068
June 16-21, 1969: Fourth Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Warsaw, Poland; contact
Organizing Comm. of the 4th IFAC Congress, P.O. Box 903,
Czackiego 3/5, Warsaw 1, Poland.
Aug. 6-8, 1969: Joint Automatic Control Conference, Univ. of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado; contact unknown at this
time.
Aug. 11-15, 1969: Australian Computer Society, Fourth Australian Computer Conference, Adelaide Univ., Adelaide,
South Australia; contact Dr. G. W. Hill, Prog. Comm.
Chrmn., A.C.C.69, C/-C.S.I.R.O., Computing Science Bldg.,
Univ. of Adelaide, Adelaide, S. Australia 5000.
Aug. 25-29, 1969: Datafair 69 Symposium, Manchester,
England; contact the British Computer Society, 23 Dorset
Sq., London, N.W. 1, England
Oct. 6-10, 1969: Second International Congress on Project
Planning by Network Analysis, INTERNET 1969, International Congress Centre RAI, Amsterdam, the Netherlands;
contact Local Secretariat, c/o Holland Organizing Centre,
16 Lange Voorhout, The Hague, the Netherlands
Oct. 27 -31, 1969: Business Equipment Manufacturers Assoc.
(BEMA) Annual Business Equipment Exposition and Management Conference, New York Coliseum, Columbus Circle,
New York, N.Y. 10023; contact Laurance C. Messick, Business Equipment Manufacturers Assoc., 235 East 42nd St.,
New York, N.Y. 10017
Nov. 18-20, 1969: Fall Joint Computer Conference, Convention Hall, Las Vegas, Nev.; contact American Federation for
Information Processing (AFIPS), 345 E. 47th St., New
York: N.Y. 10017
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

WHAT TOPICS ARE INCLUDED IN
COURSE C12 ?
• Fundamentals of Computing, and Orientation in Computers and Programming, with "hands-on-thecomputer" experience in: how to compute; how to
program; how to edit a program; how to assemble
a program; how to debug a program
• Some Powerful Concepts in Programming
• Introduction to Programming Languages
• Basic Principles of Systems in Computer Applications
• Applications and Nonapplications of Computers
• Some Natural History of Mistakes, and How to Avoid
Them
Using a powerful, modern, small, general-purpose
computer (a Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-9 which can
perform 500,000 additions per second, etc.) which we
have recently acquired -- and our experience since 1939
in many parts of the computer field, we have started to
teach:

Course C12:

COMPUTING, PROGRAMMING,
AND SYSTEMS FUN DAMENTALS
FOR SUPERVISORY MANAGEMENTWITH 'HAN DS - 0 N -TH E- CO M PUTE R'
ORIENTATION AND EXPERIENCE
This course will be offered: 0 CT. 16 -1 8 (Wed.
through Fri. ) and NOV. 1 3 - 1 5 (Wed. through Fri.) at
the Computers and Automation Computer-Assisted Instruction Center, 815 Washington St., NewtonVille,
Mass. 02160. Computer time for course enrollees will
be available, without additional charge, Wednesday through
Sunday. The fee is $190; the enrollment is limited to 15.
After the lectures beginning at 9 a. m. each day, the
course will center around study groups of three or four
persons who will have access together to the computer
for three hours at a time; while one person runs his program, the others will work out or correct their programs.
The instructor will, of course, be regularly available for
guidance.
WHO SHOULD TAKE COURSE C12?
In a recent article in Computers and Automation, Swen
Larsen, now president of Computer Age Industries Inc. ,
said:
"In many companies, the top operating executive
--the one who makes the key decisions -- came
into his position of responsibility before the computer revolution. Of all the men in an organization, he is probably the one in the greatest need
of knowledge of the computer. Two computer
experts describe the manager's plight in this way:
'The executive is likely to be baffled, or confused, or snowed. He has confidence in his
firm's EDP manager, but he doesn't understand
the jargon that he hears, nor does he comprehend what can be effected from the tools he
controls. "'
Course C12 is directed Squarely towards these people
and this problem.

WHO IS THE INSTRUCTOR?
The instructor for this course is Edmund C. Berkeley,
editor and publisher of Computers and Automation since
1951, and president of Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., since
1954. He has been in the computer field since 1939. He
took part in building and operating the first automatic
computers, the Mark I and II, at Harvard University in
1944-45; he is now implementing the programming language LISP for the DEC PDP-7 and PDP-9 computers.
Mr. Berkeley is: a founder of the Association for
Computing Machinery, and its secretary from 1947-53;
the author of eleven books on computers and related subjects; a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries; and an invited
lecturer on computers in the United States, Canada,
England, Japan, the Soviet Union, and Australia. He
graduated from Harvard College in 1930, A. B. summa
cum laude, having concentrated in mathematics.
WE BELIEVE
that the experience of:
• sitting at a computer;
• haVing the entire machine at your command;
• being able to look into any register you choose,
to see just what" information is there;
• experimenting first with simple programs, then
with more complicated programs; and
• having someone at your elbow to answer questions
when you are perplexed;
is one of the most exciting, interesting, and instructive
experiences of the computer age.
This experience is, we think, part of the essential
background of supervisory management. With such experience, supervisors of data processing departments
and divisions are better able to:
• make reality-based appraisals of computing and
data processing;
• form sensible judgments that are relatively independent of what the computer profeSSionals in
their groups may tell them;
• avoid commitment to unworkable proposals and
costly errors.

If you are interested, or have questions, or are considering enrolling, write, wire, or telephone:

COMPUTER-ASSISTED INSTRUCTION CENTER,
815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160
(617) 332-5453

COMPUTER RESOURCES SHARING

-

SOME COMMENTS AND PREDICTIONS
Norman Doelling
Digital Equipment Corp.
146 Main St.
Maynard, Mass. 01754

"The evolution and rapid growth of time sharing in the future will
follow several paths . . . . Among the services that will grow and become more advanced are the specialized information, storage and retrieval systems that are currently in their infancy."
Time sharing is an inadequate description of the most
rapidly growing method of utilizing computers. Resource
sharing would be a much more appropriate descriptive term.
The key factor in the development of this method of computer utilization was one of cost: large computers and other
computer system resources are, by many criteria, more economical than their smaller equivalents.
In operation, the cost per unit arithmetic operation, addition ·or subtraction, for instance, generally decreases as computer size and speed increases. Also, the cost per unit of
information stored drastically decreases as the size of mass
storage devices increases. In many cases, however.. it is inefficient, and hence, expensive, to interrupt large computer
systems to handle data communications from low speed input/output devices. The expense of frequently interrupting
large computer resources, even for several microseconds, is
considerably more than it would be if the resource were a
small computer. This has had a hindering effect on the
operation of some time sharing systems. It is a hindrance
that is decreasing in importance as the small computers assume larger communications roles.
Norman Doelling is marketing manager for Digital
Equipment Corporation's TIME SHARE-B systems, and
head of the educational marketing effort for all DEC
computers. He entered the computer field as manager
of the TELCOMP time-shared computer service at Bolt,
Beranek and Newman I:nc., in Cambridge, Mass. He has
bachelor degrees from Amherst College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a master's degree
in electrical engineering from M.LT.

36

Man/Machine Interaction
Without question, however, is the fact that computer resources sharing offers the potential for economic utilization
of computers in an interactive manner. In his classic paper,
Dr. ]. C. R. Licklider l described a man/machine interaction
llEEE Transactions in Human Factors in Electronics. br. Licklider is
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of Project MAC at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

and partnership in which the man used the computer as a
convenient extension of his ability to calculate, store, retrieve and manipulate data. In this partnership, it was clear
that man frequently required short bursts of computer power
and infrequent access to portions of very large .data files.
This led to the concept that a computer system could serve
simultaneously the needs of many users by interweaving user
requests. Considering the large amount of time an individual
requires simply to state his requests to the computer through
a typewriter-like device, it was clear that the computer
would not be overtaxed in the job of serving many individuals in this form of intellectual partnership.
Thus, the idea of offering small slices of computer time to
each individual evolved, and with it, the name "time sharing." However, not only time, but also the central processor,
core memory, secondary storage devices and input/outp'ut
devices are all shared. Through the sharing of storage devices, individuals are able to share general-purpose programs,
such as those for the analysis of electrical circuits, or the
simulation of large systems, or the statistical analysis of data.
Special programs also can be shared. Operating companies
of the Bell System share a family of special programs called
WATS (wide area telephone service). One affiliate wrote
the programs which were put into a time sharing system;
many affiliates use them. In addition, large data bases may
be shared, accessed, and added to by the many users of the
system. Individual programs, whether they are of a general
or special nature, can be protected or retained for the specific
use of a particular group of individuals through a sys.tem of
file protection. Sharing of a single storage system offers substantial economies of scale.
Time sharing and/or resource sharing are concepts difficult
to define specifically. In fact, one senior executive of a large
time sharing utility once implied to me that he had been
sharing time for many years before what we know as "time
sharing" existed. When I quizzed him on this, he said:
"Well, I used to have a batch machine, and I would offer
it to Company A from 1: 00 to 2: 00; Company B from 2: 00
to 2: 15; Company C from 2: 15 to 3 :45, etc." Clearly, this
was time and resource sharing. Generally now, however, we
imply several "simultaneous" users of a computer, each of
whom can get a response to a simple inquiry or data entry
within a few seconds.
General-purpose time sharing had its origin about six
years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
at Bolt, Beranek and Newman. About three years ago time
sharing was offered commercially for the first time. I recall
the initial difficulties of selling time sharing commercially.
It was a matter of first explaining the concept, and then
selling the product. A demonstration of time sharing was
necessary to convince prospects that computers could be
utilized in this manner. Today, time sharing is available in
virtually every large- and medium-sized city in the nation.
In many cities, more than half a dozen services are available.
Present S,ystems

Time sharing or resource sharing systems differ from one
another primarily in the flexibility they offer to the user.
The least flexible systems are dedicated systems, which are
designed to carry out one specific function. Airline reservations systems, on-line banking systems, theater ticket reservations systems, inventory control and invoicing systems are a
few examples. Dedicated systems generally are simpler to
operate and less expensive than the more general-purpose
systems. For instance, an airline reservations system, no
matter how large it is, normally only has one problem to
solve. That is, it gets an air traveler a seat on the plane in
which he wants to fly. Such a system might be put to other
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

uses, like determining daily or monthly seating capacity
throughout the airline system; but this use is secondary to its
main function and follows from that function.
The limited set of functions of a dedicated system is the
key to its simplicity and economy of operation. Executive
software in the system need only recognize a limited set of
inputs, thus making the software simpler to design and implement. A special, easy-to-understand language can be used,
requiring very little knowledge of computers or computer
programming on the part of those operating the system. In
the case of the airline reservations system, the cost to install
and implement it might have been $50 million, but nonetheless, the system is conceptually simple.
Single·Language Systems

Single-language time sharing systems are typified by IBM's
Call 360/BASIC; Bolt, Beranek and Newman's TELCOMP;
and the file-oriented Desk-Side Computer Service (FORTRAN only) offered by General Electric. Hewlett-Packard
offers a small, single-language, time-shared computer, as does
Digital Equipment Corporation among its variety of systems.
DIGITAL's system, termed m_ulti-user FOCAL (a JOSS-like
language), is designed' specifically for numerical computations in a wide range of general-purpose problem solving.
Such systems have a variety of applications among security
analysts, accountants, scientists, engineers, students in secondary schools and colleges, both on the undergraduate and
graduate levels, etc. The primary advantage of a singlelanguage system is that within the limitations of the single
language, a fairly wide range of problems can be attacked.
"Few-language" systems in many cases do little more than
a single-language system, but often do it more quickly and
more efficiently. There is a wider range of applications,
since there is more freedom to choose a language appropriate to the task at hand. The GE 265 computer system,
offering ALGOL, FORTRAN and BASIC is the key example. General Electric, CALL-A-COMPUTER and various
others offer this service throughout the country.
General.Purpose Systems

General-purpose, time-sharing systems are characterized
by the availability to the user of machine and assembly
languages. Access to machine and assembly languages means
that a user can design a language of his own if he desires.
In addition, standard languages such as FORTRAN, BASIC,
JOSS and COBOL are usually available. The ability to
build compilers and interpreters to use standard languages
permits an almost limitless variety of computer applications.
Most general-purpose systems also permit assignment of
devices, such as line printers, card readers and magnetic
tapes, to individual users. Thus, complete resource sharing
is offered. Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-lO and
Scientific Data System's 940 offer these capabilities; so does
Digital's newly announced TiME SHARE-8 based on the
company's small PDP-8/1 computer.
Some large, general-purpose, time-sharing systems are
capable of receiving and acting upon real-time inputs, like
those that might be required for process control or on-line
control of experiments. Batch processing can be carried on
in the "background" of the real time. In the background/
foreground arrangement in one system, a priority-interrupt
feature permits a secondary task to be carried on by the
computer while it is not busy with its primary job. However,
when the system becomes busy with its primary job, the
secondary task is immediately halted.
Larger systems offer users the ability to do time sharing
and real time applications simult::meously. For instance, a
university could conduct a real time control project at the
37

3 NEW
SOFTWARE
PACKAGES

CALCOMP GPCP

CALCOMP FLOWGEN/F

(General Purpose Contouring Program)
This program automatically plots functions of
two independent variables in the form of contour diagrams or maps. Written in FORTRAN
IV, it is easy to use, extremely flexible, accurate, economical. It is about 30 times faster
than manual and does jobs impossible to do
by hand. Used with any CalComp plotter system, GPCP can be applied to such fields as
geophysics, meteorology, engineering, biology
and medicine.

(Flowchart software package)

(Perspective drawing software package)

This program allows any computer programmer to automatically produce flowcharts of his
program on any CalComp plotting system. An
extremely useful tool in documentation of
checked-out programs, it is even more valuable during the check-out phase of a new program or a new computer. FLOWGEN/F is fast,
time-saving, accurate.

This program is a set of FORTRAN subroutines
for use with any CalComp digital plotting system to produce perspective drawings of surfaces. It can also generate stereoscopic views
of surfaces, and, with CalComp Model 835
microfilm plotter, can produce animated films.
Easy to use, flexible and economical, THREE-D
can be applied to such fields as marketing,
engineering, toolmaking and designing.

Now available for a one-time
lease charge of .......................

Now available for a one-time
lease charge of .......................

Now available for a one-time
lease charge of ...................... $10,000

CALCOMP THREE-D

$4,500

•••••••
Leader in Computer Graphics

California Computer Products, Inc., Dept.A-10 305 N. Muller St., Anaheim, California 92803 • (714) 774-9141
Designate No. 18 on Reader Service Card

$3,000

same time the computer is· being time-shared by its engineering department.

The Future
The evolution and rapid growth of time sharing in the
future will follow several paths, with continued enrichment
of the varieties of services offered to customers. Among the
services that wiII grow and become more advanced are the
specialized information, storage and retrieval systems that are
currently in their infancy. We see two important trends.

Special.Purpose Systems
First, we can expect the continued evolution of small, general and special purpose time-sharing systems at lower and
lower prices. A special-purpose system for use by several
simultaneous conversational users can presently be obtained
small, general-purpose computer system built around a small
for less than $20,000. One company recently announced a
small, general-purpose computer system built around a small
computer which can serve 8 to 32 users with complete library
and file capabilities at prices that start at less than $45,000.
Machine language is available to all users, as well as a variety
of assemblers and compilers. Resource sharing is available,
peripheral devices can be assigned to users. We expect this
sort of trend to continue and flourish.

Large Computing Complexes
Second, larger and larger time-sharing systems probably
will continue to evolve as systems with multiple processors
accessing a common large memory bank and common secondary storage devices. This redundancy in processors will provide faster processing power, and if not a "fail-safe" capability, at least a "fail-soft" capability through which "crashes"
or failures will become degradations of performance rather
than a total failure. If one processor goes "down", the others
will remain "up", considerably slowing the response but still
providing some service.
These large computing complexes will require sophisticated remote terminal devices that in themselves will be small
computprs, thus leading to a geographical distribution of
computer power. Small computers already are being used by
some time-sharing utilities as control devices for remote, highspeed line printers and card readers. The small, local computer serves as a control and high-speed multiplexing device
to a large machine for remote batch processing or remote job
entry. Small computers also are frequently needed to control
increasingly complex display devices used as terminals for
time sharing.
Smaller, "stand-alone" time sharing systems and sophisticated terminals on larger time sharing systems are two significant trends. The small, general-purpose computer can be
used for local on-line interactive problem solving and to support complex displays. Editing programs, writing programs,
debugging, some computation, and access to small files will
be handled on the small system. Large computations and
large files will be handled on larger systems to which the
small system is remotely connected. It is reasonable to anticipate that the small, general-purpose, time-sharing computer will also be able to support a line printer and card reader
for remote batch processing.
Thus, we can anticipate not only many more large central
computer complexes for time sharing, but also a more diverse
distribution of computing resources, storage resources, and
peripheral resources. Some of these hierarchical computer
systems ultimately will also be interconnected to provide convenient sharing of data, computation power, ideas and intellectual activity.
•
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

You can read us
like a book.
Wouldn't it be great if everything that came out
of your computer could be read as easily as your favorite book?
If you're presently making copies from line
printer output it's no pleasure to read. Or to handle.
If you're using traditional typesetting methods
you're concerned with turn-around time, human error
and costs.
Now, Alphanumeric offers the solution with a
brand new service that combines the speed and accuracy of the computer with the graphic arts quality of
type. We call it TAPE-TO-TYPETM.
Now you can add a new dimension of communications effectiveness to your computer generated data.
The greatest choice of type styles and sizes. Bold type.
Light type. Italics. And you'll save in page count. Time.
And printing costs. The risk of typesetting errors is virtually eliminated because data goes from tape to type
within the computer.
T APE-TO-TYPE operating procedures are just
as easy as the Tape-to-Print procedures you presently
use. Find out for yourself. Write for the Alphanumeric
T APE-TO-TYPE Users Guide. It's free. See how your
output tapes can be used to generate graphic arts
quality type.
Seeing is believing.

MrmanlJmeric

~

INCORPORATEO

10 Nevada Drive, Lake Success, N. Y. 11040

(516) 437-9000

Designate No. 7 on Reader Service Card

39

DATA PROCESSING SERVICES:
BANKING'S NEW PRODUCT
Dr. James A. O'Brien
Assistant Professor of Finance
Eastern Washington State College
Cheney, Wash. 99004

"Some bankers believe that data processing services will eventually have
a financial impact equal to or greater than the income produced by their
well-run trust departments in terms of net fee income, new business, and
business retention."
Commercial banks are offering data processing services to
their customers that are quite different from the basic banking functions of granting loans, transferring funds, servicing
deposit accounts, and performing trust services. Through
their use of computers, banks are now offering a wide
variety of new services to their correspondent banks, other
financial institutions, business and professional firms, government and public organizations, and individuals. A partial
list of such services is show below:

Correspondent Bank Services
Demand deposit accounting
Savings accounting
Installment loan accounting
Mortgage loan accounting
Bond portfolio analysis
Transit
Trust

Billing service
Accounts receivable accounting
Accounts payable accounting
Freight plans
Lock box plans, including the preparation of input
for the customer's computer system
Bill collection for utilities, insurance companies, and
other businesses
General accounting for small businesses
Cost accounting
General ledger
Sales analysis
Expense analysis
Inventory control
Integrated systems for particular industry groups
Property management accounting
Computer time rental
Computer program "packages"
EDP systems analysts and programmer services

Services to Other Financial Institutions
Savings bank, and savings and loan associations:
.accounting
savings
mortgage loan accounting
Credit unions:
share accounting
installment loan accounting
mortgage loan accounting
Mortgage company accounting
Insurance company accounting
Finance company accounting
Mutual fund accounting
Securities broker accounting

Services to Business and Professional Firms
Account reconciliation
Payroll accounting

James A. O'Brien received his DBA in Finance at the
University of Oregon. Dr. O'Brien has had industrial
experience with computers at IBM and General Electric.
His book, The Impact of Computers on Banking, in
which portions of this article appear, has recently been
published by Bankers Publishing Company.

40

Services to Government and Public Organizations
County and municipal governments
Real property tax billing and collection
Municipal services billing
Public schools
.
Class scheduling
General accounting
Services to Agriculture
Feed-blending determination
Farm and crop management recordkeeping
Financial accounting services
Services to Individuals
Integrated banking, including automatic debits to
checking accounts for credits to savings accounts,
installment loans, mortgage loans, and bond purchases
Paying agent service
Consolidated statements
Income and disbursement analysis
Many banks began offering data
their correspondent banks because
available on their own computer
they could offer their correspondents

processing services to
they had extra time
systems and because
the same EDP appli-

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Breakthrough in
recordaputers
Here comes a man with a reel of
mag tape and an innocent-sounding
request. What he has is 2400 feet of
parts lists in digital form, and what
he's asking for is a film strip of
selected portions of these records
in readable, reproducible,
enlargeable form.
He'll have plenty of time to wonder
what he said wrong while he's
waiting for the film. Eventually he
will learn that it's bad news to ask for
a selective, ordered output, which
involves computer sorting and a new
mag tape before the film making
ever begins.
That's why we developed the FR-80,
a film recorder that does all of this
in one pass, either from mag tape
or on line. And the resulting film
has a resolution of 80 line pairs per
millimeter - nearly twice as high
as from any other equipment.

.,.

Do parts lists need this kind of
sharpness? Sometimes, yes. Highquality alphanumeric images yield
high quality reproductions. What's
more, the next customer may well
have a digital tape of engineering
drawings, and his film will make
E-size enlargements that are needle
sharp. No other film recorder can
match this.
We're in the business of visual information handling in other ways,
too, with systems that interpret
images under program control.
Our delivered products are
. lnlnU"nl"'\
analyzing seismograms and ; "~~JI!)JOJ6lJ
oil well logs, cleaning up
soiled engineering
drawings, reading oscilloscope wave forms, interpreting medical x-rays,
extracting information from
theodolite photographs.
Manipulating images as
computers m.anipulate
arithmetic - that's the
inevitable, and that's our
mission. Your inquiry will
help push the inevitable .
Information International,
545 Technology Square,
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
(617) 868-9810;
1161 West Pico Boulevard,
Los Angeles, Calif. 90064,
(213) 478-2571 .

INFORMATION INTERNATIONAL

Designate No. 14 on Reader Service Card

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cations that they were using for themselves. Some banks
then began offering such services to other financial institutions such as savings and loan associations, credit unions,
and mutual funds. Finally, the banks began to sell data
processing services to their business and professional customers.
Long-range planning studies were made by many leading
banks to evaluate the possibilities of new bank services
through the use of EDP. These studies revealed that: (1)
the market for such services consists of institutions which
are too small to afford their own computers; (2) many
banking applications of EDP can be used by other financial
institutions; (3) a large part of the market for data processing services prefers to deal with banks because of banking's
reputation for efficient and confidential handling of financial matters; (4) a large segment of the market for data
processing services is already tied to a bank by an existing
banking relationship.

Why Banks Offer DP Services
The three main reasons that banks offer data processing
services are: (1) to earn a profit on such services through
net fee income; (2) to obtain the additional deposits, loans,
or trust business generated by the performance of a computerized service; and (3) to retain present banking customers who might be lost to competitors who offer such
services. Some bankers believe that data processing services
will eventually have a financial impact equal to or greater
than the income produced by the well-run trust department in terms of net fee income, new business and business
retention.

Correspondent Services
Many banks offer computerized checking account processing to small correspondent banks. The computer programs
used by the large banks for their own demand deposit accounting usually require only a few minor changes before
they can be used for the correspondent banks. Encoded
checks and deposit slips are transported to the computer
center of the large bank and processed over-night. These
documents are returned to the small banks in the morning
along with the necessary management reports. The large
banks also prepare customer statements and other special
required reports.

Payroll Accounting
The payroll service produces: payroll checks for em. ployees (or can credit their checking accounts); individual
employee earning statements; a payroll journal report which
shows cumulative year to date totals of each employee's
gross earnings, withholding tax and social security reports;
quarterly social security and state unemployment insurance
reports; W -2 forms for each employee; and other specialized
reports.
The payroll service can produce deposit balances as well
as fees. A payroll disbursement account must be maintained,
thus providing the bank with the dormant funds that usually
exist in such accounts. The payroll computer service also
presents the bank with a unique opportunity for "implementing "in-plant banking." The employees of a customer using this service become prospects for such services as
crediting the net of an employee's pay to his checking account, automatic savings or Christmas Club deductions, or
mortgage and personal loans with automatic payment features.

Professional Billing
The professional billing service is a computer service for
major customers. It offers a billing and partial accounts
receivable accounting service to doctors, dentists, lawyers,
country clubs, and certain small business firms. This application is feasible only for firms with a comparatively small
and stable accounts receivable turnover. The main customers of this service at present are doctors; therefore it is
frequently called "doctor's billing."
This service usually includes the transmission of data
over telephone lines to the bank's computer center from a
data transmission terminal at the customer's office. Each
day the customer's office personnel transmit information on
charges and cash receipts to the bank using pre-punched
customer cards furnished by the bank. The dollar amount
of the charge or payment is "keyed in" using the numerical
push buttons of the terminal. Payments are distinguished by
a special one-digit code. A receiving keypunch unit at the
bank records the electronic data on punched cards. These
are entered into the computer system, where each account
is updated. The computer provides the customer with a
daily listing of the day's transactions, monthly customer
statements, and monthly aged trial balances.

Income and Disbursement Analysis
Account Reconciliation
The reconciliation of the demand deposit account balances of large business customers each month is a major
computer service offered by commercial banks; it is one
of the few services where a fee is not charged provided a
minimum balance is maintained by the customer. Almost
all other services are offered on a fee basis only. This service
is currently unpopular with many banks, because it is viewed
as a costly service that has not been a factor in increasing
or retaining corporate deposit balances.
In one application the customer puts a five-digit MICR
check number on the bottom right hand comer of the check.
The computer can be programmed to sort the checks in account number order, list checks absent from the series and
list all of the checks. The customer sends his outstanding
file of checks (the check stubs of written checks) to the
bank. The check stub information is transferred to punched
cards and entered into the computer. Using the information
from the checks received and the stubs the computer reconciles the account.
42

Another frequently offered computer service for businesses
and individuals, including farmers, is' income and disbursement analysis. In this service a bank assigns income and
expense codes to the checks of certain customers and then
produces a monthly income and expense distribution report for these customers.
In one application, the customer writes a three-digit number on his deposit slips (income) and on his checks (disbursement). Each month data from the customer's checks
and deposit slips that accompany his checking account statement are transferred to punched cards and processed by the
computer. The computer distributes income and disbursement amounts according to the codes used, and produces
an income and expense distribution report.

Bank Credit Card Service
The credit card operation of many banks can be considered
a computer service, because many banks agree that it was
unprofitable until the arrival of computer processing, because of the large volume of paperwork it "entailed. Many
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

large banks throughout the country have recently started
credit card plans. It has been estimated that over 1,000
banks and about ten million Americans were holding such
cards in 1967.
Bank credit card plans allow businesses to offer "charge
account" terms to their customers without the expense and
problems of billing, accounts receivable, and credit management operations. Such businesses are able to offer credit
terms and still operate on a cash basis as the bank will
discount credit card sales invoices for cash. The discount
rate used may vary between four and six per cent depending on sales volume and on the particular bank credit
card plan.
Banks process the sales invoices by transferring the necessary transaction information into punched cards and completing standard billing and accounts receivable computer
processing. The bank credit card customer receives just one
monthly bill, even though purchases may have been made at
several participating stores. Most bank credit card plans also
include a feature of a consumer line of credit. Repayments
due on outstanding loans are also included in the monthly
billing.

Sales Analysis
The credit card operation of some banks includes the
production of sales analysis and market research reports
that arc provided free to participating businessmen. These
reports are the by-product of computerized credit card accounting which includes billing and accounts receivable
accounting. Such banks acknowledge that they can offer
their sales analysis and market research service only because
their credit card operation is handled by computers. Some
of the information that is available to a business participating in these bank credit card plans are: the names and addresses, the number, and total dollar value of purchases
each month; average dollars spent during the current year;
and total dollars spent during the previous year by each customer on a monthly basis. Selective lists of customers of a
business are also available, such as customers who spend
more than $25 a month, or customer accounts active during
a specified period.

EDITORIAL
(Continued from page 6)
of income and enormous social advantages in a few years.
Yet too often people in a herdlike manner and rather stupidly
copy what seems the current fashion in new ideas - instead
of exploring a deliberately new combination.
Fortunately, in the United States these days, there is a fine
environment for going ahead with new ideas: (1) you do not
have to receive permission or approval from some stupid,
unimaginative authoritarian government or business; (2) you
can put together the means of production quite easily capital, materials, services, know-how, and entrepreneurial
skill; (3) you can experiment on a small-scale before you
go to production on a large scale; and (4) the whole process
is interesting, exciting, and rewarding - emotionally and
financially - if you do not make too many mistakes.
That is why in about three years the number of vendors
of time-sharing services has gone from about 5 to about 5000.

~~c.~
Editor

ISee "New Ideas That
tion, December, 1967,
2See page 57, A Guide
tician, by Edmund C.
1967, 351 pp.

,

Organize Information", Computers and Automapage 6.
to Mathematics for the Intelligent NonmathemaBerkeley, Simon and Schuster, New York, N.Y.,

Conclusion
Banking's entry into the provision of computerized financial services has important implications for organizations
which cur~ently provide financial data processing services.
Accounting firms and data processing service companies are
the organizations that will be most directly affected by the
development of competition from banking. Several accounting and data processing organizations are currently attempting to use legal and legislative action to forestall banking's
entry into the data processing service industry. Whatever the
result of these efforts, accounting firms and data processing
service cpmpanies must now face the emergence of a new
and powerful competitor providing data processing services.

References
1.
2.

3.
4.

5.

"Banks Open a New Window," Business Week, October 17,
1964, 'pp. 156-158.
Neal J. Dean et ai, "Coordinated Planning for Automated
Services," Banking (January, 1965), p. 105.
Neal J. Dean and Dale L. Reistad, "How to Plan for Bank
Automation Services," Banking (April, 1963), pp. 55-56.
International Business Machines Corporation, Customer
Data Processing as a Bank Service (White Plains, New
York, 1964) p. 2.
Richard D. James, "New Deal in Cards," The Wall Street
Journal, January 17, 1967, pp. 1, 15.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

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43

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Anyone who knows much about time-sharing knows
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But up to now the only way you could get our 940
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Now you can also get it with our new 945 computer. The 945 will cost you less than $15,000 a
month. That's about $10,000 a month less than a
940. And it's as cheap as renting 5 full time terminals
from a time-sharing service bureall. (You get 24 with
the 945.)
In fact, the 945 is the least expensive time-sharing
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940, it has the same excellent response time, and it
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Then why is the 945 so much cheaper?
Simply because fewer people can use it. The 940
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with hundreds of different users. The 945 is designed
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The 945 can recognize up to 64 individual users.
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5 C5

INNOVATION IN TEACHING

-

WHY INDUSTRY LEADS THE WAY
Nate A. Newkirk
Vice President and Managing Director
Computer Usage Education, Inc.
51 Madison Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10010

"If in a company 500 technicians must at present spend four weeks per
year in school to keep themselves up to date, and if a new education
method can cut that time to two weeks, a reasonable estimate of the
saving to the company is $300,000. To generate a similar amount of
net profit, most companies would have to sell at least $3,000,000 more
of their products and services."
In California, about 1961, an electronics firm introduced
a new teaching method and reduced its engineering training
program from six months to three months. Veteran company
engineers soon asked to be allowed to enter it. They saw they
were missing something.
In Nigeria, in 1964, a group of 50 Africans from six nations was seen studying 10 to 14 hours a day, month after
month, using a new method.
In Belgium, in 1966, one instructor conducted two classes,
covering two slightly different technical subjects in two different languages, simultaneously, using a ne,,\! method.
In Canada, in 1966, a young man started conducting a sixweek technical class for twelve students who had a better
formal education than he. He'd never taught before, and
he had less than a week to prepare. Most students finished
the course in less than four weeks. The students thought the
class was a great success. The teacher enjoyed every minute
of it. He used a new method.
Not more than a handful of dedicated "industrial educators" (perhaps not even the man who started it all in California) are aware of the significance of this chain of events.
This new teaching method is one of the innovations produced
in industry education, and will be discussed more fully later.

The Lecture Method
But first, let's look at the conventional, centuries-old method of instruction - the technique most familiar to all of us
- the "teacher-in-front-of-the-class" approach. Let's call it
"the lecture method." (Although the term "lecture" has
certain unpalatable connotations in industry education, it's
still a fairly accurate description of what usually happens in
classrooms, regardless of what's being taught.)
To start with, let's consider the assumptions that a teacher
is required to make before he steps in front of a class and
begins to "lecture":

t) The gr~)Up is ready to learn.
2) The group is willing to begin where the teacher
wants to begin.
3) Each student will learn at the same pace as the other
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

students in the group, and will be able to keep up
with the teacher's presentation.
4) Students will learn the material in the sequence in
which the teacher presents it.
"Unrealistic," you may say. Right! Yet, no teacher can
conduct a lecture class without assuming these conditions.
The instructor's success with his class depends upon his ability to cover each topic in such a way that each individual is
able to learn it - now, in the given sequence - in the timf'
allotted for the class.
Result? A tremendous variety of successes 0:- failures,
depending upon many factors: the teacher's skill, patience,
and knowledge of the subject, the number of students in thf'
class, the similarity of their backgrounds, knowledge, intelligence, etc.
Your next question might well be, "If that's all true, how
come the lecture method is still the most common method
of instruction?"
I think the key reasons rest with the teachers themselves,
and the emotions that motivate them to be teachers.
Teachers are smarter than most people, and they're
strongly motivated to leave their mark on society by contributing their knowledge in the way that seems to affect the
most people. They get their greatest satisfaction from seeing
their students grow, change, and improve under their guidance. The vast majority of teachers thrive on their emotional
role in the personal teacher-student relationship. Being
human, they usually love to lecture. It seems the easiest way
to prove that they know their subject. (Incidentally, for
those who really know their subject, and who have been
teaching it for a long time, lecturing requires very little preclass preparation. That leaves time for study, research, student counseling, and other, less dedicated pursuits.)
Naturally, when someone comes along who advocates that
teaching might be more effective by using other methods,
most teachers react negatively.

Educational Systems
But the teachers are not the only ones to blame. Consider
the entire public educational system. It still places emphasis
on the very valid idea that a student must not be sent to

45

college, or out into the world, until he is mature enough to
cope. (One obvious alternative, to teach a lot more in those
thirteen years of preparation for college or leaving school,
has been exploited considerably in the past decade, to be
sure.) This objective is fine. But how do you evaluate a student's education with this intangible objective as a criterion?
Let's switch our thinking now to what we will call the
industrial education system, the system of adult education
usually provided by an employer. To avoid clouding the issue,
I won't attempt to differentiate between education and
training.

Industrial Education Methods
How is industrial education different? To the casual observer, the differences seem to be largely the subject matter
and the age of the students. Plus the depressing fact that
industrial teachers are often higher paid than the best paid
teachers in our nation's public schools.
To the experienced educator, there are still greater differences. In industrial education, there is great emphasis on the
quality of instruction. But the purpose of industrial education is "high quality, at the lowest possible cost, and with the
greatest possible speed." And in industry you can usually
measure your results.

Quality
Take the quality factor. Since most industrial education
means teaching a specific skill, it's usually easier to determine
if the student is able to do the work when he's finished.
Either he can operate a lathe or he can't. Either he can use
a desk calculator or he can't. Not all subjects being taught
in industry are by any means as "yes or no" as those examples; but it's regularly easier to judge the effectiveness of
industry teaching than it is to determine if a youngster is
ready for college.
I am not saying that the industry educator does not face
problems. Here are some factors that tend to complicate the
quality judgment in industrial education programs:
1) Since education is frequently regarded as a "nece3sary evil" (that means it's not a direct revenue producer), it's hard to find a top executive who is
willing to pay much more than lip service to the
activity.
2) Not very many companies have an "Education Department". The function often rests with a particular
department manager, or one of his designees, who
regards education as an additional duty.
3) Even in some of the best organized industrial education departments in the world, it's not easy to find
someone who's had formal training in schools of
education. (Before you become too concerned about
that fact, however, remember that only a small percentage of university teachers have had such training.)

Cost
What about the factor of cost? In public education, the
taxpayer is at the mercy of the school officials (although
they would have us believe it's the other way around).
"Sure," you say, "but our town has turned down school budgets and bond issues." Let me express it this way. As I see
it, the taxpayer is thoroughly boxed in. He wants his Johnny
and Susie to have the best education possible. But the real
problem is - he knows nothing about education. He is
forced to rely, for the most part, on elected officials to represent him. If his local school board consists of people who are
trained or experienced in school administration, his community is fortunate indeed.
46

In industry education, costs are also difficult to control,
but there's one all-important difference. There's frequently
a comparison available between the total cost of hiring people who have the required skills, and the total cost of educating people who don't. That comparison is continually
being made, and it doesn't require any education expertise.
It serves nicely, moreover, to keep the industrial educator
honest.

Speed in Industrial Education
What about the factor of speed? It's clear that time is the
greatest contributor to cost. Total teaching salaries, student
salaries and classroom space are affected. But there are more
subtle items also. What about student living and travel expenses if they must visit a distant location for training? That
cost alone can easily become 50% of a company's total "per
student" training costs. But by far the most subtle and important consequences of the speed factor may lie in its effect
on the size and cost of a company's workforce. If in a company 500 technicians must at present spend four weeks per
year in school to keep themselves up to date, and if a new
education method can cut that time to two weeks, a reasonable estimate of the saving is $300,000 (see Chart 1). To
generate a similar amount of net profit, most companies
would have to sell at least $3,000,000 more of their products
and services.

Speed in Public Education
Let's speak again of public education, for the moment.
We've commented on the good job the schools have done
since Sputnik in 1957 woke us up to the need for better
education. But if you want to contemplate a really significant
effect on teachers, students, and your annual school tax bill,
how about having society accept the idea that a youngster
is as adult today at 17 as he was 50 years ago at 18? It
should follow then that he can enter college at 17. (Plenty
of them are doing it right now.)
So why not bring the speed factor into public education?
Let's eliminate one calendar year of school, but let's not do
it by shortening the holidays, or by working longer hours, as
recently announced by a Long Island school. Let's do it, as
a well-known IBM executive is fond of saying, "By working
smarter, not harder." If that sounds like a ridiculous idea,
keep in mind that eliminating one entire school year constitutes an overall reduction of only about 8% in total school
time required for our youngsters.

New Teaching Methods
Earlier, I commented that most teachers react negatively
when it is suggested that there might be teaching methods
which are superior to the lecture method. But, on the other
hand, many top educators do realize the need for innovation.
Dr. Mark Scurrah of the New York State Education Department Center on Innovation said in a recent speech, "We
are terribly unimaginative as teachers. We seem to feel that
talking is the only way to impart knowledge." .
Why is it, then, that much more innovation occurs in
industry education, especially since so few industry educators
are trained as educators?
I believe that one important reason lies in "the system."
(Don't forget the purpose of the· industry education game:
"High quality, at the lowest possible cost, with the greatest
possible speed.") Every true educator is striving for\ quality,
in public or industrial education. Cost and speed are simply
more important in industry than in public education. Let me
add two more examples that illustrate the importance of
speed.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Chart 1
Company F's maintenance staff includes 520
tcchnicians, who must spend 4 weeks per year in school to
kcep themselves up to date. How many technicians are required if this schooling can be cut to two weeks -- all other
factors remaining equal? At present, 520 workers x 48
work weeks == 24,960 total work weeks. If each technician
can work fifty weeks, instead of 48:
499
technicians required
50 ) 24.960

The Difficulty of Bringing Students Together

The expense of keeping those 21 extra technicians on the payroll can easily look like this:
21 salaries @ $8, 000

$168, 000

2 supervisors @$12,000

24,000

Fringe benefits @ 15%

28,800

Floor space for 23 people,
100 sq. ft. each @ $5.00 per

11,500

sq. ft. per year
Tools, equipment, etc. @

4,200

$200 per technician

Miscellaneous overhead (10%)

$236, 500
22,650
$259,150

And what about training costs:
Eliminate 500 students for 2
weeks each
Then Eliminate 21 students for 4 weeks
each
Savings =

1,000 weeks

84 weeks
1,084 weeks

A co!>t figure of $50. 00 per student week would be very low
for most training operations, not including travel and living
expcnses.
1,084

Training eost saving
Payroll cost saving
Total Saving

greatly improved version, and it is estimated that, when they
start shipping it, profits will increase by $1,000,000 in the
first year. But before it can be released to customers, the
technicians must be trained. All else being equal, if the
training program can be cut by one week, it might mean as
much as $20,000 added profit, since shipments can begin one
week earlier. Not to mention the cost savings resulting from
the reduction in the training program.
Nearly all large organizations can cite better examples
than these which will show the dramatic impact of reducing
the length of their training program. Why not develop a
similar rationale regarding public education?

~
$59,200
259,150
$318,350

The second important factor spurring innovation in industry education lies in the simple idea that it's frequently extremely difficult to bring students together for a class. After
all, they have jobs, family responsibilities, and other demands
on their time. Then too, there's the continual problem of
the company "crisis du jour", that arises to prevent a key
person from attending a class. These complications lead to
all sorts of interesting methods to make certain that students
make it to class as scheduled. One company often gives a
student a day or two off, prior to class. They tell him they
want him to be "fresh and alert". The fact is, however, it's
nearly a foolproof method' to get him away from business
problems that might prevent him from attending class.
A third factor in encouraging innovation in industry education is the sheer physical problem of assembling students.
That may involve high expenses in student living and travel
and more lost time due to travel.
Unlike public education, industry education is frequently
a "crash program", for many reasons like Company B's
problem of preparing to market a new or improved product.
There's also the frequent requirement to take a segment of a
company's staff and give it a "one-shot program."
• Example: A company manufactures radios. They
switch from tubes to transistors. A new technology
must be taught.
• Example: A company introduces electronic data processing. Every executive and manager, not to mention
every employee in affected areas, must be given an
orientation program.
In these cases, adequate classrooms are frequently not
available, and instructors are almost never ready and waiting.

The Student Himself

T.he Value of Saved Time
Company A has an l8-month training program for newly
hired salesmen. The sheer length of that program may have
a direct bearing on that company's efforts to hire top candidates. Few fresh college graduates, especially those holding
advanced degrees, are interested in entering an l8-month
training program if they can avoid it. Usually, it simply
means more delay in starting to earn "the big money". A
substantial reduction in the length of that program, provided
quality is maintained, might do more than any other single
thing to raise the quality of that newly hired sales trainee,
and thus, eventually improve the quality of the entire sales
force.
Company B produces a specialty electronic product. It has
a highly trained staff of technicians to service and maintain
its product. The engineering department has developed a
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

A fourth factor is the student himself. He is frequently unprepared, unmotivated and uninterested (just like some
youngsters of our acquaintance), but the adult student is
usually much quicker to react vocally to poor instruction.
Also, to complicate things further, the older we are the
slower we learn. Therefore, the teaching method must be
more challenging. If you don't believe this, try a little research in a typical education department. Examine two or
three classes where the students were ranked in performance.
Compare those rankings with the "age ranking" of the students. The youngest will often be grouped at the top of the
class, and the oldest at the bottom.
A fifth factor that contributes to the urge to innovate in
industry education is the character of the education staff
itself - the managers, developers and teachers - whose motives may be considerably different than public educators.
Let's examine this factor carefully:
1. Few industry educators consider education as their
"career." For most, it is another in a series of diverse
assignments.

47

2. Industry teachers seldam spend mare than 50% 'Of
their time in class, actually teaching. Far same assignments, 20% is cansidered a "full-time" teaching laad.
3. Only a small percentage 'Of industry teachers have
taken education courses at the university level. Even
fewer are, 'Or have been, certified ta teach in primary
'Or secondary schools.
Let's imagine what gaes on in the case 'Of a bright businessman wha is selected for a teaching assignment in his campany's educatian department. First, he is aware that mast
'Of his predecessors have stayed in education for a relatively
short time, perhaps 'Only twa or three years. The good 'Ones
have then maved an to better jabs. He also realizes that he's
never taught befare, except perhaps as an incidental part 'Of
a former jab. Finally, if he's ambitious and bright, he knaws
that he must do samething extraordinary in 'Order to assure
recagnitian and cammensurate reward. This last thought is
cammon ta nearly every knawn situatian. But remember, the
industry educatar is in a system that allaws him ta explait
his 'Opportunity ta excel. In that sense, he's in a cansiderably
different positian than a public school teacher. He realizes
that to excel in teaching is expected. Perhaps, therefore, he
begins to seek new and better ways ta teach.
Innovative Methods of Instruction

What methads can he chaase? A whole hast of new and
different techniques have came into being in the past 15
years 'Or sa. Mast famaus far several years was Progra.mmed
Instruction (P.I.), develaped by B. F. Skinner 'Of Harvard.
Taday it is Camputer Aided Instructian (CAl) that makes
the headlines. In between were many variatians an the
theme, each with same applicability in the education scheme.
Thraugh nearly all 'Of these innovatians in instructian are
same camman threads:
• The student can learn an his awn, rather than in a
graup.

• The student sets his awn pace.
• The material is carefully structured in order ta mInImize the time required far learning a given am aunt
'Of informatian.
• The student is actively invalved in the learning process - he's nat just sitting there listening.
• The student is kept abreast 'Of his pragress, 'Or lack of
pragress.
At this paint, think of a "new" teaching technique yau are
familiar with, in terms of thase five factars. Do they all
apply ta the technique you picked? Prabably. (Haw abaut
"the boak" as a means of learning? It fits every factar, except passibly the last 'One.)
There's another characteristic I didn't list that is common
to nearly all 'Of these t~chniques (including "the boak").
There's no personal interface with a human teacher.
Job Security of Teachers

It's nat hard ta understand why teachers might resist these
new methods. Their resistance should ring a bell with lots
'Of us. Let me explain why by asking yau a questian. What
is the usual reaction when employees hear that their company's getting a camputer? Any fleeting warries abaut jab
security? Of caurse! With some it's more than a fleeting
worry.
When the job security of any group is threatened, for whatever the reason, there is a natural resistance from the graup.
Why shauld teachers react differently when a new cancept
seems to threaten their security? I think I can hear yau
saying, "But very few people lost their jabs because 'Of

48

camputers. In fact, there are more jabs now than ever, and
unemployment is very law."
.
Right. And new teaching techniques will undaubtedly, In
time, produce the same results. A result that is comm.on ~a
nearly every innovation intraduced since the first prehIstorIc
man hooked up a crude wheel to a cart.
But let's think back ta anather fundamental point that goes
beyand job security. Remember our earlier discussian about
the matives that teachers have, and the satisfactians that they
derive from being teachers? Guiding students in their grawth.
The personal student-teacher relatianship. The love ta lecture. Now we're arriving at what I believe is the true source
'Of teacher resistance to new teaching methads.
The real effect 'Of innavation in the Industrial Revalution
and the Computer Revolutian was jab displacement, not job
replacement. Stagecaach drivers learned to drive buses.
Waod carvers learned ta 'Operate woad lathes. Clerks learned
to program camputers. Now the Teaching Revalutian is up an
us. What will the teachers do?
Did YOil nod in agreement when I said that teachers are
smarter than most people? If so, you might naw agree that if
a teacher can cantinue ta gain persanal satisfactian from his
work, he'll probably continue to teach. So, let's consider 0r:e
mare factor. Dedicated teachers are 'Often frustrated by theIr
inability to give adequate attention to each student, especially
in these days 'Of aver-crawded schoals. They wauld lave to
pull the under-achiever up by his boatstraps, and push bright
ones an to greater heights. But the class is taa big, and the
teachers have mare material to cover than ever befare.

Learner-Controlled Instruction (LCI)

These same pasitive and negative factars existed in California, . in Nigeria, in Belgium and Canada. And in each
case, an industry educatar decided ta try something new, a
technique which at first glance doesn't seem new at all. Dr.
Robert Mager pioneered this technique at Varian Assaciates
in California in the early 1960's. He called it Learner Cantrolled Curriculum. I introduced it in IBM in 1963 and
labeled it Learner Cantralled Instruction. Here's haw LCI
works:
Each student is given a detailed list 'Of specific "learning
objectives." He is given suggestians for reading, reference,
observation, inquiry, practice, or experimentatian. He is told
precisely how he must demonstrate that he has learned the
subject at variaus stages (if appropriate) and when he has
finished. He is advised that he may direct specific questians
ta the instructar in private, and that he will receive a specific
answer. He is informed that there will be no farmal class
session, and that he may begin ta learn in any manner he
chaases. Finally, the student is tald that, when he has completed all requirements, he is free ta return to his job. He
is then directed ta a quiet place ta study and the instructor
establishes himself in a convenient lacation.
Please read that paragraph again carefully. In it, the
essential ingredients for the success 'Of LCI are stated precisely. The same technique applies equally well, by the way,
for groups of students.
Categories of Subjects to Be Learned

Before we go an, let me remind yau that there are two
broad categories 'Of subjects that we learn in life. One broad
graup consists 'Of specific skills mathematics, engineering,
the sciences, machine aperatian, and camputer pragramming,
ta name a few. The other braad graup generally centers
around the idea 'Of changing a person's attitude 'Or autlaak music appreciatian, salesmanship, and public speaking, for
(Please turn to page 53;
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October,

190R

REPORT FROM GREAT BRITAIN
ICL Goes for Big Machine
Looked at from the British point of view rather than internationally, the highlight of the past month must be the
announcement that the UK is going back into the Big Machine Handicap for the first time since Ferranti sweated
blood to build Atlas, to lose a lot of money and to teach
abollt every other computer manufacturer in the world how
giant machines should be tackled.
The announcement was made by Arthur Humphreys, the
man whose drive made International Computers and Tabulators 1900 series a best seller, now managing director of
International Computers, the merged UK computer force
which has an annual market of some $300m of which onethird represents exports. He disclosed the fact that the company had decided to go ahead with a really big machine,
llsing its own technology and calling it the 1908A. Fast ECL
circuits developed for the 1906A would be the basis, together with multi-layer platter assembly and suppression of
hack-wiring.
It will start at a notional cost of about $4m and a reasonahl(~ configuration would have 20 times the power of the
larger Atlas I, and if by that Mr. Humphreys meant the
Atlas at Chilton, near the Atomic Energy Authority rcsearch centre at Harwell, then the 1908A can rank with the
top machines anywhere. It can operate with a single or twin
proccssors, or again in conjunction with the 1906A. A fourway interleaved store will be in modules of 125K words of
25 bits with 330 nanosecond cycle time.
The delivery date is set at 1972, which surprised and
disappointed some, but the company contains a large number of former Ferranti staff who no doubt counselled caution in this development though it will have all the software
and peripherals already developed by the company at its
service. Two contracts are foreseen already, both for Government agencies, and it is to be hoped that many more are
in the pipeline because without them the company should
not undertake the job.

A Role for the System-4 Series
At the same time as he announced the new machine from
the rCT stable, Mr. Humphreys spelled out the role for the
System-4 series he took under his wing when the English
Electric Computer Company was merged with leT to form
ICL. It is to be offered specifically to IBM users to take
advantage of its compatibility with System-360, a compatibility designed into it by RCA which supplied the basic design
to English Electric. There have been a few instances in the
recent past in which a System-4 machine has actually displaced a 360 but they have come much later and are a lot
fewer than English Electric led us to expect when the series
was its pigeon. There have, of course, been recurrent rumours
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

that by the end of this year Rolls-Royce would discard one
of its 360/65 machines at Derby in favour of a System 4-70.
Knowing what backing IBM gave for the installation of the
Rolls-Royce machines before they went on the air, I will
believe this when I see it.

Sales to Eastern Europe
One source of concern to ICL must be the future of its
sales to east European countries following the tragic events
in Czechoslovakia, one of its leading customers. ICL had
succeeded in placing some $40m worth of business in the
area since the policy of greater liberalisation of external
trade began to be followed by the Comecon nations two to
three years ago and a number of worthwhile contracts were
in the offing. Even the U.S. Department of Commerce and
the NATO strategic embargo group appeared to be softening their attitude to the export of quite powerful equipment
to Poland and Bulgaria, not to mention the Soviet Union
itself . . . the Department must sanction certain U.S. peripherals and components which the UK market so far does
not supply. What the attitude of both will be now is anybody's guess, even though the Prime Minister, Mr. Harold
Wilson, told Parliament that a trade embargo and the rupture of cultural relations would help nobody and the poor
Czechs least of all. It is possible to see two consequences of
the Soviet blunder: a much slower penetration of the supposedly lucrative eastern market by Britain and a speeding
up in negotiations with European countries for joint projects
in computing with ICL.

Two New Networks
There have been two extremely important developments in
the network field. One is the decision of the Northern Stock
Exchange to go for a full client and broker accounting service and ultimately operate it on-line to process clients' contracts in five major northern cities. It will start work off-line
by next March and in about a year after that move to the
on-line mode.
The other project is the much more ambitious one of
establishing a nation-wide law retrieval system .which has
5,000 potential terminal users in Britain. International Data
Highways, which has the SCAN stockbroking on-line realtime service to its credit, is the author, and is sinking about
$150,000 in the initial investigation of feasibility. It is
thought that a pilot system could go alive with about 200
subscribers, and the most likely hardware for the full job is
Univac 1108 machines.
The system would provide conversational interrogation of
files containing statutes, reported and unreported cases, special instruments, and textbook commentaries on cases of
major importance.

49

PROOF GOOFS
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
We print here actual proofreading errors in context as
found in actual books; we print them concealed, as puzzles or
problems. The correction that we think should have been
made will be published in our next issue.
If you wish, send us a postcard stating what you think the
correction should be.
We invite our readers to send in actual proofreading errors
they find in books (not newspapers or magazines). Please
send us: (1) the context for at least twenty lines before the
error, then the error itself, then the context for at least twenty
lines after the error; (2) the full citation of the book including edition and page of the error (for verification); and (3)
on a separate sheet the correction that you propose.
We also invite discussion from our readers of how catching
of proofreading errors could be practically programmed on
a computer.
For more comment on this subject, see the editorial in the
September 1968 issue of Computers and Automation.

Proof Goof 6810
(Find three proofreading errors)
Search problems
Consider for the moment the problem of searching for
submarines in the path of a ship or convoy during time of
war. Dirigibles and small airships were used for this purpose. These craft moved slowly over the water at a low altitude and hence had a very high probability of detecting a
submarine if it was under them and of not claiming to have
detected one when none was there. But because such craft
moved slowly they could not 'sweep' a very large area and
hence could miss submarines which could come into striking
range. If, on the other hand, a very fast plane was used for

Report from Great Britain
(Continued from page 49)
These and the many other projects which depend on fast
communications over the common carrier network are to
some extent at the mercy of the study being carried out by
Scientific Control Systems (formerly CEIR) on behalf of the
Post Office, which finally abandoned its own somewhat
archaic market research effort a few weeks ago, after coming under heavy fire from fluent spokesmen for the RealTime Club at a large symposium - the spokesmen including Charles Ross of International Data Highways and Professor Stanley Gill of Imperial College. The argument in
a nutshell is that the Post Office says a computer network
should be able to make do with the existing telephone and
telegraph lines. The real-time men say bitterly and not
figuratively that it will be over their dead bodies.

this purpose, it could cover a much larger area but the accuracy of its observations would be much lower because of
its speed and higher altitude. In. this case the improved
coverage did not compensate for the increased error of observation.
In looking for something, there are two kinds of errors
which can be made: (1) failure to detect what one is looking
for because of inadequate coverage (sam piing error), and
(2) failure to detect what one is looking for even though one
has looked in the right place, or erroneous 'detection' of the
thing which is not there (observational errors). There are,
of course, costs associated with both types of error and with
the collection of information.
If one has a fixed amount of resources (time, money, or
searchers) a decision must be made as to how much coverage to have (sample size) and what type (sample design).
The larger the sample the less is the likelihood of sampling
error, but the less time spent per observation, the more likely
is an observational error to occur. The selection of an appropriate sample size and design with fixed resources is thc
restricted search problem. In the unrestricted version of this
type of problem one must also decide how much resources
to use in the process. The more resources employed, the
greater is the cost of the search but the less is the expected
cost of error.
You will probably have recognized by now that auditing
is a search procedure and that it raises problems of exactly
the type that we have described. Unfortunately, most persons who design auditing procedures are not aware of
sampling error and they seem to assume that auditors never
make observational errors. Several tests have been carried
out to show that this assumption is not justified; that the
frequency of auditing errors depends on the amount of time
spent with a document and on the individual involved.
Using this information it has been possible to design auditing
systems for railroads, for example, which consumed less time
and money and yield less error than the conventional system
that was replaced.
Most accounting procedures can be viewed as searches.
More generally, all problems of estimation and forecasting
are search problems.
Many OR workers have also applied search theory to exploration problems; to determining what areas to explore
and how to explore them. In one case involving exploration
for nickel it was possible to develop a procedure which rcduces the number of holes required to make the necessary
estimates by almost 50 per cent. Similar procedures have
been applied to prospect for coal.
Search theory is also applicable to the design of inspection
procedures and quality control systems. Both types of error,
sampling and reservations, are involved and the amounts of
money to be spent on inspections must be determined.
There is another type of search problem in which the
searching procedure in not under control, but the thing
being looked for is under control. For example, most retailers cannot control the search patterns of customers in
their store, but they can control the location and allocation
of space to goods. This too is a search problem and the
same type of theory is applicable to it. It has been used
successfully, for example, in placing goods, counters, and
departments in supermarkets and department stores.
- From A Manager's Guide to Operations Research, pp
53-55, by Russell L. Ackoff and Patrick Rivett, John Wiley
& Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York. N.Y., 1963, 107 pp.

Solution to Proof Goof 6891:
Line 12: Replace "reuntied" with "reunited".

Ted Schaeters
Middlesex
England

Stanmare~

50

Solution to Proof Goof 6892:
Line 8: Replace "that" with "than".
Line 12: Replace "terrestial" with "terrestrial".
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 19<1R

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO IN Computers and Automation

Electronic Equipment Applied to Periodic Billing
Reprinted from Vol. 2, No. 8 -

November, 1953

E. F. Cooley~ Associate Director*
Methods Research~ Prudential Insurance Company
N ewark~ N.J.

of America

It seems that in the warld af business almast everyane's
initial reactian to' electranic affice equipment has been ane
af hape and enthusiasm that a new era of higher standards
af speed and efficiency is abaut to' begin. It alsO' seems that
this initial hape and enthusiasm saan becames mixed with
the fear that the casts and camplexities af electronics will
make this new equip'ment impractical far business use. This
secandary phase af daubt and fear is a rather dangeraus
place to' be, because it is nat necessarily a passing phase.
There is great danger af business peaple becaming permanently stuck at this stage.

Stages of Investigation
In mast business arganizatians the initial cantact with
electronic affice equipment is generally braught abaut, it
seems, by sameane reading an article ar hearing a talk an
haw this new marvel af the twentieth century will bring
about the millennium af business efficiency. This inspiratianal appraach generates the ariginal enthusiasm far electranics, and the enthusiasm leads to' wide investigation of
anything and everything related to' the field af electronics
far business use. Out af this study same knawledge of the
equipment is acquired and, more impartant, same appreciatian of the prablems invalved is develaped. At this paint
the investigatar becames perplexed with such prablems as:
I. Are the casts gaing to' be taO' high?
:!. Are the passibilities far errars taO' great?
3. Is magnetic tape a practical medium far randam
reference?
4. Can the machines aperate lang enaugh at ane time
to' praduce a full day's wark each day? etc., etc.
Here is where the secandary stage af daubt and fear as to'
the practicality af the equipment develaps.
In the business warld, if the patential benefits ariginally
visualized are to' be achieved, these prablems cannat be ignared but must be salved.
A third and rather abviaus stage, in arder to' get away from
the stage af daubt and fear, may be to' plunge intO' the use
of electronic affice equipment and campare haw well and
haw cheaply the wark can be dane. Far this purpase, we
ordinarily try to' translate a present procedure intO' the media
and I;lnguage af the new equipment. But it is my canvictian
that this methad simply will nat wark satisfactarily, far
the difference is likely to' be insufficient to' demanstrate clearly
the potential advantages af the electranic equipment. The
main rea san far this is that present pracedures have been
tremendausly canditianed aver same years by the peculiar
abilities af clerks and present equipment. TO' simply carry
over these peculiarities to' the new machines will nat permit
them to shaw to' any great advantage. Sa when business
executives finally see that drastic changes in pracedures are
"Mr. Cooley is now the Director of Electronic Systems at the Prudential
Insurance Co. in Newark.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION far October, 1968

needed to' abtain the desired high efficiency fram electronic
equipment, then the pragress taward impraved methads is
in danger af bagging dawn.

Aims and Purposes
A lagical autgrowth, hawever, of the third stage is to' gO'
back to' first principles and to' examine the aims and purposes
af the wark being dane under the present pracedure withaut
taO' much regard far the way it is dane at present. This
faurth stage affers the greatest patential far the applicatian
of electranic equipment because it pravides a fresh view af
haw the wark might be perfarmed and permits the unhamnerpd use af the peculiar abilities of electronic office
eluipment.

File Maintenance
Far example, when we develap a plan far use af tape
processing equipment, we are farced to mechanize an area
af wark nat aften mechanized with card equipment. This
is the area af file maintenance. With aur file an magnetic
t:lpe we must use a machine to' make changes, whereas with
cards, we are likely to' find it expedient to' send a clerk to'
pick the cards to be changed and later refile the altered cards
by hand. It is true that with a tape system we may punch
a card with the new informatian. But then this card must
be canverted to' tape and matched against the master recard
tape. A new tape will then be recarded with the new data
substituted far the aId where changes are necessary, and with
all the unchanged data braught farward. This may be considered both a disadvantage and an advantage. It is a disadvantage to' have to' carry aut a long machine aperation
when the propartian af changes is low; and with a card system
we have a chaice af manual ar machine system and may dO'
whichever we think is mare efficient. But with the tape system we have nO' chaice. Fartunately, it is usually .faund that
file maintenance by speedy tape pracessing machines is a
saund aperatian and that real savings can be made in mechanizing this phase af the wark.

Automatic Operation
The peculiar advantage af electranic equipment, and it
may be emphasized again and again, is that it is autamatic
and swift in aperatian. By virtue af its ability to' wark
speedily fram a lang sequence af arders stared in the machine
itself, lengthy pracesses can be carried aut withaut any action
an the part af the aperatar; delays and errars, sa difficult
to' cape with satisfactarily in present systems, can be reduced
tremendausly; and scheduling the wark sa that machines
are unifarmly laaded shauld be much easier than with punch
card systems. Of caurse, the develapment af the system, and
the programming and the cO' ding af arders, is a time-cansuming jab requiring great care.

51

The main cost saving from electronic office equipment
should come through elimination of persons now doing routine picking and filing or operating semi-automatic machines.
Another main bencfit to be expected is improved systems
owing to the downright necessity of closer study and better
planning.
Lower Costs
This leads to a comment which is fundamental to any
practical methods consideration. We do not make major
methods changes just for the sake of change. We make them
to gain real advantages, and it is my contention that the
principal advantage that people in business are interested in
is LOWER COST OF OPERATION! In business, we are
not much interested in speed for speed's sake.
For electronic machines of high speed, high capacity and high cost - , few facts with regard to economy have yet
been established to my satisfaction. The cost of producing
this equipment, taking research and development into consideration, is very high indeed, resulting in high cost to the
user. Business users cannot bear these high costs unless there
is a real saving to them over any other method. The evaluation and comparison of costs is the main research job of
methods men studying electronic possibilities and, I predict,
the uncertainties present in this study will continue for some
time to come.
Periodic Billing
An important business application for electronic office
equipment is "periodic billing". This term is here used in a
very broad sense to refer to many tasks related to billing
which depend on the same large file of business records. Of
course, the prime example I am familiar with is billing of
insurance premiums, including related jobs such as computing
policy dividends, agent commissions, and policy loan interest,
and subsequent accounting for premiums received. Another
f'xample is publishf'rs' problems in mailing magazines to
subscribers and following up for renewals. A third example
is the billing jobs of public utilities.

Billing Insurance Premiums
What are the requirements of billing insurance premiums?
In the first place, a policyholder may choose how often hc
wants his premiums billed: annually, semi-annually, quarterly
or, in some circumstances, monthly. The average frequency
in our case is two and a half times per year.
Dividends are calculated on the policy anniversary. The
policyholder may choose how his dividend is to be used.
The popular choice is to use the dividend to reduce the
premium; and we use the entire dividend on the policy anniversary. So once a year the amount billed is the "premium
less the dividend". This means that in a case billed quarterly
only three premiums of a particular year are repetitive and
the fourth one is different. Most of the remaining policyholders let the dividends accumulate at interest. In these
cases the premium is constant. But a supplementary operation
is needed to carry forward the amount of dividend to that
policyholder's credit.
A great many changes affect the records necessary to carry
out billing. The majority are address changes, which run as
high as 25 per cent in a year. Other changes are in frequency
of premium payments and other contract changes. Because
billing, dividend computation, commission payments to agents,
and so on, are all tied together and should be handled together, the job gets rather complicated.
Let us try to visualize the application of electronic computers to the job. First, many items in the records must
be changed, and these changes must be fed into the system in
some way. Our natural inclination is to use punched cards
for this purpose. We must work from source documents
of various forms, and a manual key operation is still neces-

52

sary to convert the data into mechanical form. Card forlll
has the advantage that it can be converted to tape form by
a semi-automatic process producing input for the comput!'r.
And the cards themselves can be used to good advantage ill
maintaining a file to serve the purposes of "random look-up".
Some of our worries about the difficulties of random acc('s~
to a tape record can be alleviated by keeping this card record
file.
All the large scale operations can be performed from the
tape records. It is an advantage that all input be by tap('
for we are forced to mechanical maintenance of the fundamental records; in fact, this should be one of the best sourc!'s
of saving, both direct and through improved accuracy.
It should be obvious that we must search for a combination of allied jobs. We should plan to use the capacities of
the new machines as completely as possible. If we are to
achieve the greatest economy of operation ,,·e cannot preserve
barriers between departments with different responsibilities.
If we are to have a single record in one area of tape for all
data about a policy, then we must get all accounting reports
required at the same time, in the same run of the tape.
Although I don't know intimately the publishers' problems
and the problems of the utilities, it would seem that their
data handling might be quite similar to ours. They too have
a good-sized address file to maintain, with traffic problems;
that is, they need up-to-date address data for billing purposes simultaneously with random reference and maintenance
reference.
.

Random Reference
In regard to random reference, one school of thought seems
to be that reference for any purpose can be deferred to a
periodic search time. Thus if all records are on magnetic
tape, the plan would be to run all tapes every so often and
during this run insert all new data, delete all obsolete data,
and extract all desired reference information. It is often
suggested that such a nm can be made once every twentyfour hours.
\\1hether such a plan can be considered satisfactory is very
much an open question. It is true that most references call
be delayed as much as twenty-four hours without serious
difficulty. But it is not established that delays causing trouble
will be few enough so that this plan can be accepted. Th('
argument seems to boil down to this: the savings through
using tape and tape-handling devices as the substitute for a
real "automatic file" with random reference, have to be so
great that powerful objections to the delays will be overbalanced. This means, I think, that faster and more economical
tape-handling methods, or some other entirely new method,
must be developed. Unless this is done, I am afraid most of
us will consider it necessary to maintain card records of SOI11(,
sort. This fact, perhaps, points up again the need for flexibility in changing from card form to tape form and vice
versa. In other words, we should not be restricted entirdy
to either medium but should use whichever fits the job
requirements best. Fortunately, development of better cardhandling machines is still going on in spite of the ell1phasi~
on tape as the modern medium.
·With automatic equipment in which a large number of
processing steps are completed in a single operation, it i"
very important that the maximum be done at once. Therefore, work requirements and machine abilities must fit closely.
\Ve have always fitted our work to suit the equipment available. With more automatic equipment, it is even more important that the machine be fitted to the job. In recognition of this, some of the new machine designers are planning
to make the machines quite flexible in regard to adding additional capacity when necessary. Only experience will show
conclusively whether they have achieved sufficient flexibility
to meet our needs.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 19(iH

One question we must resolve is whether business users
should expect competition alone to bring about the best designs. Since all manufacturers try to build for average needs
for all their potential customers, it is by no means certain
that their designs will give a particular company the maximum benefit. Just as other industries have benefited by
special designs, custom-built for their purposes, so might we
benefit by equipment designed especially for us.
In conclusion, I believe there is a great potential in the
development of "electronic machines". But let's proceed with
eyes wid y open and without preconceived notions in regard
to great ravings of operating cost; and let's realize that lower
costs mllst be attainable in order to justify the profound
changes in organization and procedure which will inevitably
be necessary.

Newkirk, "Innovation in Teaching"
(C ontinued from page 48)
example. The technique I've described is remarkably well
suited to the "skills" group of subjects, but the "attitudes"
group of subjects may be taught best by some form of active
voice communication between teacher and student. A natural
tendency is to consider most borderline subjects as unsuitable
for LCI-type techniques. That may well be the same kind
of error that was often made when determining if a certain
task could be done by a computer. We're still amazing ourselves with the things computers can do.

same manner as he turns to a book or a reference manual.
The important difference is that he chooses the medium, and
that he has the instructor to turn to when he's stuck. Programmed instruction (PI) and CAl does not usually accommodate those two ideas. I look forward to the day when it
does.
What is the reaction of the student to LCI? Nearly every
student I've talked with dreads the day when he must return
to "conventional" learning methods. Enough said.

Why a Teacher Likes LCI
What is the effect of LCI on the teacher?
From the start, the teacher never concerns himself with
preparing his lecture. Rather, he is deeply involved in defining what is to be learned, in stating it clearly and logically,
and in gathering materials that will contribute to the student's ability to learn. He soon discovers that a well-written
definition of the learning objective leads him almost automatically to the point where tests, or other methods of verifying the student's knowledge, can be prepared relatively
easily.
The teacher also discovers that his conceptual knowledge
of the subject is more important than recalling precise details.
I once taught a complex technical subject in LCI mode,
which I hadn't studied or worked on for four years before
walking into that class. But because my conceptual knowledge was sound, I could answer questions easily.
Still another effect on the teacher, of course, is the idea
best expressed by a man who pointed out that LCI enabled
him to concentrate his efforts on the individuals in the class
who most needed the instruction. This deceptively simple
point scores highest with teachers who scorn PI and CAL

Why a Student Likes LCI
Why does a student like LCI? That's easy. He studies
when he feels like it, and he day-dreams when he feels like it.
(The fact that he may leave whenever he finishes, is sufficient motivation for 99% of the students.) He can proceed
at his own pace, in other words.
He can select his own best method of learning. He might
choose to read, experiment, observe, ask questions, or, more
likely, a combination of those methods.
The student can start his learning at whatever point he
wishes. And he may choose any sequence of topics that he
wishes (where appropriate). These two points are extremely
significant, and they are based on the simple idea that no
student is completely ignorant of a subject to be learned.
Each student, in other words, has some point of departure
that is unique to him. That puts him in the position of being
the only person who knows at what point, and in what
sequence, he should begin to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of the subject. These two points also are the key items
that are not taken into consideration by any other "automated" teaching method with which I am familiar, although
Computer Aided Instruction (CAl) has the potential to
assist the student in this regard.

Computer Aided Instruction
Speaking of computers for the moment - let's ask the
question, "Does the LCI technique exclude the use of automated instruction techniques"? Not at all. Variety is the
spice of student life, too. An industrial education center in
San Francisco is using computer terminals, video tape, programmed instruction, and audio tape in various combinations
for various subjects. The student comes to regard these devices as simply another reference source. He may find himself
turning to anyone of them to watch, or listen to, a short
description or explanation of a particular subject, in the
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Selection of Teachers
There's another important effect, not only on the teacher,
but on the selection of the teacher. When using LCI, the
main prerequisites for teacher selection change considerably.
The principal emphasis should be on locating someone with
a high level of competence in his subject (I didn't say
"education," I said "competence"). The LCI teacher does
not lecture. Therefore, his ability to stand up in front of
a class and articulate is simply not important. Every public
and industry education administrator will appreciate the
impact of that difference. His job of finding qualified teachers
is different, and easier.
How can we summarize the choice of methods up till now
available to a teacher? On one side of the teaching ledger is
the lecture method. On the other side are Programmed
Instruction and CAL On the one side, the teacher feels that
he is everything - on the other side he feels that he is
nothing. In the middle lies Leamer Controlled Instruction
and other new methods, with much fertile ground for
improvement.
The challenge of the next decade requires that all educators concentrate on researching and developing instructional
methods that stress a closer personal relationship between
student and teacher. If that goal is made clear, I believe
nearly all teachers will join in the search, since they won't
be worried about developing methods that essentially eliminate their lecturing jobs. Further, more competent persons
may be attracted to the teaching profession, because the
prerequisites will undoubtedly change.
Leamer Controlled Instruction is only one innovative technique. There are many more, yet to be discovered, that
serve the specific mutual interests of both student and teacher.
The consequences of using such teaching methods could be
a marvelous and revolutionary change for the better III
education.
•
53

PROBLEM CORNER
Walter Penney, cOP
Problem Editor
Computers and Automation
PROBLEM 6810: A CHESSBOARD MATRIX
"Why so glum?" Al asked as he entered the Computer
Center and saw the unhappy expression on Bob's face.
"Oh, it's that matrix I had all set up. Now it's been
cleared and I'm going to have a devil of a time trying to
reconstruct it."
"What matrix was that? Not that 100 by 100 array we
were working on, I hope."
"No, it was just a little old 8 by 8. It was going to be
used in that Chess playing program Pete is writing - a way
of numbering the squares in some crazy mixed-up order."
"Why didn't he just number the squares 1 to 64, or even
use that two-element system, with A to H horizontally and
1 to 8 vertically?"
"I don't know," Bob shook his head. "There may have
been some advantage doing it his way. There were two sets
of numbers, one he called X numbers along the top and
another set he called Y numbers down the left. The number
in any cell was the sum of the X and Y numbers."

"And each number from 1 to 64 was produced once and
only once this way?"
"Right! Now, if I could just figure out what those top
and side numbers were, my problem would be solved."
"Don't you remember any of them?"
Bob thought a moment. "Yes, one of the numbers was 23."
What were the other numbers?

Solution to Problem 689: Nimbonacci
A number ending in 0 or 4 will guarantee a win for the
computer only if the starting number is less than 34. 31
would be a win for the first player, as would 44, 54 and a
number of other values less than 100.

Readers are invited to submit problems (and their solutions)
for publication in this column to: Problem Editor, Computers
and Automation, 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160.

-

JOBS AND CAREERS IN DATA PROCESSING

Computer Salary Survey
Source EDP
100 S. Wacker Drive
Chicago, Ill. 60606
The computer salary survey shown here is based on a
complete analysis of the nationwide consulting and recruiting
activities conducted by us during 1967. The survey is limited
to positions within organizations which use computers.
In attempting a survey of computer salaries, several obstacles present themselves. First, a meaningful salary survey
should be representative and not affected by extremes. For
this reason, we have chosen to indicate for each category
presented, the median salary rather than the mean.
Second, job categories have been divided into two main
groups - management positions and non-management positions. While not always the case, salaries for management
positions depend to a large degree upon the size of computer

54

systems installed or on order and are so organized. Salaries
for non-management positions depend to a large degree 011
length of experience and are so organized. Salaries for all
positions are of course affected by other factors besides thesl',
including level of education, geographic location, and type of
industry. For simplicity, no attempt has been made to isolate these conditions but the reader should make some allowance for these in analyzing the data.
The salary figures shown are those of applicants whcll
first applying for a new position. Typical salary increase's
received upon accepting new employment ranged from 5%
to 15%; yet there were occasional increases as high as 40%.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 19(iH

Computer Salary Survey

NON-MANAGEMENT POSITIONS

Annual Salaries in Dollars
15th
85th
Percentile
Median
Percentile

COITIITIercial PrograITIITIers and
Programmer/ Analysts
Experience:

6 ITIonths - 1 year
1 year - 2 years
2 years - 4 years
Over 4 years

7,200
8,800
10, 300
10,800

8,400
9,800
12,200
12,900

9,300
10,700
13,200
14,800

9,400
10, 500
12,200
14,300

10,600
12, 100
14,600
16,600

11,800
13,900
16,900
20,400

10,100
12,300
13,400

11,400
13,800
15,900

12,700
15,400
18,800

11,900
12,800

14,000
15,600

15,900
18, 300

14,600
15,900

17,000
22, 100

20, 500
26,700

13,900
15,100

1'5,700
18, 100

17,900
21,600

8,300
10,100
14,200

10,200
11,800
17,600

12, 500
14,800
21,800

12,600
18,900
21,000

14,900
23, 100
30,500

17,600
26,600
44,000

Scientific -OR PrograITIITIers
and Analysts
Experience:

6 ITIonths - 1 year
1 year - 2 years
2 years - 4 years
Over 4 years

Sys teITIS (Software) PrograITIITIers
Experience:

1 year - 2 years
2 years - 4 years
Over 4 years

Senior SysteITIs Analysts and
Project Leaders
Experience:

2 years - 4 years
Over 4 years

MANAGEMENT POSITIONS
SysteITIs Managers
*Size:

MediuITI
Large

PrograITIITIing Managers
Size:

MediuITI
Large

Opera tions Managers
Size:

SITIall
MediuITI
Large

InforITIation SysteITIs Directors
Size:

SITIall
MediuITI
Large

*Installation size is defined in terITIS of ITIonth1y installed or on order cOITIputer
rental as follows:
Up to $15,000, SInall
$15,000 to $60,000, MediuITI
Over $60,000, Large
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

55

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK
Computing and Data Processing Newsletter

Table
APPLICATIONS

Southern Pacific Railroad Does Filipg by
Television Signals
Prefabricated Walls Built Automatically With
Computer-Directed Machine
Apollo Biomedical Data To Be Processed in
Real Time
Putnam Mutual Funds Uses IBM Computer To
Furnish Up-to-the-Minute Information
Weather-Conscious Computer Monitors Michigan
Gas Supply
Computer Formulates Dyes, Matches Colors,
for Today's Brighter Fashion Shades
Ward Plant Uses Computer To Get Buses to
School on Time

57
57
57
58
58
58
58

EDUCATION NEWS

Project LOCAL Aids Students in Better Understanding of Math/Science Concepts
Control Data Institute Is Building CampusType Computer Training Facility
Ghetto Area Residents To Use Sanders Data
Display Systems in Computer Courses
CDC Computer Schools Receive Accreditation

59
59

63
63
63
63
63

Peripheral Equipment

Xerox Phone Device Works After Hours
Document Reader-Sorter Especially for Bankers
New Translator Can Link Computers and Any
Communications Network
Stromberg Datagraphics SD 4360 Printer
One Computer Talks to Another With Datametrics' Coupler
Data Interface Corporation Announces Plotter
Terminal for Time-Share Users
New X-Y Recorder by Honeywell
New Datacoupler Links Any Digital Tape
Recorder to Any Signal Source

63
64
64
64
64
64
64
65

Librascope's New Optical Shaft Encoders
"MIDGI-COUNTER". Smallest Decade Counter by
Pinli tes Inc.

65
65

Data Processing Accessories

60
60
60

Computer Room Paper Shredder
Chartpaper for Digital Incremental Plotters
by CALMA Company
Magnetic "Flow Chart" Kits by National
Cyberneti cs

65
65
65

60
COMPUTER RELATED SERVICES

60

Special Purpose Systems

61
61

Memories

Electronic Memories Inc. Adds New Storage
Capacity to MICROMEMORY® 1000 System
SDS Rapid Access Data Storage System
Random Access Memories From Infotechnics Inc.
New 256-Bit Read-Only Memory by National
Semiconductor

PERSONAL TRUST ACCOUNTING SYSTEM -- Aries
Corporation
POLE (Public Opinion Logical Expectation)
Economatics
RENTAL SYSTEM -- Computer Radix Corp.
SSTPAC (a stand alone diagnostic monitor
system) -- Programming Sciences Corp.
THREE-D SYSTEM -- California Computer Products, Inc.

Components

59

Digital

Fabri-Tek Introduces New Control Keyboard
Console for oI-TRAN SIX Computer
Feedback Ltd. 's Low-Cost Computer Trainer
Covers Wide Range of Binary Operations

Contents

59

NEW PRODUCTS

SPC-8, A New General Purpose Computer from
General Automation, Inc.
Wang Desk-Top Computer "Learns" Programs
Dynamics Research Corp. Enters Computer Market with Low-Cost Machine
Computer Automation Inc. Markets Second
"Programmed Digi tal Controller"
Datacraft Corporation Announces Series 6000
Computer System

of

61
61
62
62

Bowlers' Scores in Six States To Be Compiled
by Computer
Agricultural Advisory Service Aids Farmer
and His Suppliers

66
66

TIME-SHARING SERVICES

Tymshare, Inc. Opens New Facility in Seattle
NCR Opens Time-Sharing Data Center in
Montreal
E.L.I. Industries, Inc. Forms New Subsidiary
-- E.L.I. Computer Time Sharing

66
66
66

MEETING NEWS

The Law of Software

1st Annual Conference

66

Software

AUTOSCAN/LOG -- Programming Services. Inc.
COMPREHENSIVE PAYROLL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM
(CPACS) -- General Electric Co.
FIXED ASSET ACCOUNTING -- American Software
& Computer Co.
MAGIC -- Information Management Inc.
PAYROLL SOFTWARE SYSTEM -- American Software
& Computer Co.
56

62
62
62
62
62

ORGANIZATION NEWS

New Proposals Filed by AT&T With Federal
Communications Commission
Lever Brothers Forming Data Processing
Subsidiary
Swen A. Larsen, Former Control Data Executive, Forms New Computer Firm

67
67
67

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 19GH

Newsletter

APPLICATIONS

SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD
DOES FILING BY
TELEVISION SIGNALS

The first commerical version
of the Ampex Videofile information
system (developed and manufactured
by Ampex Corporation, Redwood City,
Calif.) is solving the large scale
document filing and retrieval problems of the Southern Pacifi c Company, San Francisco, Calif.
The
system permits faster filing and
retrieval of the railroad company's
freight waybills and related docurrents. Since railroads are required
to keep waybills (basic legal documents describing each freight shipment) for four years, the filing
job involved is enormous.
The Southern Pacific system
occupies one-eighth the floor space
required for present paper files.
I t has a total capaci ty exceeding
20 million documents and is designed to accept more than 400,000
new documents monthly and retrieve
100,000 each month on request. Documents can be filed on the average
of one every ten seconds and ret ri eved on the average of one every
six seconds.

a digital address code to the document, so it can be found again at
any time. This second set of signals also are recorded on the tape,
just in front of the document recording.
To retrieve documents, a punched
card bearing the document's address
code is fed into a digi tal card
reader mounted on the tape transport.
Data from the cards "tell"
the transports which document recordings to find.
(Tape search
speed is 380 inches per second twice that of computer-industry
tape transports.) Once found, the
document recording is played back
by the transport into intermediate
holding equipment (buffer system).
There a metal disc magnetically
records the incoming signals, duplicating the document recording.
Th~ disc later plays these recordings back into a specially developed
printing device (shown below), whi ch
produces the document image on paper.

building, the equipment resembles
a series of steel-topped rectangular tables.
A conveyor chain similar to those that tow automobiles through car washes - runs
through its center.
Electronic
signals that activate the machine
are transmitted by its controlunit,
which reads instructions generated
on paper tape by the computer. The
IBM 1130 has been programmed to determine the internal support pattern
needed for a wall based on the outside dimensions.
It also prints
out the precise amounts of materials, including the specific number
of nails, that will be needed for
each wall.
When the machine has received
the instructions, i t s tarts constructing the outside frame of a
wall, using building materials fed
into it from hoppers. As the wall
frame moves through the machine on
the conveyor chain, supporting devices such as braces and studs
automatically are cut to size and
nailed into plac~ Relatively easy
walls - those with few windows or
doors - move through the machine
faster than those wi th more complicated patterns.
The machine has
the capacity to produce 20 feet of
wall per minute. Cos ts of the prefabricated walls are lower than
those of hand-made walls because
the machine is so accurate that it
wastes no material.

Th is is how the sys tern works
at Southern Pacific:
An operator places a document
on a glass plate.
A television
camero underneath the plate scans
the document and converts its image
to television signal.s.
These are
sent through a small' computer to
one of eight large tape transports
and recorded on magnetic video tape.
As thi s occurs, the operator checks

Since the magnetic disc merely duplicates the original document recording on tape in the master file,
no entry is ever "out of file" to
other request~.

PREFABRICATED WALLS
BUILT AUTOMATICALLY WITH
COMPUTER-DIRECTED MACHINE

the television moni tor display (see
picture above) of the document she
is entering and, with her right
hand, uses the keyboard to assign
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

A machine that can build in a
week the walls for 500 homes has
been developed by three lumber company executives of M. Kellner & Son
Lumber Company, Fresno, Calif. The
device, directed by an IBM 1130 computer, can construct the interior
and exterior walls for an averagesized two-bedroom house in about
20 minutes.
The machine was designed by Minor Gee (director of
the firm's product engineering department);Bruce Butler (supervisor
of Kellner's data processing engineering section); and Ray Kellner
(general manager of the company).
Stretching 120 feet across the
main floor of the 1 umber company

APOLLO BIOMEDICAL DATA TO BE
PROCESSED IN REAL TIME

NASA doctors wi 11 use a computer to help them evaluate the
astronauts' conditions in real time
during the Apollo VII flight this
fall.
Medical officers, manning
consoles in the Mission Control
Center at the Manned Spacecraft
Center, Houston, Texas, will have
the "on-line" processing power of
one of the world's largest computer
installations - the Real Time Computer Complex. Real time biomedical
data processing is part of NASA's
Apollo Bioenvironmental Information
System (ABIS).
ABIS has been designed to provide NASA medical officers wi th an effective data acquisition, analysis and display
system which will enable them to
provide medical moni toring for crew
safety and professional medical
mission management, and give them
a better understanding of the effects of spaceflight on man.
Part of the Apollo VII programming system, developed by a team of
IBM programmers,is a program which
enables the computer to process some
57

Newsletter
of the biomedical data on the astronauts which is being telemetered
back to earth.
After processing,
the data is transmi tted to NASA
medical officer and flight controller consoles -- almost as fast as
events are happening in the spacecraft orbiting the earth. The display changes every second, reflecting the most current information.
(During the Mercury and Gemini programs, real time medi cal analysi s
was limi ted to manual evaluation
of raw data transmi tted back to
earth from the spacecraft.)
The MSC medi cal team, wi th the
aid of real time data processing,
will be able to identify the trend
of changes in the astronauts' conditions.
Heart and respiration
rates will be processed and displayed
either individually or
combined as a crew di splay. In addition, the range of the rates and
standard deviation information are
computed and can be included in the
display. This information will be
combined wi th spacecraft or sui t
data giving the medi cal offi cer a
single display from which he can
evaluate the environmental conditions the astronauts are encountering and their physical and biomedical reactions to these condi tions.
The doctors also hope to be able to
evaluate how well the astronauts
rest during sleep periods, and if
their responses to the condi tions
and events of the flight are "normal."

Preparation and receipts of
customer orders, including computer
printing of the certificate, also
iss peeded up.
Orders now are
processed in three-to-four days -formerly thi s requi red up to a weekand-a-half •

WEATHER-CONSCIOUS COMPUTER
MONITORS MICHIGAN GAS SUPPLY
A weather-conscious computer
in Jackson, Michigan, has been
placed in the role of an electroni c
watchdog, guarding agains t interruption of gas servi ce to any of
the 780,000 Consumers Power Company
gas customers in Michigan's Lower
Penins'ula. The computer -- an IBM
1800 data acquisition and control
system -- scans more than 600 statewide checkpoints. The checkpoints
consist of measuring devices located
in 86 gas metering, gas regulating
and gas compressing stations across
the Company's gas service area.
The computer, using multiple
leased telephone 'lines, takes continuous readings from these instruments, measuring such things as gas
pressure, density, temperature and
specific gravity. It alerts technicians in the event any of these
drop below or rise above pre-established levels. The computer, linked
to six typewri ter-like terminals,
provides a summary on all instrument readings every two minutes.

PUTNAM MUTUAL FUNDS
USES IBM COMPUTER TO FURNISH
UP-TO-THE-MINUTE INFORMATION
A .newly installed IBM System/
360 Model 40, at The Putnam Management Company, Inc. of Boston, Mass.,
gi ves shareholders "instant" information about their accounts.
By
telephoning a clerk and providing
the proper identification,a shareholder wi th the Putnam Group of
Mutual Funds can get a report on
his transactions for the entire
year in as li ttle as three minutes.
Previously, it might have taken up
to five days to get the same information.
The telephone calls go to one
of four operators seated at IBM
2260 visual display stations. Upon
receiving the proper identifying
data, the operator keys the inquiry
into the compute~ Within seconds,
the account information is ·shown
on the television-like screen of
the display station and related to
the shareholder by the operator.
Nearly 1,400 shareholder accounts
are interrogated each day.
58

COMPUTER FORMULATES DYES,
MATCHES COLORS, FOR TODAY'S
BRIGHTER FASHION SHADES
An IBM 1130 computer at Phoenix
Dye Works, Cleveland, Ohio, is helpIng to satisfy the fash ion world's
demand for new and differen t colors.
The computer has the capaci ty to
print-out as many as 21 different
basic dye formulas, each of which
may be used to produce mul tiple
shadings. The computer also calculates the cost for producing any
shade selected by knit goods manufacturers served by Phoenix.
The process begins when the
cus tomer brings in a sample of a
color to be matched in quanti ty.
Phoenix engineers then determine
the true characteristics of the
color through the use of a spectrophotometer,
whi ch measures the
amount of light reflected from the
shade at various wave lengths, compared to a standard white.
Punched program cards are fed
into the computer, which combines
certain dye formulas and determines
the basic dyes needed to produce
the desired color.
The cost per
pound to apply the correct amount
of dye to certain fibers also is
calculated by the 1130.
The computer then matches the curve of
light reflectance from the spectrophotometer wi th reflectance readings of standard dyes applied in
various concentrations to a given
fiber,which are stored in its memory.
James B. Egee, the company's
director of research, said use of
the computer has cut the time required to formulate dyes for color
matching from three or four days
to as little as two hours. He said
Phoenix uses the computer to match
about 300 new and different colors
per mon th -- many wi th names li ke
midget mauve (light violet), snappy
dragon (a green), and electric currant (a red).

-- Gas control supervisor
Herb Young is shown Cleft)
examining summary printout
If the computer detects a potential

problem, an alarm light is turned
on, pinpointing the location of the
condition requiring attention.
In addition, during winter
months, special weather forecasts
are fed into the computer throughout the day. Based on these forecasts, the computer calculates the
probable increased demand for gas
and sugges ts to techni cians what
steps should be taken to assure an
adequate supply for the duration
of the cold spell.

WARD PLANT USES COMPUTER TO
GET BUSES TO SCHOOL ON TIME
Ward School Bus Manufacturing,
Inc., of Conway, Ark., one of the
country's largest school bus assembly firms, utilizes an IBM System/
360 Model 20 to help custom-tailor
more than 3,500 buses a yea~ Most
of them must be assembled and delivered by Labor Day or they'll miss
the first day of class.
Making
this deadline is complicated by
dependence on au tomoti ve chas sis
manufacturers for the motor, frame
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 190H

Newsletter
The new equipment also gives
the schools the opportunity to investigate applications in the areas
of educational administration and
educational/communi ty
research.
Having the computers available 24
hours a day on the school premises
will allow the machines to be used
for additional activIties, such as
adul t education or in-service training.

and whee 1 s.
Ward adds the body,
seats,windows, doors, heating systems and special options.
Ward's computer-stored records
on hundreds of option combinations
enables the firm to keep track of
dozens of safety standards for
each of the 50 states and customer
specified options. In addition to
the many safety standard~ the computer's files contain records on
16,000 items from raw materials and
fabricated stock which are used in
building the nine basic Ward bus
models.

Project LOCAL II is a continuation of a planning and pi lot program initiated fourteen months ago
to demonstrate and evaluate the use
of the computer in secondary mathematics instruction and to train
teachers in computer programming
usage. Supported in part by a federal grant, the five participating
communi ties uti lized a time-sharing
bureau last year and provided service to about 450 pupils and teachers.
This year officials expect to be
serving 1,100 pupils. The Project
has been, and will be, disseminating its innovative practi ces to the
surrounding area by training teachers outside the member school systems, Mr. Haven added.

When an order is recei ved, the
requi rements are matched against
records of stock on hand. The bus
is scheduled for construction. Computerized job analysis provides a
listing of stock parts required.
Any shortages noted are placed on
order.
The computer uses reports
from work stations to track progress
of the bus through production to
deli very.
A program now being developed
will enable the computer to schedule production steps,
allocating
parts to the right work station at
the right time.

CONTROL DATA INSTITUTE
IS BUILDING CAMPUS-TYPE
COMPUTER TRAINING FACILITY

Mr. Perry C. Smith, Director
of Control Data Insti tute of Waltham (Mass.) has announced that
"due to the rapid growth of the computer industry and the increasing
demand for computer technicians and
programmers, a new campus-type
compu ter training faci li ty is being built in North West Industrial
Park at the shopping center off
Rte. 128 in Burlington, Mass." The
Burlington school will be six times
the size of the present Waltham
school.

EDUCATION NEWS

PROJECT LOCAL AIDS STUDENTS
IN BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF
MATH/SCIENCE CONCEPTS

Five small computer systems
are being used as teaching aids for
high school math and science courses
in as many greater Boston (Mass.)
school systems.
The computers,
ordered by the Laboratory Program
for Computer Assisted Learning (Project LOCAL), Westwood, Mass., were
manufactured by Digi tal Equipment
Corporation and buil t around thei r
PDP-O/I system. Each configuration
varies slightly to meet the particular needs of the school.
Member schools participating
in Proj e9t LOCAL include Westwood,
Lexington; Natick, Wellesley, and
Needham.
All five systems are
equipped with time sharing terminals.
The Wellesley and Needham
systems will be connected to other
schools wi thin those towns. Robert
N. Haven, Project LOCAL Director,
said, "The primary use of the computers will be to aid students in
better understanding mathematics
llnd science concepts and improve
their problem solving skills."

The new Control Data Insti tute
of Burlington, opening early this
.month, will offer morning, afternoon and evening classes in computer
programming, technology, computer
maintenance, special courses in FORTRAN and COBOL and a variety of introductory and advanced courses for
local industrial and business employees.
The new computer school
will also provide free lifetime
placement services for students
taking career courses and a variety
of financial plans and free aptitude tests for all potential students.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMA T'ION for October, 1968

Control Data Insti tute is a
private school system, devoted entirely to teaching the principles
and concepts of computer maintenance

and programming. It is one of fifteen schools throughout the United
States and Europe sponsored by
Control Data Corporation.

GHETTO AREA RESIDENTS TO USE
SANDERS DATA DISPLAY SYSTEMS
IN COMPUTER COURSES

Display systems which enable
operators to "talk" to computers in
simple English will be used by Heuristic Concepts, Inc., New York, N.Y.
to train residents of ghetto areas
in the fundamentals of computer input technology. Ini tially four 62()Cil
Data Display Systems and two 72()®
Data Display Systems will be used
at Heuristics' Heurcon Insti tute
in the South Bronx and Harlem areas.
The systems are manufactured by
Sanders Associates, Inc. of Nashua,
N.H. Heuron plans to use the Sanders sys tems at all the 40 training
centers it will establish throughout the countr~ including the Harlem area of New York Ci ty and the
Wat ts section of Los Angeles, Calif.
Thomas Mann, director of Heurcon Institute said, "Our courses
in computer input technology will
provide a background to enable graduates to obtain posi tions as beginners in the data processing
fields ... Because the Sanders equipment can be operated by semi-skilled
personnel, they provide the ideal
tool for teaching computer communications."
Heurcon Institute, Inc., a
subsidiary -of Heuristic Concepts,
Inc., operates wi thout government
grants and trains the under-privileged and the hard core unemployed.

CDC COMPUTER SCHOOLS
RECEIVE ACCREDITATION

Control Data Insti tutes in Dallas, Tex., and Detroi t, Mich., have
been accredi ted by the National Association of Trade and Technical
Schools (NATTS). NATTS accreditation, in addition to assuring that
the schools have met rigid standards, means that students may now
apply for federally-insured loans
under the National Vocational Student Loan Act. These are federallysubsidized, low-interes~ long-term
loans.
Announcement of the accreditation was made by Layton G. Kinney,
general manager of Control Data Insti tute, an education division of
Control Data Corporation.

59

Newsletter
COMPUTER AUTOMATION INC.
MARKETS SECOND "PROGRAMMED
DIGITAL CONTROLLER"

NEW PRODUCTS

-

A second "Programmed Digi tal
been placed on the
market by Computer Automation, Inc. ,
Newport Beach, Calif.
Model 816,
with a 4,096word 16-bit memory and
over 140 basi c instructions, is
priced at $11,900.
Controlle~"has

-

D igital

SPC-8, A NEW GENERAL
PURPOSE COMPUTER FROM
GENERAL AUTOMATION, INC.

The Automation Products Division of General Automation, Inc.,
Orange, Calif., has announced a new
general purpose digi tal computer
which includes a 4096-word memory
at a total pri ce of less than $5000.
The new computer, designated the
SPC-8, is designed particularly for
use in custom data processing and
control systems, in R&D laboratories,
and in universities.
The basic SPC-8 includes a 4096
by 8-bit word memor~ expandable to
8192 words, with a full cycle time
of 2.2 microseconds. The processor
includes a parallel adder, three
addressing modes, six 12-bi t regi sters, two accumulators, a hardware
index registe~ 46 commandi, a priori ty interrupt system, and a teletypewriter interface. SPC-8 software includes a one-pass conversational assembler, a basic utili ty
system for correcting and modifying
programs, a math package, and computer test programs.
Options include a real time
control group, real time instruction
set, direct memory transfer channel,
power fail detection and automatic
restart, an addi tional 4096-word
memory' module,
and more than 30
functional and interface mOdules.
(For more information, designate
+t44 on the Reader Service Card.)

WANG DESK-TOP COMPUTER
"LEARNS" PROGRAMS

Model 380 Programming Keyboard
from Wang Laboratories, Inc., Tewksbury, Mass., memorizes operator
keystrokes on magnetic tape, and
repeats as programs of up to 640
steps. Plug-in magnetic tape cartridges may be erased and reused,
or snapped out and retained. Keys
are provided for all Wang calculator
functions and for operation of optional, compatible system modules
including extra data storage registers, typewriters, teletypewriters, etc.
The Model 380 can make
programmed decisions, loop, and
branch.
A comprehensive 246 page

60

-- Wang's Model 380 Programming Keyboard

The 816 has multilevel indirect addressing, hardware index
regi s ter, immediate instructions,
condi tional jumps, parallel processing, block input and output,
three priori ty interrupts and a
scan instruction standard in the
basic controller.

program library is furnished fTee.
(For more information, designate
+t45 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

DYNAMICS RESEARCH CORP.
ENTERS COMPUTER MARKET
WITH LOW-COST MACHINE

Many standard peripherals are
available and include teletype,
magnetic and paper tape, disc, and
modems.
(For more information, designate
+1:42 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

Dynamics Research Corporation,
Stoneham, Mass., has en tered the
computer market with the DRC-44 -a general purpose 24-bi t machine
wi th a one microsecond memory cycle.
DRC President John S. Anderegg, Jr.,
said the machine is expected to
find wide acceptance in applications
where characteri s ti cs demanded by
the mili tary, such as high reliabili ty, ease of maintenance and
ability to operate under difficult
environmental condi tions, are important.

DATACRAFT CORPORATION
ANNOUNCES SERIES 6000
COMPUTER SYSTEM

Datacraft Corporation, Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., known to the computer industry for its magnetic
core memory products, has entered
into the field of computers wi th
the Series 6000 Computer System.
The heart of Series 6000 is. the
DC-6024 digi tal computer which is
designed for use in simulator, process control and scientific applications including mul tiprogramming,
t~me sharing, real-time and off-line
uses.

The DRC-44 is a digi tal computer wi th fixed point and stored
program operation and random access memory expandable in 4000 word
units.
Full memory cycle time is
one microsecond, with an input/
output transfer rate of 24 megacycles. Its basic six index registers can be expanded modularly and
it direct addresses 65,000 words
when operating wi th three index
registers. The DRC-44 has multilevel indirect addressing capabilities, seventy-eight available instructions, priori ty interrupt on
all input/output channels.
Available software includes a
symbolic assembler, input/output
packages including alpha numeric,
trace programs, on-line debugger,
symbolic edi tor, diagnostic routines and basic mathematical subroutines.
Mili tary applications of the
DRC-44 include navigation systems,
teconnaisance, communications, radar, display and fire control. Industrial applications include process control, vehicular traffic
control and oceanographic studies.
(For more information, designate
• +t43 on the Reader Service Card.)

The basic DC-6024 processing
uni t includes five 24-bi t general
purpose registers, three of which
also may be used as index registers;
4K-word memory 02,288 bytes); hardware mul tiply/di vide/square root;
and four true levels of priori ty

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 196H

Newsletter
interrupt. The basic I/O includes
nn ASR-33 Teletype.
The mainframe and memory cycle
time is 600 nanoseconds; memory may
be expanded up to 65K words 096,608
bytes) in 4K or8K word increments.
The Central Processing Uni t (CPU)
can address memory at the word, byte
and double word levels.
It also
hns mul tilevel indexing and indirect addressing.
A full line of compa tible peripheral equipment also will be
available from Datacraft.
(For more information, designate
u41 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

ti ve teaching of sys tem concept s.
(For more information, designate
u80 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

FEEDBACK LTD.'S LOW-COST
COMPUTER TRAINER COVERS WIDE
RANGE OF BINARY OPERATIONS

The basic principles of digi tal computing can be learned on a
small-scale repli ca of a computer
central processo~ known as the OCT
350.
The OCT 350, developed and
manufactured by Feedback, Ltd. of
England, covers a wide range of
binary operations. It is designed
to force the student to think about
the processes involved by operating
at its best only when 'organized'
by the trainee.

Memories

ELECTRONIC MEMORIES INC.
ADDS NEW STORAGE CAPACITY TO
MICROMEMORYcr> 1000 SYSTEM

Electronic Memories, Inc., Hawthorne, Calif., has introduced a
1,024 words x 8-bit version of its
MICROMEMORY 1000 Core Memory System
to complement the existing 4,096
words x 8-bi t mOdel. The lK and 4K
types wi 11 use identi cal electronics.
The lK x 8-bi t Model wi 11 have
a new 3D stack design wi th the cores
mounted on a single, pluggable

Special Purpose Systems

FABRI-TEK INTRODUCES NEW
CONTROL KEYBOARD CONSOLE
FOR BI-TRAN SIX COMPUTER

Fabri-Tek Inc., Minneapolis,
Minn., has introduced a new Control
Keyboard Console for use wi th its
BI-THAN SIX Computer Education System.
Thi s new Control Keyboard
permi t.s complete control of the
cornpu \.er education system from a
remole position.
Thi s remote con trol capabi li ty
allows the instructor to operate
t.he HI-THAN SIX from his desk and
from any other posi tion in the
classroom, and to face the class
whi II! operating the system. In addIlIon, all registers in the comPll ter cnn be loaded octally from
t.he keyboard.

Two control keys permi t the
instructor to perform mathematical
operations wi thout a stored program
and to give an effecti ve demonstraI ion of binary ari thmetic.
They
also simplify setting up ei ther
mnnual or external I/O operations,
reduce initial programming time
requirements and allow more effec-

Serial binary operations which
can be performed include shifting,
addition and accumulation, ones
and twos complementation, subtraction using ei ther form of complement, multiplication by successive
addi tion or by add and shift, and
division by successive subtraction.

printed circui t board, measuring
less than 7/10th of an inch.
The
overall lK x 8-bit system occupies
300 cubic inches compared with 400
cubic inches for the 4K x 8 version.

The simpli ci ty of the equipment is said to make it a valuable
visual aid for lecturers demonstrating computer arithmetic processes.
The routing needed to perform a
specific operation is constructed
wi th only two or three patched connections, and ini tial digi ts can
be introduced into the registers
by manual input and shift manipulation.
The required operation
then can be performed by ei ther
manual keying in a step-by-step
manner, or use of the pulse dial,
or the pulse generator.
Fullyautomati c operation can be demonstrated on the programmed pulse
counter.
The instruction manual carries
background information on computer
ari thmetic and forms the basis of
a number of laboratory exerci ses.
The OCT 350 costs $2105 to customer
FOB New Jersey.
(For more information, designate
USI on the Reader Service Card.)

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

The company will also make
available a "field expansion kit",
whi ch wi 11 permi t a l K x 8-bi t
MICROMEMORY System to be converted
to a 4K x 8-bi t system by the user.
(For more information, designate
+1:47 on the Reader Service Card.)

SDS RAPID ACCESS
DA TA STORAGE SYSTEM

Scientific Data Systems, Spnta
Monica, Calif., has introduced a
new extended-performance Rapid Access Data (RAD) disc file storage
system for use with SDS Sigma computers.
The new RAD, Model 7231/
7232, has a storage capaci ty of 6
mi llion bytes, wi th data transfer
rates of up to 384,000 bytes per
second. The Model 7231 RAD controller controls up to four Model
7232 RAD storage uni ts, providing
a maximum storage capacity of 25
million bytes per controller. The

61

Newsletter
system is applicable to a wide
range of real-time and batch processing tasks.
Average access time to any
segment of the disc file system is
17 milliseconds. Use of one fixed
read/wri te head per data track in
the RAD storage uni t completely
elimin?tes head-posi tioning delays,
permi t ting much faster accessing
than is possible with moveable-arm
disc files. For protection of res tri cted areas of the file, each
7232 storage uni t contains 16 wri te
lockout swi tches. Each swi tch locks
out 32 data tracks.
(For more information, designate
+1:50 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES
FROM INFOTECHNICS INC.
Infotechnics, Inc., Van Nuys,
Calif., has announced a new series
of inexpensive, random access computer or video memories using ei ther
rigid or flexible magnetic disc as
a storage medium.
MDM-Z Series
are modular designs using a single
disc encased in a protective cassette which also serves as an interchangeable loading cartridge.
Both disc surfaces are used at once
by uti li zi ng two groups of independently moving magnetic transducers, one servicing the upper disc
surface and the other the lower.
All machines in the series are
provided in the form of a desk-top
cabinet (23.5"Lx 21.2" W x 10" H)
and include the following: 0) a
disc handling mechanism, a cassette
loading frame, and a synchronous

ei ther card or paper tape and the
program is available for systems
without mass memory.
(For more information, designate
+1:51 on the Reader Service Card.)

The machines record in serial
mode, and they use the self clocking
Manchester 1 code.
A maximum of
128 tracks on each disc surface is
used. Each head carries its individual preamplifier, which provides
a satisfactory signal level before
any degradation occurs.
(For more information, designate
+1:46 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

COMPREHENSIVE PAYROLL ACCOUNTING
SYSTEM (CPACS) / General Electric
Co., Phoenix, Ariz. / CPACS comprises a series of computer programs that operate wi th any GE-400
computer system configuration including a central processor with
16,OOO-word memory; card reader;
card punch; magneti c tape subsystem with five tape handlers; and
high-speed printer and console
typewriter.
The automated payroll processing systems operations
range from paycheck disbursement
to tax deductions to commission
payments to accruing of employee
benefi ts. CPACS wi 11 process the
complete payroll of a geographi cally centralized or decentralized
organization of 1,000 or more
employees.
(For more information, designate
+1:52 on the Reader Service Card.)

NEW 256·BIT READ·ONL Y MEMORY
BY NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR
A monoli thic, 256-bi t Read Only
Memory has been added to National
Semi conductor Corporation's line of
MOS memories.
The device, designated the MM420, contains all of
the control logi c and the memory on
the same chip and is packaged in 8
lead TO-5 configuration. Included
on the chip are the counter decoder,
address logic and the sense amplifier. An end of sequence output is
provided to allow expanding of the
seria'l bi t length wi thout using
external components.

FIXED ASSET ACCOUNTING / Ameri can
Software & Computer Co., Atlanta,
Ga. / This COBOL system is designed for the IBM System/360,
Model 30, with 32K using tape or
disc DOS, and the Honeywell H-200
wi th 24K. The package calculates
depreciation, investment tax credit allowance, and tax recapture,
providing information for both
corporate reporting and government
tax use; it permits selection of
five depreciation methods as well
as producing a proj ected depreciation schedule, a property listing, and additional financial
information.
(For more information, designate
+1:53 on the Reader Service Card.)

The memory array Read Only
characteristic is achieved by programming the metalization pattern
during fabri cation of the devi ce.
In operation, the memory functions
as a serial, monolithic readout.
The MM420 is suited for character generators; read only drum
type memories, micro programming
for control and operating programs,
and memory systems that are completely interrogated on command.
(For more information, designate
+1:49 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

Software

motor wi th a quick stopping electric brake; (2) from 1 to 4 random
access prime movers each handling
one head according to the Z designation; (3) all necessary power
supplies required for the posi tioners and the information handling
electroni cs; and (4) all electroni c
circuits servIcIng independently
each head, and all solenoid driving
ampli fi ers.

62

AUTOSCAN/LOG / Programming Services, Inc., Woodland Hills, Calif. /
This proprietary software package is designed to automatically
generate "on-line" computer programs in the process control
field.
AUTOSCAN/LOG is written
in assembly language for user's
computer.
The program is used
for the following data acquisition functions;
analog inputs;
pulse signals read from external
registers or counter; synchronous
inputs; asynchronous inputs; and
interfaces with any other system
function such as 'closed-loop regulation.
Memory requirements
for a 16-bi t machine are about
5500 words for a 100 vari able
input list. I/O requirements are

MAGIC / Information Managemen t Inc. ,
San Francisco, Calif. / This new
aid for the COBOL programmer runs
on System/360 comput ers under DOS
or OS on as little as a 32K-byte
configuration.
MAGIC produces
full formatted COBOL source programs from user defined abbreviations.
During this process,
MAGIC also acts as a standards
enforcer by prohibiting or flagging all non-allowed elements
and performs syntax checking 011
each statement. Abbreviation expansion, program formatting, subset enforcement and syntax checking are provided in combination
within a single execution.
(For more information, designate
+1:54 on the Reader Service Card.)
PAYROLL SOFTWARE SYSTEM / American
Software & Computer Co., Atlanta,
Ga. / This software package, wri t-

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 19GH

Newsletter
ten in COBOL, is designed for an

onstration and a user's manual
for reference.
(For more information, designate
~57 on the Reader Service Card.)

1m! Sys tern 360 wi th 65K under DOS

or OS. It features 50 state accounting, sequential cost allocation, multiple deductions, multicompany (5 levels) accounting,
and personnel records. Federal,
s ta te, and ci ty taxes are compiled
for quarterly 941-A reporting.
It handles hourly, salary, overtime, commissions, bonuses, and
advances. Employees may be paid
by cash or check wi th a payroll
statement issued for cash payments.
Deposi t slips can be provided
where direct employee deposi ts
are made to a bank.
Personnel
record is provided which includes
job classification and other personnel information.
(For more information, designate
u55 on the Reader Service Card.)
PERSONAL TRUST ACCOUNTING SYSTEM /
Aries Corp., McLean, Va. / Developed in conj unction wi th Union
Trus t Company of Maryland, the
system is designed for effective
and efficient management of personal trust accounts by providing data needed by Trust Officers
and customers. It is written in
COBOL and is des igned to become
part of a complete bank Central
Information File with remote inquiry terminals, or to stand
alone as an operating enti ty.
TIIi s package presents information
in over sixty report formats, contains eight master files and has
standard formatted transactions.
In t erest and dividend transactions
ar(~ venera ted
au tOlna tically for
post ing when due.
Most reports
:)f(! prepared
au tomati cally, but
many can also be produced on request.
The system is priced at
$35,000, without major mOdification.
(For more information, designate
u56 on the Reader Service Card.)

RENTAL SYSTEM / Computer Radix
Corp., New York, N.Y. / RENTAL
SYSTEM handles real estate accounts receivable, processing the
invoices and payments of commercial tenants, residential tenants,
and/or mortgages at an unlimited
number of properties.
The procedures involved in the operation
of this sys tern include: the creation and maintenance of a master
file, the gathering and tabulating
of billing information, the computation and recording of amounts
due, the allocation and posting
of amounts paid, and the preparation of listings for reference
and control purposes. As a package, the sys tern wi 11 consi s t of
six main-line programs, one preparatory program, two auxiliary
programs, and three utility programs.
"
(For more information, designate
u58 on the Reader Service Card;)
SSTPAC (a stand alone diagnostic.
moni tor system) / Programming Sciences Cor~, New York Cit~ N.Y. /
SSTPAC, written for the IBM System/360, will provide full online diagnostic services for any
device capable of operating with
a System/360. Originally developed for use wi th alpha-numeri c
CRT display terminals, SSTPAC has
been generalized for use wi th
disc or tape drives, printers,
plotters, optical or film scanners, audio response uni ts and
all other Sys tem/360 compatible
devices.
(For more information, des)gnate
u59 on the Reader Service Card.)

POLE (Public Opinion Logi cal Expectation) / Economatics, Pasadena, CaliL / Sales of a particular i tern now can be forecast wi th
a vreater degree of accuracy using the new proprietary package,
POLE. POLE will analyze the returns of a public opinion poll
tnken on a new product and comput.e the mInImum and maximum
sales that can be expected.
If
the polling terri tory is divided
into segments, POLE also will
predict sales for each segment
and time period during which the
volume, or lack of it, can be expected. The"program is written
in FOHTRAN IV and can be used on
:lny second or thi rd generation
computer. The cost is $4,000 and
includes the FORTRAN deck, a dem-

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

THREE-D SYSTEM / Californi a Compu ter
Products, Inc., Anaheim, Calif. /
The software system allows a computer user to produce perspective
drawings of surfaces, "walk around"
a surface in successi ve drawings,
generate stereoscopic view of a
surface and, wi th the CalComp
Model 835 microfilm plotter, produce animated films automatically. The THREE-D software package is a set of FORTRAN subroutines designed for use wi th any
CalComp plotting system to draw
three-dimensional views of any
surface that can be expressed as
a single-value function of two
variables. THREE-D is compatible
wi th anyon-line or off-line CalComp plotting system and wi th any
digi tal computer using the FORTRAN
IV language. It is available for
a one-time lease charge of $3,000.
(For more information, designate
u60 on the Reader Service Card.)

COR R E C T ION
The Software section of our August 1968 issue contained an announcement of SIM 1401 available
from Datamation Services, Inc.
The addres s was shown as Lynbrook,
N.Y. The correct address is New
York, N.Y.

Peripheral Equipment

XEROX PHONE DEVICE
WORKS AFTER HOURS

Xerox Corporation, Rochester,
N.Y., expects to begin deliveries
thi s fall of a new model of its
Telecopier.
The Xerox Telecopier
is a transceiver that can send and
recei ve an exact dupli cate of any
document printed, sketched or
photographed - across a continent
or a corridor over ordinary telephones. The new model - Telecopier
II - when equipped wi th the new
accessory devices, will receive
8~ x 11 inch documents over an unattended telephone. "
Accessories available for the
Telecopier II, shown in the pi cture,
permit unattended reception,bridging communications gaps caused by
time-zone differences and other
after-hours situations. When used

wi th a Bell Sys tern Dataphone, Telecopier II can receive transmission
calls automatically and turn on the
machine. A new accessory, the Xerox
roll feed, will supply paper and
carbon for as many as 200 documents.
Also available for Telecopier
II wi 11 be a Xerox da ta set adapter.
This device insures that an unattended receiving uni t "hangs up"
at the close of a transmission call.
It is provided for parts of the
country where telephone company
equipment doesn't accomplish this
automatically,
(For more information, designate
u63 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

63

Newsletter
DOCUMENT READER-SORTER
ESPECIALLY FOR BANKERS

A low-cost document readersorter for banks has been adaed to
the computer product line by Honeywell's Electronic Data Processing
Division, Wellesley Hills, Mass.
The device reads magnetic inkencoded documents at speeds up to
600 documents per minute and sorts
them into 11 different pockets (10
accept and one rej ect). The devi ce,
called the Type 232 MICR ReaderSorter, can be operated as a frees tanding, uni t or on-line to any
Series 200 compute~ including Honeywell's small-scale Model 110 system. The
232 reader sorter wi 11
be available in January.
(For more information, designate
1+-69 on the Reader Service Card.)

NEW TRANSLATOR CAN
LINK COMPUTERS AND ANY
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

Model 180 Master Translator
units, developed by Advanced Space
Age Products, Inc., Alexandria, Va. ,
can link computers and/or any automated,tape operated, coded communications network regardless of
make or model of the machines speed differentials - network size
- ' or types of tapes.
The Translators can be incorporated into
direct-wired local networks, or
with national/international operations using Bell system and interconnected communications services.
The Model 180 covers the entire
spectrum from punched to magnetic
tapes, and can trans late between
modes at speeds up to 50,000 characters/second.
As an assembly of solid-state,
plug-in, etched circui t modules,
Master Translators can be customized to serve any specific network
requirement ••. modules may be added
or changed at any time to accommodate changing requirements. No additional test equipment is required
as every Model 180 has its own ~n­
tegral system to check out uni t
operation.
(For more information, designa"te
1+70 on the Reader Service Card.)

STROMBERG DATAGRAPHICS
SD 4360 PRINTER

A 7,0001ine-a-minute computer
printer is available from Stromberg
Datagraphics, Inc. (a subsidiary of
General Dynamics), San Diego, Calif.
The printer, called SD 4360, is
compatible with most existing com-

64

DATA INTERFACE CORPORATION
ANNOUNCES PLOTTER TERMINAL
FOR TIME-SHARE USERS

puter - generated magnetic tapes,
including third generation systems.
Using a non-impact printing technique, it translates digital computer data into readable text and
displays it on the face of a CHARACTRON® Shaped Beam Tube where it
is photographed on film.

A low-cost digi tal plotter for
time-share users, by the Data In terface Corporation of Tarzana, Cali f. ,
provides software convenience not
always available in more expensive
conventional plotters.
The Data
Interface Plotter Terminal, designated the Model PT-l, is completely
compatible with any Teletype terminal and its Data Set or telephone
coupler.

The SD 4360 records letters,
numbers and symbols at rates up to
30,000 per second. Business forms
or other fixed images can be merged
wi th the computer data to eliminate
costly preprinted forms. Information is recorded in standard co'llputer page format of 132 characters
per line and 64 lines to the page
a t a throughpu t ra te of 120 pages
a minute.

The PT-l provides software convenience because it plots data while
the data is printed on the user's
time-sharing Teletype terminal. The
X and Y data to be plotted is simply scaled to provide the desired
plot size, and is then printed in
columnar format.
Thus, plotting
can be done in any time-sharing
language which has a columnar format
capability. When used with an ASR
Teletype, the Teletype can be used
to capture plot-control printout data
on paper tape, so that plots can
be duplicated off-line.
(For more information, designate
1+-65 on the Reader Service Card.)

The printer, operating offline from a tape station, requires
only simple, straight forward programming.
Interfaces, input signals and formats, programming, operating procedures and printed output follow standard EDP practices.
(For ,more information, designate
1+62 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

ONE COMPUTER
TALKS TO ANOTHER
WITH DATAMETRICS' COUPLER
NEW X-Y RECORDER
BY HONEYWELL

A new series of intercomputer
couplers, from Datametrics Corp. i
Van Nuys, Calif., now permit various models of the Univac Computer
to "talk" to 13M 360 Computers wi th
both alphanumeric and binary data.
The maximum transfer rate is approximately 330,000 bytes per second.
The various models include:
Univac 418, 418II, 418III, 491,
492, 494 and 1108 and IBM System/
360 Models 30 through 75.
The coupler houses the control logic for communication between computers. In the idle condi tion, the coupler continuously
searches for an initiating command
from either computer. When such a
signal is received, the command
(wri te) is stored in a command buffer register. The coupler then determines the availabili ty of the
other computer to receive data. If
there is an accommodation, the
coupler requests an output word
from the initiating compute~' Upon
acceptance of the output word by
the coupler, the data is stored in
a holding register.
When the re-ceiving computer is capable of accepting data, the coupler control
logic gates the data on to the I/O
bus lines.
Software is available
for a wide variety of appli cations.
(For more information, designate
1+-66 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

An X-Y recorder designed to
display low-level data signals for
industrial, medi cal and general
laboratory use has been introduced
by Honeywell's Test Instruments Division, Denver, Colo.
The MOdel
53,0 X-Y recorder records (on ei ther
8t x 11 inch or 11 x 17 inch paper)
cartesian coordinate graphs of the
relationship between two functions
of DC or slowing changing AC voltages, or one of these functions
as it varies with respect to time.

Listed features include true
differential input, common mode
rej ection, high speed, time base
(Model 530T) and computer rE::ference
optional capability. Model 530 is
said to incorporate design and op-

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 196H

Newsletter
plification circui ts. Service life
is bearing-limited, and approaches
the one-billion revolution, 1,000
rpm life of present Librascope magnetic shaft encoders.

erational features that permit excellen t recordings by non-techni cal,
minimum-trained personnel.
The recorder weighs 27 pounds
and is avai lable for deli very wi thin 60 to 90 days after receipt of
order, Honeywell said.
(For more information, designate
n60 on the Reader Service Card.)

The indus tri al Model 9623-23-1,
size 23, optical encoder has easily
replaceable fi lamen t emi t ters derated for service life in excess of
50,000 hours.
It is designed for
use wi th point-to-point numeri cal
control systems and for digi tal
shaft position readout systems.
(For more information, designate
n73 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

NEW DATACOUPLER LINKS ANY
DIGITAL TAPE RECORDER TO
ANY SIGNAL SOURCE

A new and versatile datacoupler,
from Datatron, Inc. of Santa Ana,
Calif., provides the user with extensive data acquisi tion and reduction capabili ty at moderate cost.
When equipped wi th one or more of
its many options, the Model 1000
Datacoupler links any digital tape
recorder in record or playback mode
wi th mul ti channel analog or digi tal
sources, computers, telephone data
sets and teletype equipment.

"MIDGI-COUNTER", SMALLEST
DECADE COUNTER, BY
PIN LITES INC.

Pinli tes lIlC.' s newest contribution to the field of digi tal display systems is the MIDGI-COUNTER,
companion to the Fairchild, N.J.
firm's recently announced MidgiCoder.
This new miniature decade
counter can count at rates up to
10 MHz. ATTL data pulse is counted
and converted to seven segmen t code
using integrated circui try.
The
uni t is capable of driving any of
the firm's standard readouts (MidgiLi tes®). Both mili tary and commercial versions are available and
are designed for 5 volt operation.
(For more information, designate
n72 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

Other options permit performance of data reduction tasks, such
as automatic tape search, input of
selected data to computers or printers, or data conversion for quicklook oscillographic display. Most
options consist simply of one or
morc printed-circuit cards.
Provisions wi thin the basic uni tallow
for insertion of up to 18 printedcircuit option cards.
Each basic Model 1000 contains
necessary timing, control and interface logic fordirect entry into
a customer-specified tape recorder,
plus a power supply suffi cient to
drive a full quota of options.
(For more information, designate
n64 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

Components

LIBRASCOPE'S NEW
OPTICAL SHAFT ENCODERS

Two new opti cal encoders
one a Mil-Spec model, the other an
industrial model - have been introduced by Librascope Group of General
Precision Systems Inc., in Glendale,
Calif.
The new optical encoders
nre incremental types providing
2,000 counts per shaft revolution.
The Mil-Spec size 11, Model
')623-11-1 is a gallium arsenide
infrared optical encoder wi th internal thresholding and signal am-

CHARTPAPER FOR DIGITAL
INCREMENTAL PLOTTERS
BY CALMA COMPANY

CALMA Company, Santa Clara,
Calif., has introduced a complete
line of precision chartpaper for
digi tal incremental plotters. CALMA
precision chartpaper is available
in 12-inch and 31 inch widths. In
addi tion to the standard types in
stoc~ CALMA offers 30-day delivery
on special grid patterns, colors
and base materials.
(For more information, des ignate
n74 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

MAGNETIC "FLOW CHART" KITS
BY NATIONAL CYBERNETICS

A new control boards programming ki t, for flow-charting, has
been placed on the market by CYBERCHART Division of the National Cybernetics Corp., Westbury, N.Y.
Designed specifically for desk use,
the CYBER-CHART "Flow Chart" ki ts
contain a new special marking pen
and eradicator fluid in addi tion to
a lightweight metal chalk board and
a complete assortment of magnetic

Data Processing Accessories

COMPUTER ROOM PAPER SHREDDER

The Shredmaster Conveyor-400,
manufactured by Shredmaster Corp.,
Freeport, N.Y., is a cl~an, efficient way to destroy obsolete computer print-outs· (in ei ther batch
or continuous forms), IBM cards
and tab cards. Wi th it's fast moving conveyor bel t feed, the Conveyor400 can shred up to 2500 pounds of
paper pe'r hour. It al so can des troy
books, magazines, plastic cards,
aluminum duplicating plates, even
entire files of old records while
the contents are still in their
file folders. The shreds are caught
in a large, dust-free disposable
plastic bag at the rear of the
machi ne.
The Conveyor-400 has
heavy du ty cas ter whi ch allow the
machine to be moved to areas where
it is needed.
(For more information, designate
ft:76 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 196$

RANDOLPH
COMPUTER
CORPORATION
Pan-Am Building

New York, N. Y.10017

Offering

Short Term
Operating Leases for
IBM 3SD Equipment
and
A Complete Range of
Data Processing ServlceB
Through
Randolph Data Services, Inc.
(United Data Processing Division)

65

Newsletter
flowcharting symbols in the uni versally adopted American Standards Association shapes.
(For more information, designate
1+77 on the Reader Servi ce Card.)

COMPUTER RELATED SERVICES

BOWLERS' SCORES IN SIX STATES
TO BE COMPILED BY COMPUTER

This season, the performances
of 150.000 bowlers comprising 3,000
leagues in six states are being
compiled and updated every week by
a computer at the offices of the
new Ameri can Bowling Compu ter Service, Inc., (ABCSI), Crawfordsville,
Inc. The computer, an IBM System/
360 Model 30, figures individual
averages and handi caps and team
averages and standings, as well as
listing team and individual high
game and series.
The firm supplies participating leagues wi th pre-printed team
record forms each week.
After
bowling, the participants fill in
thei r own scores and submi t them to
the league secretaries who have
only to return the forms to ABCSI
in pre-addressed envelopes.
When
the completed forms are received
by the firm, they are run through
an IBM 1287 optical reader, which
scans the hand-printed entries, and
feeds the information directly into
the computer.
Woodson (Bud) Hobbs, ABCSI
president, said the cost of the
servi ce is eight cents per bowler
per night. Thus, a 10-team league
with five-man teams would pay four
dollars per week.
Mr. Hobbs predicts that his operation will be
servicing 500,000 bowlers in 10,000
leagues by January
a third of
the potential customers in the
Indiana-Illinois-Wiscosin-MichiganOhio-Kentucky area. He said ABCSI
hopes to eventually expand its operations north to Toronto, west to
Kansas Ci ty, eas t to Pi t tsburgh,
and south to North Carolina.

AGRICULTURAL ADVISORY SERVICE
AIDS FARMER AND HIS SUPPLIERS

Doane Agricultural Service,
Inc., St. Louis, Mo., has assembled
an 8,000--farmer survey panel, its
farm management team and an IBM
System/360 to advise agri-industry
of equipment and chemical products
wanted by farmers in coming months,

66

programmers, Tymshare has extended
the command power and versatili ty
of FORTRAN IV & II, EDITOR, and
other conversational
languages.
Pre-stored applications packages
are avai lable for design, civil
engineering, numerical control, and
simulation.

and to help farmers improve productivity.
The IBM System/360 Model
30 will be used to analyze historical and current data to provide
meaningful information on current
and proj ected agri cuI tural needs as
well as market forecasts.
H. G. E. Fick, president of
Doane's said that many of the nations major farm equipment and
chemical manufacturers make use of
computer-based analysis for marketing plans.
Doane reports current
farm needs and assesses the probable reception which new products
would receive based on responses
by its nationwide panel. The surveys also 'help determine the demand
among farmers for products not yet
on the market.

NCR OPENS TIME-SHARING
DATA CENTER IN MONTREAL

Three of Canada's largest financial institutions are among the
initial users of th~ National Cash
Register Company's new time-sharing
data center which opened last month
in Montreal, Quebec. This new NCR
time-sharing center is the company's
first on-line service in Canada.
It replaces a downtown facility
whi ch has been handling off-line
processing only.

To aid the individual farmer
the System/360 soon will be applied
to helping determine the most profi table use of land, labor, li vestock, capi tal and machinery. Farmers planning their next crops already benefit from Doane's computerized profections of market demands and price levels.
The firm will also offer enterprise accounting which will provide farmers wi th uni t costs of
producing crops
and livestock.
These cos ts will be analyzed to
assist farm managers in making management decisions.

The new cente~ in addition to
offering on-line data processing
to financial insti tutions in Montreal and Toronto, also will provide off-line processing for a wide
range of businesses.
The center
has three NCR 315 computer systems
and other electronic equipment wi th
a total value of approximately $2
million.

E.L.I. INDUSTRIES, INC.
FORMS NEW SUBSIDIARYE.L.1. COMPUTER TIME SHARING

TIME-SHARING SERVICES

TYMSHARE, INC. OPENS
NEW FACILITY IN SEATTLE

Tymshare Inc. has announced a
new conversational computer service
in Seattle to serve the Washington,
Oregon, and grea ter Northwes tern
region. T. J. O'Rourke, president,
reports this is the first in a series of new district offices Tymshare will open. Tymshare, within
the last three years. has developed
a nationwide network of computer
centers providing over 2500 on-line
users with immediate access to
third-generation computers.
Tymshare has created a complete spectrum of conversational
languages. The Seattle office will
provide the first demonstration in
the Northwest of the firm's new
Super BASIC, a language incorporating the power of FORTRAN ann the
simpli ci ty of the widel y-ul'!cd BASIC
interpretive language.
For engineers, scientists, and professional

Organization of E.L.I. Computer
Time Sharing, Inc. (East Paterson.
N.J.) as a new subsidiary of E.L.I.
Industries, Inc., has been announced
by Leonard .Sandberg, President and
Chairman of the Board ofE.L.r. Industries.
At the same time, Mr.
Sandberg announced that E.L.I. Computer Time Sharing is headed by
President Leonard A•. Kreuter.
lie
will direct the subsidiary's movement into mathematical and commercial time-sharing services for business, industry and others.

MEETING NEWS

THE LAW OF SOFTWARE1 ST ANNUAL CONFERENCE

The Computers-in-Law Ins ti tu te
of The George Washington Uni versi ty
has scheduled a conference on "The
Law of Software" to be held in Washington, D.C., October 22 and 23.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Newsletter
Conference sessions will include:
The Business Outlook; The Patent
Outlook; The Copyright Outlook; and
The Antitrust Outlook.
The American Patent Law Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Data Processing Management Association are cosponsoring this first annual event.
Registration forms and addi tional
information may be obtained from:
Computers -in- Law Insti tute, The
George Washington Universit~ Bacon
Hall, 2000 H St.,N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20006.

sion (FCC). AT&T's earlier request
that the FCC reconsider its decision
relative to the foreign attachments
tariff was rej ected. The FCC ruling
provides that the old tariff will,
however, continue in force until
Nov. 1, when a new tariff presumably wil~ replace it.
AT&T's new proposals would allow more customer-provided equipment to be connected to the telephone network.
Perhaps the most
significant change in the new proposals is an optional arrangement
for connection of customer data
terminal equipment.
At present,
such connections are made through
the company's Data-Phone data sets.

ORGANIZATION NEWS

NEW PROPOSALS FILED
BY AT&T WITH FEDERAL
COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Ameri can Telephone and Telegraph Co. (AT&T) has submi t ted new,
liberalized tariff regulations to
the Federal Communications Commis-

Under the new prov is i on, the
customer would have a choice of using his equipment to do the modulating and demodulating or using the
Data-Phone data sets.
Should he
choose to use his own equipment, it
would be connected to the terminals
of the network control uni t through
a telephone company-provided protective device which would limit sig. nal levels. Charges for this device
I would probably be about $2 a month.

LEVER BROTHERS FORMING
DATA PROCESSING SUBSIDIARY

Lever Brothers Co. of New York
is forming a subsidiar~ Lever Data
Processing Services, Inc. Headed by
R. W. McGeary, the company will offer computer time sales, service bureau operations, consulting and recruiting, software and application
development, and educational programs.
SWEN A. LARSEN, FORMER
CONTROL DATA EXECUTIVE,
FORMS NEW COMPUTER FIRM

A new organization, Computer
Fairfax, Va., has
recently entered the computer education field. According to Swen A.
Larsen, Pres., the company wi 11 provide training and services to computer users and manufacturers; establish resident schools in many
areas, for training in various computer skills; and develop and market
products and services related to the
fields of Training, Information Handling and Computing.
The first
school will open this month in
Fairfax.
Age Industries,

FINANCIAL AND BUSINESS NEWS
Box Score of Sales & Income for Computer Field Firms

C&A presents below comparative operating results
for firms of interest to computer people, as distilled from the latest group of news releases.
COMPANY

PERIOD

SALES
Current Period
Previous Period

Analysts Internationa 1 Corp. (AIC),
Minnea~olis, Minn.
Beckman Instrument~
Inc. , Fullerton,
Calif.
California Computer
Products, Inc. ,
Anaheim. Calif.
Data ProcesSing Financial & General
CorQ .• New York l N.Y.
Datatronic Rental
Corp. , Chicago,
Ill.
Lear Siegle.r, Inc. ,
Santa Monica,
Cnlif •
Optical Scanning
Corp., Newtown, Pal

Year ended
June 30, 1968

~112331000

~130.315.880

$129,854,364

Year ended
June 30, 1968

$11 ,381,000

Year ended
June 30, 1968

(%)
(+84%)

$670,000

Year ended
June 30, 1968

Year ended
May 31, 1968

NET INCOME

~16.648.000

~171370.032

(-32%)

(+4.6%)

$1,209,000
$1,156,000

(+4.5%)

(+264%)

$3.786,252
$1,727,459

(+119%)

(+265%)

$173.289
$70,155

(+149%)

(+15%)

~18. 033 1081

(+18%)

(+111%)

$583,582
$193,488

(+202%)

(+19%)

$1,364,832
$1,126,644

(+21%)

~131059.000

(-48%)

Year ended
June 30, 1968

$416,346,353

Year ended
June 30, 1968

$2,661,984

Planning Research
Corp., Los Angeles. Cnl if.
SCM Corporation,
New York, N.Y.

Year ended
June 30, 1968

$19,660,295

Year ended
June 30, 1968

F44,758,000
$705,160,000

(+6%)

Systems Engineering
Laboratories, Ft.
Lauderdale, Fla.

Year ended
June 28, 1968

~12.032,000

(+49%)

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

~51620.960

~231435.008

$8,027,000

(Loss)

$4.155.610
$6,088,446

$388,363
~477.545.774

NOTES
(%)

(+1.1%)

$4,774,592
~1.404.873

Current Period
Previous Period
$89,000
$169,000

Sales and earnings below original expectations due to severe cutbacks in governmentsQonsored research Qrograms

$15,272,629

Company entered fiscal 1969
wi th highest backlog of orders
in iis history
Figures adj usted for "pooling
of interest"; exclude 2 most
recent acguisitions

$25,076,000
$1,002 1000
$304,000

(+229%)

67

NEW CONTRACTS
Federal Electric Corporation (FEC), worldwide service
associate of ITT
Northrop Corp., Beverly Hills,
Calif.
RCA Defense Communications
Systems Division, Camden, N.J.
Burroughs Corp., Defense,
Space and Special Systems
Group, Paoli, Pa.
Bryant Computer Products,
a division of Ex-Cell-O
Corp., Walled Lake, Mich.
Sylvania Electric Products,
Inc., a GT&E subsidiary,
Waltham Mass.
Bristol Company, Waterbury,
Conn.
Sylvania Electric Products,
Inc., a GT&E subsidiary,
Waltham, Mass.
Radiation Inc., Melbourne,
Fla.
Computing and Software, Inc.,
Panorama City, Calif.

U.S. Air Force
Lockheed Missiles and Space
Company, Sunnyvale, Calif.
Western Union
Naval Ordnance Systems Command

$16 million
$14.5 million
$6.9 million

Purchase of Bryant memory systems

over $4.3 million

Naval Ship Systems Command

An addition to an existing contract for
computers that will integrate tactical
data aboard U.S. warshi s
A complete computer-based data acquisition
and supervisory control system for firm's
gas pipeline system
Construction of a tactical transportable
electronic dial telephone central office

$3.3 million

Development of the Command Subsystem Group
(CSG) for the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Program
Specialized data processing services at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. and the Langley Research
Center, Hampton, Va.
A Videofile information system to automate
the filing and retrieval of insurance
policy documents
Seven SEL 840MP Computers which will be
used to control training devices
Mobile Target Tracking Systems

$1.8 million

Design, development, fabrication, testing
and evaluation of an integrated circuit
random access distributed data gathering
system
A digital seismic processing system; it
will be used by the firm to provide complete
seismic data processing services to geophysical contractors and petrolelim companies
Development of computer programs required
for an automatic system which tests aircraft electronic equipment
A study of 1968 automobile accidents in
New York State which will investigate the
relationship of auto design-to the incidence and severity of auto accidents
A Control Data 6500 computer system to replace four computer units currently in use at
Fort Huachuca, Ariz. TheCDC 6500 will help
maintain and control STRATCOM's world-wide
communications network and also will perform
data processing applications for proving
ground, garri son and tenant uni ts at Fort
Huachuca and Federal offices in the area
Sixteen SDS Sigma 5 computers and related
equipment; the computers serve as a key element in the 2F90 flight trainers Goodyear is
building for the Naval Training Device Center
Development and installation of a large, fourth
generation, time-sharing-oriented computer
system for centers across the nation; first
system would be installed in Los Angeles in
December with an unspecified number of others
to follow in 7 other cities
L5l6M disc memories scheduled for Navy
shipboard use

$793,279

Algonquin Gas Transmission Co.,
Boston, Mass.
U.S. Marine Corps
Douglas Missile and Space Systems Division of McDonnell
Douglas Corp.
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
American Republic Insurance Co.

Systems Engineering Laboratories, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
EPSCO, Inc., Westwood, Mass.

Boeing Company, Seattle, Wash.

General Instrument Corp.,
Hicksville, N.Y.

Japanese Government -- the
Japanese Ground Self-Defense
Force, and the Maritime SelfDefense Force
NASA, Marshall Space Flight
Center

EMR Computer, Minneapolis,
Minn.

Digitech, Ltd., Calgary,
Canada

Computer Sciences Corp., Los
Angeles, Calif.

Emerson Electric Co., St.
Louis, Mo.

Computer Applications Inc.,
New York, N.Y.

New York State

Control Data Corp., Minneapolis, Minn.

U.S. Army Strategic Communications Command (STRATCOM)

Goodyear Aerospace Corp.

Scientific Data Systems,
Santa Monica, Calif.

Call-A-Computer, Raleigh, N.C.

Standard Computer Corp.,
Santa Ana, Calif.

General Precision Systems Inc.,
Librascope Group, Glendale,
Calif .
Planning Research Corp., Los
Angeles, Calif.

North American Rockwell Corp.
(NAR) , Columbus, Ohio

68

$28,380,570

Scientific Control Corp., Dallas, Texas

Ampex Corporation, Redwood
Ci ty, Calif.

Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.,
a division of Lockheed Aircraft Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif.

Continued operation and maintenance of
the Air Force Western Test Range's technical facilities
Automatic test and readiness equipment for
the U.S. Navy Poseidon missile system
Development of new equipment for modernization of the Defense Department's AUTODIN Communications Network
Electronic devices

Quinton Engineers, Ltd.
State of Minnesota

1,929,000
$1.9 million

over $1.5 million

$1.3 million
$1,260,000
$1,220,000

over $500,000

over $500,000
$300,000

A forecast of aviation activities to be
used as a basis for Quinton1s design of
the Long Beach Airport Master Plan
Help in designing an information system to
aid in planning the administration of
criminal justice
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 19GB

NEW INSTALLAYIONS
Burroughs B300 system

Second National Bank, Ashland, Ky.
Associated Data Services, Inc.,
Naperville, Ill.

Burroughs B340 system

Capitol Bank and Trust of Springfield, Ill.

Burroughs B3500 system

Electronic Processors of Birmingham, Ala.

Control Data 3300 system

University of Arkansas Medical Center, Little Rock, Ark.

Control Data 6000 system

United Computing Systems, Inc., a
subsidiary of Uni ted Utili ties, Inc.,
Kansas City, Mo.
First National City Bank, New York,
N.Y.

Digital Equipment PDP-IO system

EMR 6130 system
GE-635 system
Honeywell Model 120 system
Honeywell Model 200 system
IBM System/360 Model 20
IBM System/360 Model 40
NCR 500 system

RCA Spectra 70/35 system
RCA Spectra 70/45 system
RCA Spectra 70/55 system
SDS Sigma 7 system

UNIVAC 1107 system

UNIVAC 9200 system

UNIVAC 9300 system

UNIVAC 9400 system

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

Automating banking operations such as checking
accounts, savings accounts, installment loans, etc.
(system valued at over $400,000)
Demand deposit accounting, savings, installment
loans, and various customer services
(system valued at over $400,000)
,
Automating bank's proof and transit, demand deposit,
and savings and installment loan operations
(system valued at over $180,000)
A variety of f~nctions including demand deposit accounting, billing, inventory control, payroll, automated mailings and sales analysis
(system valued at almost $1 million)
New techniques in patient care and hospital management; also medical research and routine business
data processing applications
Expanding commercial time-sharing services on a
toll-free basis throughout the nation

Helping solve operations research and problems of
an analytic nature such as: bidding on bond issues
and determination of bond coupon schedules: analysis
of industries , etc. , to aid in investment deci sions
Parke, Davis & Company, Ann Arbor,
Real-time access for personnel from individual laboratories for monitoring experiments on an aroundMich.
the-clock basis
Use as the hub of a complex data handling system
Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air
designed to use on-line visual display consoles
Force Base
(system valued at $4 million)
Inventory, accounting and sales analysis; a comWatkins Products, Inc., Winona,
plete inventory and manufacturing control system
Minn.
will be developed
Eureka Williams Co. , Bloomington, Ill. General accounting, payrOll and market analysis
Golden Hours Convalescent Hospitals, Helping four Southern California hospitals meet the
growing demands of Medicare and Medi-Cal 's programs
Long Beach, Calif.
National American Bank of New
The core of a computer audio response system which
Orleans, La.
can handle up to eight information requests at once
Payroll operations for workforce of over 7,000 emBritish Transport Hotels Ltd., a
ployed iri headquarters, in B.R. hotels and catering
division of British Rail, Paddingservices throughout the country -- other accounting
ton, England
operations will be added later
(four systems)
General accounting operations -- the entire budgetState University of New York, Alary operation as well as statistical reporting
bany, N.Y.
Applications involving life, health, casualty and
Travelers Insurance Company, Hartgroup insurance programs
ford, Conn.
(seven systems)
(systems valued at $9.2 million)
Lincoln National Life Insurance Co., Record-keeping functions for individual life policies and handling communications directly with
f.ort Wayne, Ind.
branch offices
Connection on-line to medical testing instruments
Meharry Medical College, Nashville,
in a new multiphasic clinical screening program
Tenn.
designed to help prevent serious illness by detecting problems early, while they are more easily cured
Admini stration, hospi tal control, appointments and
French National Institute of Health
and Medical Research (INSERM), Ville- scheduling rredical treatments, electrocardiological
j ui f, France
projects, laboratory analysis, dietary and several
other applications embracing the entire medical
field; a primary research project will investigate
the causes of lung cancer
General accounting, inventory control, sales analyAccurate Parts Inc., Kokomo, Ind.
si s , and payroll
E. H. Bindley Drug Co., Terre
General accounting, customer billing, accounts reHaute, Ind.
ceivable and payable and inventory control
T. J. Bettes, Houston, Texas
General ledger accounting; replaces older equipment
HU ton Corporation, Melbourne,
Handling accounts receivable and payable, proAustralia
cessing sales statistics, and for costing work of
the apparel and hosiery manufacturing firm
Western Montgomery County VocaInstruction in computer operation and programming;
tional Technical School, Limerick,
will also be available to adults at evening classes,
Pa.
and will be employed in administrative applications
Henrico County, Va.
Government administrative applications as well as
school administration and library applications
Record Club of America (RCOA),
Keeping up-to-date records of members and informYork, Pa.
ing them of new recordings; also for mailing list
selections, order processing, inventory control
and sales analysis
C. H. Masland & Sons, Carlisle, Pa.
Processing data dealing with purchasing, manufacturing, shipping, billing, customer services, marketing, finance, and personnel of the Carlisle
carpet manufacturer

69

MONTHLY COMPUTER CENSUS
The following is a summary made by Computers and Automation of
reports and estimates of the number of general' purpose electronic digital r.omputers manufactured and installed, or to be manufactured and
on order. These figures are mailed to individual computer manufacturers
from time to time for their information and review, and for any updating or comments they may care to provide.
Our census has begun to include computers manufactured by organizations outside the Uni ted States. We invi te all manufacturers located
anywhere to submit information for this' census.
We also invi te our
readers to submi t information that would help make these figures as
accurate and complete as possible.

The following abbreviations apply:
(R) - figures derived all or in part from information released directly or indi rectly by the manufacturer, or from reports by
other sources likely to be informed
(N) - manufacturer refuses to give any figures on number of installations or of orders,
and refuses to comment in any way on
those numbers stated here
(S) - sale only
X - no longer in production
C - figure is combined in a total (see column to the right)
E - figure estimated by Computers and Automation
? - information not received at press time

AS OF SEPTEMBER 15, 1968
NAME OF
~IANUF ACTURER

I.

AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF MONTHLY RENTAL

DATE OF
FIRST
INSTALLATION

NUMBER OF
INSTALLATIONS

MFR'S TOTAL
I NSTALLATIONS

11/58
6/61
2/65
4/68
10/61
5/64
8/63
3/59
12/60
12/63
1/54
10/58
11/61
7/65
10/68
2/67
5/67
3/63
2/68
4/69
8/67
7/55
4/61
12/62
9/56
1/61

30
6
17

36

NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS

MFR'S TOTAL
UNFILLED
ORDERS

Uni ted States Manufacturers

Autonetics (R)
Anaheim. Calif.
Bailey Meter Co.
Wickliffe, Ohio
Bunker-Ramo Corp. (R)
Canoga Park, Calif.

Burroughs (R)
Detroi t, Mich.

Control Data Corp. (R)
MinneapOlis, Minn.

Digi tal Electronics Inc. (R)
Plainview, N'. Y.
Digi tal Equipment Corp. (R)
Maynard, Mass.

Electronic Assoc., Inc. (R)
Long Branch. N.J.
EMR Computer Div. (R)
Minneapolis, Minn.

General Electric (N)
. Phoenix, Arix.

70

NAME OF
COMPUTER
RECOMP II
RECOMP III
Bailey 756
Bailey 855
BR-130
BR-133
BR-230
BR-300
BR-330
BR-340
205
220
B200 Series, B100
B300 Series
B500
B2500
B3500
B5500
B6500
B7500
B8500
G-15
G-20
LGP-21
LGP-30
RPC-4000
636/136/046 Series
160'~ /8090 Series
924/924A
1604/A/B
1700
3100/3200/3300
3400/3600/3800
6400/6500/6600
6800
7600
DIGIAC 3080
DIGIAC 3080C
PDP-1
PDP-4
PDP-5
PDP-6
PDP-7
PDP-8
PDP-8/S
PDP-8/1
PDP-9
PDP-lO
LINC-8
640
8400
ASI 210
ASI 2100
ADVANCE 6020
ADVANCE 6040
ADVANCE 6050
ADVANCE 6070
ADVANCE 6130
115
130
205
210
215
225
235
255 T/S
265 T/S
405
415
•
420 T/S
425
430 T/S
435
440 T/S
625 T/S
635 T/S
645

$2495
$1495
$60,000-$400,000 (S)
$100.000 (S)
$2000
$2400
$2680
$3000
$4000
$7000
$4600
$14,000
$5400
$9000
$3800
$5000
$14,000
$22,000
$33,000
$44,000
$200.000
$1600
$15,500
$725
$1300
$1875
?

$2100-$12,000
$11 ,000
$45,000
$3500
$10,000-$16,250
$18,000-$48,750
$52,000-$117,000
$130,000
$150,000
$19,500 (S)
$25,000 (S)
$3400
$1700
$900
$10,000
$1300
$525
$300
$425
$1000
$7500
?

$1200
$12.000
$3850
$4200
$4400
$5600
$9000
$15,000
$1550
$1370-$5000
$4350-$15,000
$2500-$10,000
$16,000-$22,000
$2500-$10,000
$2500-$16,000
$6000-$18,000
$15,000-$19,000
$17,000-$20,000
$5120-$10,000
$4800-$13,500
$17,000-$20,000
$6000-$20,000
$15,500-$19,000
$8000-$25,000
$22,200-$21,000
$31,000-$125,000
$35,000-$167,000
. $40,000-$250,000

5/60
8/61
1/60
5/66
5/64
6/63
8/64
6/67
12/68
12/64
10/67
11/60
8/62
9/63
10/64
11/64
4/65
9/66
3/68
12/66
12/67
9/66
4/67
7/65
4/62
12/63
4/65
7/65
2/66
10/66
8/67
4/66

o

160
62
15
18
23
19
38
31
800
370

297

o

57
44
74
4

o
1
295
20
165
322
75
29
610
29
59
100
311
79
77

o
o

o
18

o

1430 E

5

550 E

1900 E

X
X
X
X
X
C
X
X
X
C
C
C
C
C
C

300 E

11
1

51 E
32 E
101E
21 E
102 E
1275 E
900 E
450 E
250 E
22 E
150 E
42
21

12

C
C
C

C
C
C

3354 E
63

C
18
4

89

X
X
C
C
C
C
C

C
C

23
720 E
C

9/65

C

22

37

X
X
X
C
C
C
C

C

C
200 E
130 E
C
C
C

70 E
C
C

o

C
C

o

C

C
C

C

450 E

600 E
C
X

o .

380 E
C
130 E

2
X
X
X
X

C
C
C
C

6/64
7/60
9/63
4/61
4/64
10/67
10/65
2/68
5/64
6/67
6/64

4/65
5/65
7/66

17

X
X
3
15
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
31
150
70
117
190
8
31
13

1900 E

C
C
C

900 E

COMPUTERS and AUTOl\IATION for October. 1%H

NAME OF
MANUFACTUREH
Hewlett-Packard (H)
Palo Alto, Calif.
Honeywell (H)
Computer Control Div.
Framingham, Mass.

Honeywell (H)
EDP Division
Wellesley Hills, Mass.

IBM (N)
White Plains, N.Y.

Interdata (H)
Oceanport, N.J.
National Cash Register Co. (H)
Dayton, Ohio

Pacific Data Systems Inc. (H)
Santa Ana. Calif.
Philco (H)
Willow Grove, Pa.
Potter Instrument Co., Inc.
Plainview. N.Y.
I!adio Corp. of America (H)
Cherry HilI, N.J.

I!aytheon (R)
Santa Ana, Calif.
Scientific Control Corp. (H)
Dallas, Tex.

1/60
5/61
5/62
9/65
5/61
10/65

NUMBEH OF
INSTALLATIONS
106
140
34
55
93
200
64
52
155
0
0
650
22
800
52
59
175
0
7
16
88
0
0
C
7700 E
C
7400 E
3500 E
C
C
C
C
C
0
C
C
4000 E
6300 E
1460 E
C
C
3360 E
1140 E
1500 E
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
0
52
0
24
10
700
105
1200
2000

$550-$900

2/64

145

4039
145

90
240
75
87
X
X
130
20
X
X
71
20
5
X
4200
1800
2300
1100
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
X
4300
X
X
C
C
C
X
C
C
X
C
X
X
X
C
C
X
X
X
X
X
X
C
3
110
5
X
X
150
50
6
580
C
C
10

1000
2000-210, 211
2000-212
PC-9600

$7010
$40,000

6/63
10/58
li63

16
16
12

44

X
X
X

HCA 301
RCA 3301
HCA 501
HCA 601
Spectra 70/15
Spectra 70/25
Spectra 70/35
Spectra 70/45
Spectra 70/46
Sl2ectra 7Oi55
250
440
520
703
650
655
660
670
6700

$7000
$17,000
$14,000
$35,000
$4500
$6500
$10,400
$22,000
$34,400

2/61
7/64
6/59
11/62
9/65
9/65
1/67
11/65

~34,300

lli66
12/60
3/64
10/65
10i67
5/66
10/66
10/65
5/66
10/67

635
75
96
3
190
102
60
110
0
7
175
20
27
63
30
50
8
1
0

NAME OF
COMPUTER
2116A
2115A
2116B
2114A
DDP-24
DDP-116
DDP-124
DDP-224
DDP-516
H632
H-110
H-120
H-125
H-200
H-400
H-800
H-1200
H-1250
11-1400
H-1800
H-2200
H-4200
H-8200
305
360/20
360/25
360/30
360/40
360/44
360/50
360/65
360/67
360/75
360/85
360/90 Series
650
1130
1401
1401-G
1401-H
1410
1440
1460
1620 I, II
1800
701
7010
702
7030
704
7040
7044
705
7070, 2, 4
7080
709
7090
7094
7094 II
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
NCR-304
NCH-31O
NCH-315
NCH-315-HMC
NCH-390
NCH-500
NCH-Century-100
NCH-Centur:t-200
PDS 1020

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

AVERAGE OH HANGE
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
$600
$412
$650
~250

$2500
$~OO

$2050
$3300
$700

DATE OF
FIHST
INSTALLATION
n/66
11/67
5/68
5i68
5/63
4/65
3/66
3/65
9/66

~2700

$2500
$4000
$5000
$8500
$11,000
$28,000
$9500
$12,000
$14,000
$50,000
$26,000
$26,000
~50.000

$3600
$3000
$5330
$9340
$19,550
$15,000
$32,960
$69,850
$138,000
$81,400
$115,095
$4800
$1545
$6480
$2300
$1300
$17,000
$4300
$10,925
$4000
$4800
$5000
$26,000
$6900
$160,000
$32,000
$25,000
$36,500
$38,000
$27,000
$60,000
$40,000
$63,500
$75,500
~82.500

$200-$300
$300-$500

8/68
1/66
12/67
3/64
12/61
12/60
2/66
7/68
1/64
1/64
1/66·
8/68
i2i68
12/57
12/65
1/68
5/65
4/65
7/66
8/65
11/65
10/66
2/66
10/67
11/54
2/66
9/60
5/64
6/67
11/61
4/63
10/63
9/60
1/66
4/53
10/63
2/55
5/61
12/55
6/63
6/63
11/55
3/60
8/61
8/58
11/59
9/62
4i64
3/67

~400-~800

$14,000
$2500
$8500
$12,000
$1850
$1500
$2645
~7500

~52.000

MFH'S TOTAL
I NSTALLATIONS

335

564

1869 E

42.100 E
52

NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS
C
C
C
C
X
30
30
8
150
?

MFR'S TOTAL
UNFILLED
ORDEHS

50 E

218

700 E
E
E
E
E

E

16.000 E
105

1050 E
10

0

$12,000 (5)

$1200
$3500
$3200
(5)
$500
$1800
$2000
$2600
$30,000

1270 E

285

89

C
C
X
X
120
57
135
85
C
14
X
X
0
26
1
25
7
0
1

420 E

26

34

71

NAME OF
MANUFACTURER
Scienti fic Data Syst., Inc. (N)
Santa Monica, Calif.

Standard Computer Corp. (N)
Los Angeles, Calif.
Systems Engineering Labs (R)
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

UNIVAC, Div. of Sperry Rand (R)
New York, N.Y.

Varian Data Machines (R)
NewQort Beach, Calif.

II.

Non-Un i ted States

GEC-AEI Automation Ltd. (R)
New Parks, Leicester, England

72

MFR'S TOTAL
INSTALLATIONS

1045 E
7

NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS
10E
25 E
20
C
30
C
C
160
50
C
2 E
12 E

MFR'S TOTAL
mlFILLED
ORDERS

320 E
14 E

X

47
11
X

144

24
20

102

X
X
X
X

20
35
20
90
10
X
X

75
850
550
60
5592 E
283
67,000 E

X

0
430

1670 E
430
23,400 E

~Ianufacturers

A/S Norsk Data-Elektronikk
Os 10 , Norway
A/S Regnecentralen (R)
COQenhagen , Denmark
E1bi t Computers Ltd. (R)
Haifa, Israel
English Electric Computers
Ltd. (R)
London, England

International Computers
Limited (R)
London, England

DATE OF
NUMBER OF
AVERAGE OR RANGE
FIRST
I NSTALNAME OF
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
INSTALLATION
COMPUTER
LATIONS
$1500
120 E
SDS-92
4/65
SDS-910
$2000
225 E
8/62
SDS-920
$2900
9/62
200 E
SDS-925
$3000
C
12/64
235 E
SDS-930
6/64
$3400
SDS-940
$10,000
C
4/66
C
SDS-9300
$7000
11/64
Sigma 2
$1000
95 E
12/66
C
Sigma 5
$6000
8/67
C
Sigma 7
~12,OOO
12L66
IC 4000
$9000
7/68
0
IC 6000
7
~1O,OOO-~22,OOO
5L67
SEL 810
$1000
9/65
24
SEL 810A
$900
8/66
72
?
SEL 810B
1
SEL 840
$1400
11/65
4
SEL 840A
37
$1400
8/66
SEL 840 MP
6
lL68
I & II
$25,000
23
3/51 & 11/57
III
$20,000
8/62
77
File Computers
$15,000
13
8/56
Solid-State 80 I, II,
90, I, II & Step
$8000
8/58
210
$11,000
135
418
6/63
490 Series
$35,000
12/61
200
3000 E
1004
$1900
2/63
1150
4/66
1005
$2400
9/63
280
1050
$8000
1100 Series (except 1107 &
1108)
$35,000
9
12/50
1107
$55,000
10/62
33
105
1108
$65,000
9/65
6/67
230
9200
$1500
9300
$3400
125
7/67
9400
0
$7000
5/69
LARC
2
$135,000
5L60
75
620
$900
11/65
620i
208
6/67
~500
I. U.S. Manufacturers, TOTAL

NORD 1
GIER
RC 4000
E1bi t-100
LEO I
LEO II
LEO III
LEO 360
LEO 326
DEUCE
KDF 6
KDF 8-10
KDF 9
KDN 2
KDF 7
SYSTEM 4-30
SYSTEM 4-40
SYSTEM 4-50
SYSTEM 4-70
SYSTEM 4-75
ELLIOTT 903
ELLIOTT 4120
ELLIOTT 4130
Series 90-2/10/20/25/
30/40/300
S-2
S-5
S-7
GEC-TRW130
GEC-TRW330
1200/1/2
1300
1301
1500
1100
2400
Atlas 1 & 2
Orion 1 & 2
Si ri us
Mercury
Pegasus 1 & 2
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1909
1906
1907
1904E
1905E
1904F

$1000
$2300-$7500
$3000-$20,000
$4900 (S)

$9600-$24,000
$9600-$28,800
$14,400-$36,000

$9600-$36,000
$1920-$12,000
$3600-$14,400
$7200-$24,000
$8400-$28,800
$9600-$36,000
$9600-$40,800
$640-$1570
$1600-$4400
$2200-$9000

8/68

5

12/60
6L67
10/67

37
1
24

-/53
6/57
4/62
2/65
5/65
4/55
12/63
9/61
4/63
4/63
5/66
10/67
5/69
5/67
1/68
9/68
1/66
10/65

3
11
39
8
11
32
17
12
28
8
8
3

52
82
23

6L66

$4000
$4800
$6500
$12,200
$13,000
$5500
$28,000
$29,000
$16,000
$16,500
$17,000

2

3L63

9
62
79
127
125
23
4
6
17
22
19
33
328
189
99
58
31
17
4
9
8
4

-/63
-/61
-/56
9/66
7/65
7/65
5/65
12/64
8/65
12/66
12/66
1/68
1/68

2 E
1
1
40

2 E
2
40

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

348

C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C

110

C
0
C
C

12
1
0
0

12/64
-/55
-/63
-/61
-/62
-/60
-/61

38
24

9
2

3/63-1/68
1/68

$900
$3000
$5000
$6000
$5000
$23,000
$65,000
$20,000

5

X

25

X

e E;

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

112
24
20
5
3
1
1
0
34
15
9

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October. 196H

NAME OF
MANUFACTURER
International Computers
l.imi ted (cont'd)

.Inpnncse mfrs.
The Marconi Co., Ltd.
CllPlmsford, Es~ex, England
N.V. Phi lips' Computer Industrie
Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Snnll Aktiebolag (R)
Linko[!ing, Sweden
Siemens Aktiengese11schaft
Mun i ch, Germany

Union of Soviet Socialist
Repulllics

NAME OF
COMPUTER
1905F
1906E
1907E
1906F
1907F
1901A
1902A
1903A
1904A
1906A
Various models
Myriad I
Myriad II
P1000
DATASAAB D21
DATASAAB D22
2002
3003
4004/15/16
4004/25/26
4004/35
4004/45
4004/55
301
302
303
304
305
BESM 4
BESM 6
MINSK 2
MINSK 22
MIR
NAIRI
ONEGA 1
ONEGA 2
URAL 1l/14/16
and others

AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
$17,500
$29,300
$30,300
$31,200
$32,500
$3700
$3600
$10,600
$18,600

DATE OF
FIRST
INSTALLATION

NUMBER OF
INSTALLATIONS

3/68

3/68
9/67

2

3/66
10/67
6/68

C
26
3
0

~54,OOO

£36,000-£66,000
£22 , 000-i:.42 , 500

?
$5000-$14,000
~8000-~60, 000
54,000 (Deutsche
Marks)
52,000
19,000
32,000
46,000
75,000
103,000
2000
4000
10,000
12,000
14,000

II.

MFR'S TOTAL
INSTALLATIONS

12/62

5i68
6/59
12/63
10/65
1/66
2/67
7/66
12/66
9/67
4/65
lli67

32
1
42
34
67
30
59
53
3
10
65
7
17
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C

1268
2074 E
29
0

33

387

NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS
12
2
1
2
2
102
72
7
1
1
C
19
9
5 E
2
11
2
18
9
63
42
3
8
8
8
22
27
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C

MFR'S TOTAL
UNFILLED
ORDERS

426
500 E
28
5 E

13

210

2500 E

700 E

Non-U.S. Manufacturers. TOTAL -

6700 E

2000 E

Combined, TOTAL -

73,700 E

25,400 E

BOOK REVIEWS
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
Computers and Automation
We puhlish here citations and brief
reviews of books and other publications
which have a significant relation to computers, data processing, and automation,
and which have come to our attention~
We shall be glad to report other information in future lists if a review copy
is sent to us. The plan of each entry is:
author or editor / title·/ publisher or
issuer / date, hardbound or softbound,
numher of pages, price or its equivalent /
COIllIlJents. If you write to a publisher
or issuer, we would appreciate your mentioning Computers and Automation.

Reviews
Lipidus, Leon, and Rein LullS / Optimal
Control of Engineering Processes /
Blaisdell Publishing Co., 275 Wyman
St., Waltham, Mass. 02154 / 1967,
hardbound, 476 pp., $12.50
The topic of this book is "control of
the physical behavior of systems by means
of mechanical, electrical, electromechanical, electronic ... devices which function
without direct human intervention or supervision" .

"Mathematical ideas are brought out
to the reader gradually so the student without a strong mathematical background will understand new, complex
ideas."
The book tries to "bridge the gap"
between theory and solution of problems
in process control.
There are six chapters - among them
are "Fundamental Definitions and System
Structures", "Control of Linear Systems",
and "Stability and Control of Linear Systerns". Bibliography; index.
This book is mathematical, on the
graduate level, and assumes a knowledge
of calculus, matrices, vectors, differential
equations, etc.
Lecht, Charles Philip / The Programmer's PL/I - A Complete Reference /
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 330 West
42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10036 /
1968, hardbound, 427 pp., $11.95
The purpose of this book is to present
"highly detailed individual discussions of
each element of the PL/I language",
which is "the latest" combined scientific
and commercial computer programming
language. The book tries to present the
PL/I language as it is generally implemented on a wide variety of computer
systems. The book defines and discusses
PL/I, outlines the rules for a PL/I program, presents this language's attributes,

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

its applications, and detailed descriptions,
and covers input-output (I/O), asynchronous operation, and list processing.
There are 7 chapters and three appendices. "Defini tions", "Sltatements".,
"Attributes", and "I/O Organization"
are among the chapters. No index. No
bibliography.
Shinners, Stanley M. / Techniques of
System Engineering / McGraw Hill
Book Co., 330 W. 42 St., New York,
N.Y. 10036 / 1967, hardbound, 498
pp., $14.00
The purpose of this book is to provide
the student with up-to-date knowledge in
the theory of systems engineering and its
practical applications. Chapters include:
"Performance", "Reliability", "Schedule", "Cost", "Maintainability", "Optimization", "Testing", and "Instrumentation". Appendices include: problems,
and answers to selected problems. Index. The author is head of the Research
Section at Sperry Gyroscope Co., and
Adjunct Professor in Electrical Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He arranged the book for "easy
self-study with ample illustrations and
practical probl6!l1s".
The author assumes a capacity to understand integrals. There are bibliographies at the ends of chapters and an
index.
73

NEW PATENTS
Raymond R. Skolnick
Patent Manager
Ford Instrument Co.
Div. of Sperry Rand Corp.
Long Island City, N.Y. 11101
The following is a compilation of
patents pertaining to computers and associated equipment from the "Official
Gazette of the U. S. Patent Office,"
dates of issue as indicated. Each entry
consists of: patent number / inventor(s)
/ assignee / invention. Printed copies
of patents may be obtained from the
U.S. Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D.C. 20231, at a cost of 50 cents
each.

August 6, '1968
3,396,368 / Azizuddin Hashim Ismail
Lakhani, Taplow, England / British
Telecommunications Research Limited,
Taplow, England, a British company
/ Electrical signalling arrangement for
control of tape transmission system.
3,396,369 / Abraham Brothman, Dumont, and Michael Gomery, Saddle
River, N.J., and Allen H. Miller,
Laurelton, N.Y., and Lee Horowitz,
Cedar Grove, N.]. / Sangamo Electric
Co., Springfield, Ill., a corporation of
Delaware / Quaternary decision logic
system.
3,396,373 / Radoslav Didic, Sandweg
21, Bad Hersfeld, Germany / Ferrite
ring core data transmitter.

August 13, 1968
3,397,390 / Robert C. Minnick, Redwood City, Calif. / Stanford Research
Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., a corporation of California I Logic array for
associative memory.
3,397,391 I Gerald H. Ottaway, Hyde
Park, N.Y., and Helmut Painke, Sindelfingen, Titus. Scheler, Boblingen,
and Helmut Will, Sindelfingen, Germany, and William V. Wright, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. / International Business
Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.,
a corporation of New York / Compact
storage control apparatus.
3,397,392 I Seymour Henig, Kensington,
and Ervin C. Palasky, Silver Spring,
Md. I United States of America as
represented by the Secretary of Commerce / Information storage and category selector.
3,397,393 I Paul H. Palmateer, Wappingers Falls, and Wilbur D. Pricer,
Pleasant Valley, N.Y. I International
Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y., a corporation of New
York I Capacitor· read-only memory
with plural information and ground
planes.
3,397,394 I Hisao Maeda, 211 Minamisenzoku-machi, Ota-ku, Tokyoto,
Japan; Hisaaki Maeda, heir of said
Hisao Maeda, deceased I Thin film
magnetic core matrix memory device.

74

August 20, 1968

August 27, 1968

3,398,400 I Heinrich Rupp, StuttgartBotnang, and Albert Norz, StuttgartZuffenhausen, Germany / International Standard Electric Corporation,
New York, N.Y., a corporation of
Delaware / Method and arrangement
for transmitting and receiving data
without errors.
3,398,402 I Serge Delaigue, Chaville,
and Rene Rauche, Orly, France / International Standard Electric Corporation, New York, N.Y., a corporation
of Delaware / Simplified data-processing system.
3,398,403 I Bernard Ostendorf, Jr.,
Stamford, Conn. / Bell Telephone
Laboratories, Inc., New York, N~Y., a
corporation of New York I Data; processing circuit.
3,398,405 I Carl B. Carlson, Arcadia,
and Robert V. Bock, Sierra ~adre,
Calif. / Burroughs Corporation, Detroit, Mich., a corporation of Michigan I Digital computer with memory
lock operation.

3,399,382 I John E. Thron, Cambridge.
and Thomas O. Holtey, Newton Lower Falls, Mass. / Honeywell Inc., a
corporation of Delaware / Data transfer system.
3,399,389 I William D. Bohannon, Jr.,
Graham, N.C. / Western Electric
Company, Inc., New York, N.Y., a
corporation of New York / Magnetic
memory matrices.
3,399,390 I Rabah A. Shahbender,
Princeton, N.J. / Radio Corporation
of America, a corporation of Delaware
I Integrated semiconductor diode matrix.
3,399,394 I Perrin F. Smith, Saratog,il,
Calif. / International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y., a
corporation of New York / Cyclical
random access magnetic data storage
system.
3,399,396 I Kendal T. Rogers, Mountain
View, Calif. / Varian Associates, Palo
Alto, Calif., a corporation of California / Superconductive data storage
and transmission apparatus.

ADVERTISING INDEX
Following is the index of advertisements. Each item contains: Name and address of the advertiser / page number
where the advertisement appears / name of agency if any.

Alphanumeric, Inc., 10 Nevada })rive,
Lake Success, N. Y. 10040 / Page
39 / Nachman & Shaffran, Inc.
American Telephone & Telegraph Co. ,
195 Broadway, New York, N. Y.
10017 / Page 7 / N. W. Ayer & Sons
Bryant Computer Products, Div. of
Ex-Cell-O Corp., 850 Ladd Rd. ,
Walled Lake, Mich. 48088 / Page
75 / Campbell-Ewald Co.
CC Systems, Inc., Box 522, Elmhurst,
Ill. 60126 / Page 43 / Jody AdvertiSing Inc.
California Computer Products, Inc.,
305 N. Muller, Anaheim, Calif.
92803 / Page 38 / Carson Robe:tts
Computers and Automation, 815
Washington St., Newtonville, Mass.
02160 / Page 35 / Digital Equipment Corp., 146 Main
St., Maynard, Mass. 01754/ Page
29 / Kalb & Schneider Inc.
General Automation, Inc., 706 W.
Katella, Orange, Calif. 92667 /
Page 17 / General Advertising
General Electric Co., Space Systems
. Div., Sunnyvale, Calif. / Page 11 /
Deutsch & Shea
Graphic Controls Corp., Computer
Systems Div., 189 Van Renssalaer

St., Buffalo, N. Y. 14210 / Page
15 / Lloyd Mansfield Co., Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Corp., 1501 Page
Mill Rd., Palo Alto, Calif. 94304 /
Page 76 / Lennen & Newell, Inc.
Information International, Inc., 545
Technology Sq., Cambridge, Mass.
02139 / Page 41 / Kalb & Schneider
International Business Machines Corp.,
Data Processing Div., White Plains,
N. Y. / Pages 2 and 3 / Marsteller
Miller-Stephens,on Chemical Co., Inc.,
15 Sugar Rd., Danbury, Conn. 06813
/ Page 13 / Michel-Cather, Inc.
Randolph Computer Corp., 200 Park
Ave., New York, N. Y. 10017 / Page
65 / Albert A. Kohler Co., Inc.
Raytheon Computer Corp., 2700 S. Fairview St., Santa Ana, Calif. 92704 /
Page 23 / Martin Wolfson Advertising
Scientific Data Systems, 164917th
St., Santa Monica, Calif. / Page
44/ Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, Inc.
System Interaction Corp., 8 West 40th
St., New York, N. Y. 10018 / Page
31 / Nachman & Shaffran, Inc.
Univac, Div. of Sperry Rand, 1290
Ave. of the Americas, New York,
N. Y. 10019 / Page 9 / Daniel and
Charles, Inc.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for October, 1968

,

Buy as much of our plug-in mass storage system
as you need at 27~ a thousand characters.
You can start with one Bryant memory drum or disc file and end up with as
Inany as eight. Increasing your system's capacity from 8 million to 5 billion
characters. All at 27e a thousand characters anywhere along the line.
And there's plenty to offer for the money.
For exam pIe, the universal controller system interfaces to just abou t any computer
made with the push of a plug. It can operate in several different modes, both
serial and parallel. It features word transfer rates from 50 microseconds to 900 nanoseconds per word-to and from two computer
central processors. And it comes with a software package, complete with handler and maintenance routines (if specified).
Skeptics beware. We're out to make
BRYANT
Bryant Believers out of you. Write and COMPUTER
PRODUCTS
see. Ex-Cell-O Corporation, Bryant Com,....XL~
puter Products, 850 Ladd Rd., Walled
~~®
XLO-l~~~o~~~t~l~~ ~~~?~~ Lake, Michigan 48088.
EX·CELL-O CORPORATION

Designate No. 19 on Reader Service Card

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