197206

197206 197206

User Manual: 197206

Open the PDF directly: View PDF .
Page Count: 52

Download
Open PDF In Browser	View PDF

SCIENCE

2..

TECHNOLOGY'

June, 1972
Vol. 21, No. 6

•

Computerized Scheduling of Tree Care

E. Shufelt
S. E. G. Elias, and others
Seymour Papert
R. W. Hamming

Pictures of Mars by Mariner and by Computer
Personal Rapid Transit
A Computer Laboratory for Elementary Schools
The Computer and the Intellectual Frontier

H180

.. ---

IP02121147F6 7301

TECHN ICAL SERViCES
180 W SAN CARL05 ST
A JOSE CA

00808
95113

Sample page from the Fifth Edition, "WHO'S WHO IN COMPUTERS AND DATA PROCESSING"

Who's Who in Computers
ANDERSEN, Hans Peter Brostrup / console operator / b: 1946 / ed: Denmark / ent: 1966 / m-i: B
Ma P Sa / t: console operator / org: Tretorn Data
Center, AB, 25225 Halsingborg, Sweden / pb-h: / h: Tranemansgatan 14 3:e van, S-252 44 Halsingborg, Sweden
ANDERSON, Alfred O. / inathematician / b:
1928 / ed: BS, math / ent: 1953 / m-i: P / t:
mathematician / org: Aberdeen Proving Ground,
MD 21005 / pb-h: ACM / h: 602 Market St,
Aberdeen, MD 21001
ANDERSON, Carl S. / systems analyst / b: 1934
/ ed: BS, Univ of Kansas School of Business / ent:
1962 / m-i: A Mg Sy / t: computing systems analyst" / org: The Boeing Co, 3801 S Oliver, Wichita,
KS 67210 / pb-h: CDP / h: 806 N Florence, Wichita, KS 67212
ANDERSON, Edward J. / computer systems
scientist / b: 1932 / ed: BS, Univ of California at
Berkeley; MA, aerQspace operations management,
Univ of Southern California; MS, systems engineering, West Coast Univ / ent: 1959 / m-i: D Mg
Sy / t: computer systems scientist / org: Computer
Sciences Corp, p50 N Sepulveda, El Segundo, CA
90245 / pb-h: ACM, IEEE, "Design Considerations
for a Telemetry Ground Support System",
AIAA Aerospace Computer Systems Conference,
1969 / h: 1440 Florida St, Apt 8, Long Beach, CA
90812
ANDERSON, Frederick J. / engineer / b: 1923 /
ed: Stanford Univ / ent: 1947 / m-i: A C / t:
director of engineering / org: Sylvania Electric
Products, Inc, 100 First Ave Waltham, MA 02154
/ pb-h: - / h: 66 Woodridge Rd, Wayland, MA
01778 / *C64
ANDERSON, Herbert E. / senior programmer /
b: 1927 / ed: Univ of California, Univ of New
Mexico / ent: 1957 / m-i: A P; statistics / t: staff
associate / org: Sandia Corp, Sandia Base, Albuquerque, NM 87115 / pb-h: ACM, CDP, several
papers / h: 501 Mesilla NE, Albuquerque, NM
87108
ANDERSON, Jess / systems specialist / b: 1935 /
ed: BA / ent: 1955 / m-i: A P Sy; research in
physical sciences / t: specialist / org: Univ of Wisconsin, PO Box 6, Stoughton, WI 53589 / pb-h:
several papers / h: 2838 Stevens St, Madison, WI
53705
ANDERSON, Kermit C. / systems analyst / b:
1943 / ed: BS, Penn State Univ / ent: 1969 / m-i:
L Ma P Sy / t: systems analyst / org: Marsh &
McLennan,70 Pine St, New York, NY 10005 / pbh: - / h: 2 Park Ave, Green Brook, NJ 08812
ANDERSON, Marilyn B. (Mrs.) / junior engineer
/ b: 1927 / ed: Miami Univ / ent: 1949 / m-i: P /
2

Abbreviations include:
b:
ed:
ent:
m-i:
t:
org:
pb-h:
h:
v:

born
education
entered computer field
main interests
title
organization
publications, honors, memberships,
other distinctions
home address
volume number

Main Interests:
A
B
C
D
L

Applications
Business
Construction
Design
Logic

Mg
Ma
P
Sa
Sy

Management
Mathematics
Programming
Sales
Systems

ANDERSON, Walter R. / president / b: 1929 /
ed: AB, Clark Univ; BSEE, Worcester Polytech
Inst / ent: 1958 / m-i: Ma / t: president / org:
Spiras Systems Inc, 332 Second Ave, Waltham,
MA 02154 / pb-h: IEEE, Committee on Numerical Control EIA TR-31 / h: 36 Winsor Rd, Sudbury, MA 01776
ANDERSON, Walter W. / systems auditor / b:
1934 / ed: BBA North Texas State Univ / ent:
1962 / m-i: A Sy / t: electr.onic data processing
analyst / org: El Paso Natural Gas Co, PO Box
1492, El Paso, TX 79999 / pb-h: CDP / h: 10256
Luella, El Paso, TX 79925
ANDERSON, William M. / systems programmer
/ b: 1947 / ed: - / ent: 1967 / m-i: A P Sy / t:
assistant data processing supervisor / org: Midway
Platt Co, 2233 University, St Paul, MN 55104 /
pb-h: - / h: 441 Lynnhurst W, St Paul, MN 55104
ANDRADE, Luciano P. / programmer / b: 1918 /
ed: high school / ent: 1962 / m-i: P / t: senior
computer programmer / org: HUD, Washington,
DC 20410 / pb-h: - / h: 6419 Maplewood Dr,
Falls Ch urch, VA 22041
ANDREE, Richard V. / professor, author, lecturer,
consultant / b: 1919 / ed: BS, Univ of Chicago,
PhD, Univ of Wisconsin / ent: 1948 / m-i: A Ma
P Sy; writing, information science / t: professor of
math, research associate in computing science /
org: Univ of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73069 / pbh: ACM, AEDS, ASL, DPMA, MAA, NCTM,
SIAM lecturer, American Assn for the Advancement of Science, American Math Society, American Society for Engineering Education, Mu Alpha
Theta, Pi Mu Epsilon, Sigma Xi, 3 fellowships,
numerous committees, Who's Who in America,
World Who's Who, editor, 12 books, 8 paperbacks,
about 20 articles / h: 627 E Boyd, Norman, OK
73069
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June

1972

PEOPLE
THE MOST ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS IN
COMPUTERS AND DATA PROCESSING

Who they are ...
What they do ...
.
Where they do it ...
NOW YOU CAN STAY UP-TO-DATE
ON "WHO'S WHO IN COMPUTERS
AND DATA PROCESSING" ...
Effective in April 1972, "Who's Who in Computers
and Data Processing" was changed to an annual subscription basis, as follows:
1. The latest Cumulative Edition (the 5th edition
published 1971, containing over 15,000 capsule biographies, over 1,000 pages long, 3
volumes, hardbound) PLUS
2. At least 3 Updating Supplements per year,
expected to total over 3,000 entries PLUS
3. An Inquiry Service: At your request we will
obtain and report to you as a subscriber
the capsule biography of any person in the
computer field (if we can find his address
and if he replies), to the extent of a dozen
requests per year

Each computer professional has a capsule biography
detailing: last name; first name and middle initial
(if any); occupation; year of birth; university education and degrees; year entered the computer field;
main interests in the computer field; job title; organization and its address; publications, honors,
and memberships; home address.
See sample page opposite.
We are confident that you will find the subscription will repay you many times over -- one day when
this wealth of material gives you the inside track
with someone important to you, you'll find the informati on PRICELESS: the most es senti al component in EDP
is GOOD PEOPLE.
RETURNABLE IN 10 DAYS
FOR FULL REFUND
(if not satisfactory)

r- - - - - - -

(may be copied on any piece of paper)- - - - - - - - - - - -

WHO'S WHO IN COMPUTERS AND DATA PROCESSING
815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160
( ) YES, please enroll me as a subscriber to WHO'S WHO IN
COMPUTERS AND DATA PROCESSING at the following rate:
( ) $49.50 including the last cumulative edition
OR

ALL for $49.50 per year in any year when a cumulative edition is supplied ... and $22.00 per year
in any year when a cumulati ve edi tion is not supplied.
BASED ON "Computers and Automation"'s continual data
gathering from computer professionals

()

$22.00 since I already have access to the last cumulative
edition

I understand that in each 12 months: (a) I shall receive at least
3 updating supplements, expected to total over 3000 entries;
and (b) that I can ask for and receive a dozen capsule biographies of specified computer persons (if the address can be
fou nd and if they respond).

This reference will be particularly useful for:
Pers9nnel managers
Libraries
Conference planners
Directors of computer installations
Suppliers to the computer industry
Executive search organizations
Prospective authors
Prospective speakers ...
anyone who needs to keep up with the important
people in the field.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

RETURNABLE IN 10 DAYS
FOR FULL REFUND
(if not satisfactory)

Name
Title
Organization
Address
City

State & Zip

Your Signature

P.O. No. (if company order)

Vol. 21, No.6
June, 1972

Editor

Edmund C. Berkeley

Assistant
Editors

Barbara L. Chaffee
Linda Ladd Lovett
Neil D. Macdonald

Software
Editor

Stewart B. Nelson

Advertising
Director

Edmund C. Berkeley

Art Director

Ray W. Hass

Publisher's
Assistants

Paul T. Moriarty
Janet M. Rysgaard

Con tripu ting
Editors

John Bennett
Moses M. Berlin
Andrew D. Booth
John W. Carr III
Ned Chapin
Alston S. Householder
Leslie Mezei
Ted Schoeters
Richard E. Sprague

Advisory
Committee

James J. Cryan
Alston S. Householder
Bernard Quint

Editorial
Offices

Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St.
Newtonville, Mass. 02160
617 -332-5453

Advertising
Contact

THE PUBLISHER
Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St.
Newtonville, Mass. 02160
617-332-5453

computers
and automation
The magazine of the design, applications, and implications
of information processing systems - and the pursuit of
truth in input, output, and processing.

Computerized Pictures from Space
[NT A]
7 REAL-TIME PICTURES OF MARS BY MARINER
AND BY COMPUTER
by'Wayne E. Shufelt, Sperry Rand Univac, Washington, D.C.
An example of computerized processing of images in
real time, so as to make decisions about the Mariner
spacecraft circl ing the planet Mars.

Computers and Transportation
[NT A]
IN MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA
I - THE PLAN
by William W. Aston
II - THE COMPUTER AS THE HEART OF PERSONAL
RAPI D TRANSI T
by Dr. Samy E. G. Elias, R. E. Ward, and Michael
Wilson, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, West Va.
Vertical rapid transit (automatic elevators) with no
human operators is now commonplace even in skyscrapers; why not eliminate human operators in horizontal rapid transit? This concept is being developed,
applied, and tested at the University of West Virginia.

11 PERSONAL RAPID TRANSIT, COMPUTERIZED,

Computers and Education
19 A COMPUTER LABORATORY FOR ELEMENTARY

"Computers and Automation" is published monthly, 12 issues per year, at 815
Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160,
by Berkeley Enterprises I nco
Printed in
U.S.A. Second Class Postage paid at Boston,
Mass., 'and additional mafllng points.
Subscription rates: United States, $9.50
for one year, $18.00 for two years. Canada:
add 50 cents a year for postage; foreign, add
$3.50 a year for postage.
NOTE: The above rates do not include
our publication "The Computer Directory
and Buyers' Guide"; see "Directory Notice"
on the page stated in the Table of Contents.
If you elect to receive "The Computer Directory and Buyers' Guide", please add
$9.00 per year to your subscription rate.
Please address all mail to:
Berkeley
Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160.
Postmaster: Please send all forms 3579
to Berkeley Enterprises Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160.
@ Copyright 1972, by Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
Change of address:
If your address
changes, please send us both your new
address and your old address (as it appears on the magazine address imprint), and
allow three weeks for the change to be
made.

[T A]
SCHOOLS
by Dr. Seymour Papert, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
How to remove many barriers from school learning bv
using the technologies of computers, robots, control
systems, and artificial intelligence - plus free-wheeling
imagination.

Computers and Privacy
[NT F]
40 DATA BANKS ENDANGERING PERSONAL
LIBERTY: Report of Debate in Parliament, April 21,1972
by The Times, London, England
How four members of Parliament commented on the
second reading of the Control of Personal Information Bill.

Computer People
2, 3 "Who's Who in Computers and Data Processing"

[NT G]
The 5th edition, continuing supplements, and an
inquiry service to obtain new capsule biographies.

18 Who's Who Entry Form

[NT G]
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

The Computer Industry
[NT F)
41 PERSUASION - ITALIAN STYLE
by Peter Tumiati, Rome Correspondent, The Financial
Times, London, EC-4, England
The soft-sell of computers in Italy.
39 On the Legal Side: A LIEN ON COMPUTER TAPES? [T F)
by Milton R. Wessel, Attorney, New York, N.Y.
If a service bureau has customer information on computer tapes, and wants payment of the customer's
unpaid charges, and places a lien on the customer's
tapes - then what?
[T E)
6 THE SHORTAGE OF GOOD TYPISTS - AND THE
JJ COMMAND
by Edmund C. Berkeley, Editor, Computers and Automation
Some ideas for turning all poor typists into good ones,
making use of computer programs for editing recorded
character strings.

Computers, Science, Wisdom, and Common Sense
25 THE COMPUTER AND THE INTELLECTUAL
[NT A]
FRONTIER
by Dr. Richard W. Hamming, Bell Telephone Laboratories
Inc., Murray -Hill, N.J.
Excerpts from two chapters, "The Computer as an Experimental Tool" and "Artificial Intelligence", out of a
recent book full of well-thought-out ideas, Computers
and Society, written by a former president of the
Association for Computing Mach inery.
51 The C&A Notebook on Common Sense, Elementary
[I'!T G]
and Advanced
Titles of the 30 issues of Volume 1; and short
summaries of 21 of them.
50 What May be the Most Important of All Branches
[NT G)
of Knowledge
"That which is generally true and important": what
would it be?

The Profession of Information Engineer and the Pursuit of Truth
[NT A]
30 THE ALASKA PIPELINE READING LESSON
by Stewart M. Brandborg, Executive Director, The
Wilderness Society, Washington, D.C.
How to pretend to give the public an opportunity to be
"involved in the decision-making process", by denying
time to read, restricting the number of copies available,
and drowning readers in a 3550 page report. Although
a permit for the pipeline has issued from the Dept. of
the Interior, preventive action through the courts may
stillbe possible.
34 DALLAS: WHO, HOW, WHY? - Part IV: Conclusion [NT A]
by Mikhail Sagatelyan, Moscow, USSR
A report published in Leningrad, USSR, by a leading
Soviet reporter about the circumstal'1ces of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and their significance from a Soviet Point of view: Conclusion.
COMPUTERS- and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Front Cover Picture
Lifted skyward by a "cherry
picker," Francisco Gaeta of Davey
Tree Surgery Co., Livermore, Calif.,
clears eucalyptus branches from a
power company right-of-way. A
computer schedules the crews and
equipment necessary to keep up
with tree care and landscaping activities from the Rocky Mountains
to Hawaii.
(For more information, seepage 44.)

NOTICE
*0 ON YOUR ADDRESS IMPRINT
MEANS THAT YOUR SUBSCRIPTION INCLUDES THE COMPUTER
01 RECTORY.
*N MEANS THAT
YOUR PRESENT SUBSCRIPTION
DOES NOT INCLUDE THE COMPUTER DIRECTORY.

Departments
44 Across the Editor's Desk Computing and Data
Processing Newsletter
42 Advanced Numbles
49 Advertising Index
42 Calendar of Coming
Events
41 Computer Art Contest Notice
7 Computer Directory and
Buyers' Guide - Notice
23, 49 Corrections
48 Monthly Computer
Census
46 New Contracts
47 New Installations
23 Numbles
49 Problem Corner

Key
[A]
[E]

[F]
[G]
[NT]
[T]

Article
Editorial
Forum
The Golden Trumpet
Not Technical
Technical
5

EDITORIAL

The Shortage of Good Typists -

One of the conditions that nowadays confronts any
person who needs to write and who does not type well is
finding somebody who does type well and who can type
for him or her. Typically, the person needing the typing
is an "executive" and, typically, the person to do the typing is a "good secretary".
In our area, the suburbs of Boston, in spite of an unofficial unemployment rate of over 7%, good secretaries and
good typists are apparently not to be had for love or money.
The Job Central Control Bank here has, according to report,
over 1000 positions calling for good secretaries open and unfilled week after week.
Undoubtedly, part of the reason for the failure to fill
these jobs is the widespread refusal of young women to
train to become secretaries. They wish to become executives, writers, editors, reporters, etc., in their own right and more power to them! As for young men, they refused
long ago. It seems clear that "good secretaries" are becoming extinct like the dodo and the great auk.
As a result, many persons who have been accustomed in
the past to secretaries have begun typing for themselves,
and give only a portion of their writing to be finally typed
by good typists - often persons not in the office but who
do typing part time, at home, to earn extra income, at
college, to supplement allowances for education, etc.
Therefore, a new condition is developing with new problems, and new solutions to the new problems are needed.
Perhaps we can even take advantage of the pressure to
change, in order to take a step forward in efficiency. For
it is obviously not efficient (even if it is prestigious) for an
"executive" to transmit his writing through a "good secretary" in order to get it typed.
One solution is for you yourself to learn to type, and
to type well. This works rather well for a great many
young people. But many older people find this solution
rather difficult. It is true that people in their thirties and
much older still can learn to type faster than they can
write by hand; a good. handwriting speed is 20 words a
minute, while an easily attainable typing speed is 30 words
a minute. But non-expert typists make many mistakes; the
mistakes take time to correct neatly; and there is a widespread, rather irrational, compulsion in the business world
which requires much typing to be with no mistakes ("What
will people think, if my letter goes out with five ink corrections?"); and this compulsion makes for sand in the
gears. Mistakes often do not need to be erased, however,
because you can obtain chalky strips ("correctype") which
you can use to just strike over a wrong character, and also
6

and the JJ Command

sticky white tape ("correction tape"), which you can use
to cover up mistakes and then type over them.
A second solution was just announced in April. It is an
electric typewriter, offered by a manufacturer in the computer field, which stores the characters typed on a magnetic card and allows unlimited adjustments or corrections so that what is finally typed in any spot is the most recent
character typed for that spot. The major trouble with this
machine is that its price is over $200 monthly rental, or
something like half of the wages of a "good secretary". It
is easy to deduce that the price is related to what the traffic will bear rather than the cost of the equipment!
A third solution is open to anyone who has access to a
computer, and that is to make use of a computer program
with which he can edit his typing, and so produce easily
any text that he wants. Probably over 98% of people in
the computer field have access to a computer; and so it
seems likely that this form of typing can be a very practical
solution for a great many persons in the computer field and also a number of persons not in the computer field
but who have access to computer terminals.
.
On-line editing is a considerable help in efficiency and
directness in producing final text. But even off-line editing
is a help, especially when you use some commands contained in the stream of text that you are typing. The command which is most useful to me in this operation (which
I have tried) is what I like to call "the jj command".
When jj occurs in a stream of characters, it tells the
computer program:
1. Search backwards along the string of characters
until you find a match for the four characters
immediately following the jj.
2. When you find the match, delete all the characters
from the beginning of the match up to and including the jj, and then pick up all the characters following the jj.
This command enables you to change any error, as soon
as you notice it, in almost the easiest possible way; and it
implies that you can type in the same way that you talk,
for you often interrupt yourself to change what you are
saying into something else. In all cases, the editing program
will thus "know what you mean", and be able to do it.
For example, John Jones typing can type like this:
The other day I was talking to the managerof the jj
manager of the industir jj industrial actuarial depare
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Real- Time Pictures of Mars

By Mariner and By Computer

Wayne E. Shufelt
Sperry Rand Univac
2121 Wisconsin Ave. N.W.
Washington D. C. 20007

The following sequence of three photographs illustrates the real-time image processing being performed in connection with the Mariner 9 spacecraft's
visit to Mars.
The raw picture is transmitted to earth at approximately 16 thousand bits per second and requires
approximately 5 minutes, 42 seconds to transmit.
These pictures are received in digital format at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,
by a UNIVAC 1230 Mission & Test Computer.
Once in the computer, the data are formatted for
processing and the first raw picture (Figure 1) is
generated through the computer system in approximately two minutes.
The first enhancement process performed is described as shading correction; the result appears
in Figure 2. This process compensates for the nonlinearity of the spacecraft imaging system, and
converts the output scale factors to provide appropriate film exposure and contrast to the generated
negative. This process is complete approximately
one minute following the raw picture output.
The contrast gradient over the shading-corrected
picture shows areas of over and under exposure, and
these will obscure certain features. The shading~orrected picture is then processed once more to

increase contrast and to provide a relatively constant background.
The result of thi s second enhancement step is seen
in Figure 3, where features not evident or clear on
any of the previous pictures are brought out for increased visibility and study. This process requires
approximately one minute to complete.
While this processing is being done, the next
picture is being received by the computer system,
and vehicle telemetry is simultaneously being received and displayed to provide for effective realtime evaluation and control of the Mariner 9 space~
craft as it orbits Mars.
Since the onboard TV cameras were turned on in
November 1971, the real-time computer enhancement
system has processed over 6,000 pictures sent back
from outer space. Real-time enhancement allows investigators at JPL a quick look, and has been a key
factor in making decisions on changes in the original orbiting and picture-mapping schedule.
The area shown in the photographs is located in
Tithonius Lacus, 300 miles south of the equator of
Mars. The picture was taken by Mariner 9's wide
angle TV camera on Orbit 119 from 1225 miles (1977
kilometers) and covers an area 235 miles by 300
miles (376 by 480 kilometers).

Editorial - Continued from page 6

jj department, D. G. Park jj ment, H. B. Park. And
he said that there was a great deal of waste jj deal of
slackness in many departments of the company jj of
the organization. And he wanted to set up procedurs
jj procedures to decrease thos practices jj those bad
habits.

The editing program in the computer takes in this string
of characters as typed, and outputs:
The other day I was talking to the manager of the
industrial actuarial department, H. B. Park. And he
said there was a great deal of slackness in many departments of the organization and he wanted to set
up procedures to decrease those bad habits.
This result would be very easy for a computer program
- even as it might be very hard for a human typist - and
would save a great deal of time and effort for the person
writing. In fact, with only a few more commands, symbolized as pairs of letters set off by spaces or carriage returns
and never occurring as two-letter words, one would have a
powerful computerized system for immediately converting
rather poor typists into excellent ones, either off-line or
on-line.

"THE COMPUTER DIRECTORY AND BUYERS GUIDE"
ISSUE OF "COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION"
NOTICE
The U.S. Postmaster, Boston, Mass., ruled in Jdnuary
1972, that we may no longer include "The Computer
Directory and Buyers' Guide" issue of "Computers and
Automation", calling it an optional, thirteenth issue of
"Computers and Automation" regularly published in June,
and mailing it with second class mailing privileges.
The plan mentioned previously for publishing the directory as a quarterly with second class mailing privileges has
been disapproved and disallowed by the Classification Section of the U.S. Postal Service in Washington, D.C.
Accordingly, in 1972 "The Computer Directory and
Buyers' Guide", 18th annual issue,will be published In
one volume as a book, and mailed as a book.
The domestic price for "The Computer Directory and
Buyers' Guide" will be $14.50, but regular subscribers to
"Computers and Automation" may subscribe to the directory at $9.00 a year (there is thus no change for
them).
"The Computer Directory and Buyers' Guide" issue
of "Computers and Automation" has been published in
every year from 1955 to 1971, and 1972 will not be
an exception.

Edmund C. Berkeley, Editor
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Figure 1
8

Raw picture
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

•

s s

Figure 2 - First enhancement, shading correction
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Figure 3 - Second enhancement, increased contrast
10

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Personal Rapid Transit, Computerized,
in Morgantown, West Virginia
PART I: THE PLAN

William W. Aston
West Virginia Univ.
Morgantown, West Va.
PART II: THE COMPUTER AS THE HEART OF PERSONAL RAPID TRANSIT

Dr. Samy E. G. Elias, R. E. Ward, and Michael Wilson
West Virginia Univ.
Morgantown, West Va.
"'A major breakthrough is taking place in the field of urban
transportation at Morgantown, West Virginia."

I. THE PLAN
wo of the nation's leading aerospace organizations are coming down to earth in Morgantown, W.
Va. Boeing Company in Seattle and Bendix Corporation in Ann ,Arbor, Michigan, are now working together
to make West Virginia University's Personal Rapid Transit
(PRT) System a reality.
Boeing, in overall charge of the design and construction
of the system, is also developing the vehicles. Bendix will
develop the control and communication equipment. In
addition, Frederic R. Harris, Inc., in Stamford, Connecticut,
will do the architectural and engineering design work, and
Alden Self-Transit System Corporation in Boston will serve
as principal subcontractor under Boeing in developing the
vehicles. Alden is builder of the "staRRcar," which was
used in some of the preliminary evaluations of the system.
"Fifty years ago you could travel in downtown Manhattan at about 11 miles an hour with a horse and buggy.
Today you are lucky to average 7 miles an hour in a car,"
observed Dr. Samy E. G. Elias, chairman of West Virginia
University's Department of Industrial Engineering and
initiator-of the WVU-Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit
(PRT) System.
Such traffic problems also exist in small cities, and in
both large and small cities they are getting worse. In the
mid 1960s, engineers and traffic experts began meeting and
talking about new transit systems that could alleviate these
problems. Their meetings were made possible under the
federal Urban Mass Transit Act of 1966, which funded a
series of seminars for top management officials of rail and
bus systems. Two of the seminars were held at WVU in the
summer of 1967 and attracted transportation experts from
throughout the country.
"The most important thing we did was talk," Dr. Elias
recalled. "And it soon became clear that most of us were
interested in transit systems for large metropolitian areas or

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

even on a national scale. The idea of a rapid transit system
for small cities was discussed, but there wasn't much
enthusiasm.
"Later, some of us at the WVU College of Engineering
decided that a rapid transit system was going to be built in
some small city sometime in the future-and that it might
as well be Morgantown, and it might as well be now. So we
drafted a proposal and, through the efforts of Congressman
Harley Staggers of West Virignia, we were able to present it
personally to Transportation Secretary John Volpe."
AUTHORS

Samy E. G. Elias is Chairman of the Industrial Engineering Department at West Virginia University and
Special Assistant to the University's President. The
concept of the Personal Rapid Transit system in
Morgantown is his and the project is being directed
under his supervision.
Dr. Elias came to WVU from Kansas State University,
where he was a member of the I.E. Faculty. He is a
senior member of All E. Dr. Elias received his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from Cairo University, his master's degree from Texas A & M and his
doctorate from Oklahoma State University.

R. E. Ward is a Research Engineer at West Virginia
University. He has been an instructor at WVU and
has held positions with Olmsted AFB, American Can
Co., and the New York City Transit Authority. He
holds a BSI E from Penn State, an MSI E from WVU,
and is currently working towards his Ph.D. Mr.
Ward is a senior member of All E.
Michael Wilson is a Research Engineer in the I E Department at West Virginia University. He has a BS
degree from Georgia Institute of Technology and an
MS and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from West
Virginia University.
11

The proposal was approved in July, 1969. WVU was
granted $100,900 by the U. S. Department of Transportation to study the feasibility of constructing a rapid
transit system in Morgantown. The university contributed
$32,600 of its own funds to make the study.
In September, 1970, Secretary Volpe visited
Morgantown and made an additional grant of $90,000 for a
preliminary design study. This commitment was strengthened in December when a $1.3 million contract was
awarded to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena,
California, for research and engineering on the system. In
April, 1971, about $4 million in contracts were awarded to
Boeing, Bendix, and the other companies to develop the
system.
Purpose of PRT is twofold-to serve 16,000 WVU
students, the university faculty and staff, and the people of
Morgantown, and to serve as a demonstration-research
project for other small cities of the nation. WVU is spread
over three distinct campuses-they are not too far apart,
but far enough so that a student isn't allowed to schedule
two successive classes on two different campuses. PRT
should alleviate this problem and thus greatly increase the
choices of classes for many students.

Another advantage, from the demonstration point-of-view,
is the varied climate of the city, which has ice, snow, rain,
fog and sunshine.
Initially PRT will have six stations, 3.2 miles of elevated
track, and about 100 vehicles.
Each vehicle is currently expected to carry eight seated
and seven standing passengers and to travel at speeds up to
capacity of 1,100 people every 20 minutes. The vehicles
will operate in two modes-on a scheduled basis during
peak hours and on a demand basis (just like an elevator)
30 miles an hour. The entire system will have a peak
during oft hours. The movement and spacing between cars
will be controlled by a system of computers.
The vehicles will run on four rubber-tired wheels and be
propelled by electric motors. The elevated dual guideways,
one for each direction of travel, will facilitate movement
and increase the safety of the system. The safety factors
built into the system are expected to eliminate fatalities
and the collision of vehicles.
PRT was initiated as a joint venture of federal, state, and
local units. The Monongalia County Court, the City of
Morgantown, and West Virginia University are supplying
the land needed for the 3.2-mile guideway, while the U. S.

u. S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
URBAN MASS TRANSPORTATION ADMIN'STRATION

MORGANTOWN DEMONSTRATION PROJECT
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSlTY
AND

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA

Model of PRT System shows its route from downtown Morgantown
(right) to WVU Downtown Campus, Creative Arts-Engineering,
Coliseum, Towers and Medical Center.

As a demonstration-research project for other small
cities, the choice of Morgantown (population 29,000) was
advantageous for several reasons. Because of students
changing classes, there will be at least five peak demands for
transporation a day. (Normally, non-university cities only
have morning and evening peak demands.) This means that
researchers will have more data and a greater variety of
transportation demands.
The hills of Morgantown provide another advantage. If a
rapid transit system can work on the Morgantown terrain, it
can work in almost every other city in the country.
12

Urban Mass Transporation Administration is constructing
the system under its research and development program.
Because the system probably will be the most advanced
of its kind in the world, it is very difficult, and too early, to
predict final construction costs. The cost of research and
development for the system, which will not recur if the
system is duplicated in other communities, may be as much
as 25 per cent of the total costs.
Yearly or semester passes and a central office to sell
individual tokens are expected to reduce operating costs of
the system. This will save on manpower by eliminating
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

ticket offices at each station and will speed up service, as
well as eliminate problems of handling large amounts of
change. For football games and other large events, special
token sellers will be placed at each station.
The present WVU inter-campus bus system, which is the
second largest university-operated system in the country, is
financed by fees collected from all students. It has been
proposed that this method be extended to P RT.
It will cost students less than 10 cents a day to ride as
many ti mes as they want to under a proposal now being
studied. The same yearly or semester fee would be charged
townspeople and university personnel. Tokens for occasional riders would cost slightly more.
Based on an estimated 20,000 regular students and
6,000 summer students by the time construction of the
system is finished, these fees would amount to between
$600,000 and $700,000 a year. This and the other revenues

should be adequate to cover operating expenses. Another
advantage of the set-fee method of financing operations is
that it allows for better planning because a definite amount
ot income is assured each year.
The first phase of construction will be to build the
guideways from the downtown station on Walnut Street to
the Engineering Sciences Building-Creative Arts Center
station on the Evansdale Campus. This work is scheduled to
be completed by October, 1972, and testing of vehicles will
begin at that ti me. The first regular passengers should begin
riding in the fall of 1974.
The second phase of construction, which will begin as
soon as the first phase is completed, will extend the
guideways to the Coliseum and the Medical Center. This
W9rk should be finished in the spring of 1974.
PRT is being designed so that future spurs and links
could be added with little disruption of its operation.

PRT Station (artist's drawing)

II.

THE COMPUTER AS THE HEART OF PERSONAL RAPID TRANSIT

A major breakthrough is taking place in the field
of urban transportation at ~lorgantown, West Virginia.
Following the recommendations which resulted from
studies initiated and conducted by West Virginia
University's Department of Industrial Engineering,
the U.S. Department of Transrwrtation, together with
the University, the Boeing and Bendix Aerospace Companies and Frederic R. Harris, Inc., are currently
in the process of design and construction of a new
mode of public transportation referred togenerically
as the Personal Rapid Transit system or PRT. The
system involves new engineering concepts applied for
the first time to transportation. This system will
be unique and the first of its kind, not only in the
United States, but throughout the world.
Although the project's history dates backtol966,
including the phases of planning, feasibility testing, and preliminary design, the ground-breaking
ceremonies took place as recently as October 9,1971.
Prototype operations are scheduled to begin during
the summer of 1972.
Major Inpovations

Maj or innovations of the Morgantown PRT, and those
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

which distinguish it from other operational transit
systems, include:
A Computer Control
Demand-Activated Service
Small, Personalized Vehicles
On-Board Switching
Short Headways
Off-Line Stations
Non-stop Trips from Origin to Destination
The PRT is a computer-controlled, fully automated
collection and distribution transportation system.
It is characterized by two types of service. The first
service will be demand-activated or on-call, whereby
a passenger selects his destination at the origin
station in tbe same manner as he would call an elevator in an office building. A single vehicle will
respond to the demand and provide the passenger(s)
with non-stop transportation to the selected destination. The second form of service will be a prescheduled service for peak traffic periods. In the
scheduled mode, each link in the network will have
its own schedule of vehicles moving between predetermined station pairs.
13

The computer system for the demonstration project
will be capable of controlling an initial fleet of
up to 128 vehicles with the additional capability of
controlling 256 vehicles in the future.
Vehicles

Each vehicle is air conditioned and heated and
presently designed to carry eight seated and thirteen
standing passengers. The vehicles are electrically
powered, receiving power from a third rail and control instructions from an inductive loop embedded in
the guideway.
The vehicles run on headways of from 7.5 to 15
seconds at a maximum speed of 30 miles per hour,
although the theoretical minimum headway is3.5 seconds. Right-of-way for the vehicles is in the form
of an exclusive guideway. For the demonstration
system in Morgantown, the guideway will be maintained
at three grades: at grade, above grade, and a very
short section in a cut-and-cover tunnel. The network in Morgantown will consist of approximately
3.5 miles of double guideway, allowing vehicle movement in both directions. The guideway will connect
six off-line stations. The network will be in the
form of a "y" wi th the stations at the three extremities offering station-side parking for all who choose
to ride the PRT.
What the Computer System Controls

The use of a computer in the control function of
a transit system is of course not a new phenomenon.
However, almost without exception, its current applications have been lim.i ted to ol!=.poard sys tems for
regulation of velocity profile. Isolated exceptions
have made use of the computer for headway monitoring
using the traditional block scheme of railroad control. Yet, in every instance, vehicle motormen or
operators are still utilized.
The Morgantown PRT breaks away from present experience with several notable innovations.
First, control is achieved in part by way of a
centralized computer, whose jurisdiction spans all
six stations and the entire 3.5 miles of double
guideway.
Second, there are no vehicle operators at all.
Aside from the control aspect, this latter characteristic yields a transit system which is capital
intensive rather than labor intensive, and the result is a transit system which is more economically
viable.
Third, the computer is used to provide automatic
operation of the entire transit system, and not just
control of speed or headway. However, even in these
elements the implemented control concept is a major
breakthrough from tradi tion and represents a combined
effort of innovative thinking and new transit technology.
Three major elements are under the control of the
computer system; the vehicles, the guideway, and the
passengers.
Scenario of a Passenger

A scenario of events taking place for each person
who arrives at a station highlights many of the computing functions.
Each passenger arrives"at a particular station wi th
a destination in mind. At the time the passenger
pays his fare, he also records his desired destina14

tion by depressing a numbered button, much the same
as he would call for an elevator in an office building. The Central Computer receives the demand and
begins a sequence of searches. If it finds a vehicle
at the origin station (viz., a dedicated vehicle)
already loading other passengers for the same destination, and it is not yet full, the vehicle is instructed to wait for the new passenger. The passenger
in turn is directed by dynamic displays in the station area to the appropriate platform. If a dedicated vehicle cannot be found in the station, but
there is one or more empty vehicles idling in the
station, one of the vehicles will be dedicated to
the same destination as the passenger's: the passenger will be directed to the vehicle as before. If
there are no available vehicles in the station, approaching vehicles on the guideway, which are due
into the station, are interrogated as to their next
dedication status. The first available vehicle due
in is rededicated to the waiting passenger. If no
undedicated vehicles are due in, the entire network
of stations is searched for an empty vehicle. If
one is found, it will be dispatched to the station
demanding it at its first available opportunity.
Once on board a vehicle the passenger will wait
until one of two events occurs: either the vehicle
fills up or it dwells in the station a maximum amount
of time. At this pOint, the vehicle becomes eligible for scheduling onto the guideway. The vehicle
will be scheduled for departure at a given time if
it can make the desired trip without experiencing
conflicts at merge points along the route. Once the
passenger's vehicle is launched the remainder of his
trip is essentially determined; the travel time between any two stations is fixed, and the passenger
disembarks from the vehicle upon arrival athis destination.
Vehicle Accounting

Clearly, the computer system must keep track of
all vehicles in the system and monitor their status.
Furthermore, the computer system must initiate signals for: door openings, door closings, launch conformation, acceleration, deceleration, position control, and steering bias. The vehicle steering function is an outgrowth of another major transit system
innovation which is also being implemented for the
first time in Morgantown. The guideway is passive
in that articulation is not required for branching
maneuvers. Using lateral guide wheels, the vehicle
is instructed by the computer to bias tracking from
one side of the guideway to the other. In addition
to simplifying guideway construction. on-board branching control has its greatest effect in permitting
vehicle headways to theoretically approach a bumper
'to bumper state.
Initial headways in Morgantown will be at from
7.5 to 15 seconds. In contrast, the San Francisco
Bay Area Rapid Transit System will operate at a
nominal headway of around 2 minutes.
The computer system will pay very close attention
to the guideway. In order to make vehicle launch
decisions, the computer must have both real-time
knowledge about the present state of the guideway
and its expected future state. For example, suppose a vehicle at station i. wishing to travel to
station j, must pass through a merge point enroute
to its destination. The computer must know whether
or not that merge point will be occupied by the time
the vehicle reaches it. If it will be occupied,
launching is either deferred to a later time, or an
alternate route is investigated. If the merge point
in question will not be occupied, the computer in
effect, makes a future reservation at that point in
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

the guideway for the vehicle awaiting launch from
station i. This and other guideway control functions are achieved by a computer generated guideway
image within core. Obviously, software becomes a
critical element in the implementation of a computer
controlled transit system.
A controlling function which is not so obvious is
that of directing passengers within the station complex to the proper vehicle. From the time a passenger enters the origin station, the only part of the
system aware of his presence is the computer. The
passenger, by way of computer-activated dynamic displays, must be directed to the proper platform, the
correct loading dock and finally to the vehicle which
has been reserved to service his demand. Of all the
functions in the system, this may prove the most difficult to implement. The human element introduces a
certain amount of uncertainty into a system which up
to now has been structured to function as nearly deterministically as possible.
Indirect control functions include the continual
execution of algorithms and/or mathematical models
for the purpose of achieving near-optimal utilization of the system while still maintaining a high
level of service. Service is generally thought of
in terms of the amount of time a passenger must wait
before he departs from his origin station in a vehicle. System utilization may be thought of in terms
of loaded vehicle miles, operating costs, vehicle
load versus capaci ty, dead-head vehicle mi les, guideway capacity and several other measures. At least
two key operating policies will be under control of
the computer. The first involves the positioning
and storing of empty vehicles in anticipation of demand (dynamic scheduling). The second involves the
strategy for dispatching all vehicles from stations.
The Computer System

Control over the operation is executed not by a
single computer but by a hierarchy of computers interfaced by communication links. The computer system
configuration is illustrated in Figure 1, and consists of a central control computer, seven station
computers and a special purpose processor on board
each vehicle.
"of

The central control computer is located in a control center approximately at mid-point in the guideway network; its function is to supervise overall
transit operations. The station computers, one of
which is located at the Maintenance Center, control
vehicle and transit operations within fixed local
control zones on the main guideway and over sections
of guideway in the stations such as acceleration and
deceleration ramps and docking channels. The special
purpose processors on board the vehicles control the
vehicle motion and status based on instructions generated by the local station computer which hasjurisdiction over the vehicle at that moment. The command
and telemetry link between the Central Computer and
the Station Computer is a hardwired transmission
cable carrying both video signals and digital data.
The link between the vehicle processor and the station computer is dependent on an inducti ve communication loop which transmits critical signals by tones
and non-cri tical signals by low data rate, FSK digi tal
transmission.
Synchronous Control System: Slots

The principal feature of the Morgantown PRT upon
which the software units of both the station and
central computers depend and operate is the pri~
mary speed control and vehicle separation control
system; this is referred to in the literature as
the Synchronous Control System. It is this feature
which facilitates a better understanding of the relationship of the tasks of each computer. The Synchronous Control System conceptually consists of moving slots on the guideway. Each slot represents a
possible vehicle location and is separated by a fixed
time interval or headway. Essentially, 'the slots are
created, a vehicle is assigned to a slot and the vehicle maintains its position in the slot during its
trip. The central computer software generates the
slots and keeps track of their status (e.g. occupied,
unoccupied, location) so that vehicle launches may
be scheduled according to specific real-time passenger demands and vehicle traffic conditions existing
on the main guideway. The station computer software
actually commands the launches which have beenscheduled by the central computer, and monitors and corrects each vehicle's synchronism with its slot.
Central Control Computer

CONil'-OI..

S'i'P<"

(]

~o(

o--

()
Q

o
CJ

o
D

OV
*'

= COMMUNICATIONS LINK
*2 = VEHICLE PROCESSOR,
One on board each vehicle

Figure 1
SCHEMATIC OF COMPUTER SYSTEM HIERARCHY

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

The Central Control and Communications Subsystem
has four primary tasks. There are systems management, vehicle flow management, provision for operator interface, and communications with the stations.
The system management function roughly describes a
large number of special purpose programs. Examples
of these types of programs are the system start
function, emergency operations, manual mode operations, data collection and system diagnosis. If the
system is in a power-off condition, when power is
restored, the Central Computer is loaded with the
system start program. This program will load each
of the station computers with their operational programs, locate each car in the system, then :Jad the
Central Computer with its operational program and
start the system.
The emergency operation activities are divided
between the three maj or parts of the Control and Communications system. The task of the Central Computer
is to provide the system operator with the information that he needs to evaluate and correct the emergency and to manage the flow and the unaffected portion of the system in a manner so as to minimize the
impact of the emergency.
The manual mode operations provide the system
operator with the ability to attempt to correct prob15

lems on the guideway from the Central Control and
Communications facility. In this mode, the system
operator addresses commands directly to a single vehicle out on the guideway.
The data collection program collects data reporting origin, destination and time of day for each
passenger in the system. It also compiles data on
the vehicle movements within the system. This data
will permit the programmers to develop more advantageous algorithms and provide a data base for the detailed implementation of the scheduling program. In
addition, the Central Computer will collect other
data related to the maintenance function. The result of all data collection activities will be a
broad base for a Management Information System.
Vehicle flow management implies a certain amount
of control over the movement and location of each
vehicle. The vehicle control task includes scheduling and routing of vehicles, as well as the allocation of each vehicle to a unique conceptual slot moving over the guideway. The overall problem which
must be solved by the Central Computer is the assurance that vehicles are available where they are
needed and that optimum use is made of the guideway
so as to get the maximum system capacity possible.
One vehicle management algorithm will allocate and
shuttle empty vehicles. Such vehicle management algorithms will constitute a large part of the vehicle
flow management package.
The Central Computer is a DEC PDP-II with a 36K
extended core memory utilizing the standard peripheral
devices; disk and tape units for mass storage and
card reader and line printer for input-output. The
operator interface is provided by CRT display and
keyboard. The communications basically consists of
telephone lines over which digital data is transmitted at a 1,800 baud rate. There is a line to each
station and one to the maintenance facility (as far
as Control and Communications is concerned, themaintenance facility is equivalent to a station). There,
seven lines are interfaced wi th a computer. The telephone is connected to a handset in each station.
Passengers who have problems interfacing with the
system can call the systems operator and request assistance. The right-hand portion of the console has
a display showing the current condition of the power
system, and provides a number of push buttons by
which the power system can be controlled by the
operator or by the computer. It is expected that a
"mimic board" will be added to this console to display the position of each car in the system.

Additional duties of each station computer include door open and close commands and vehicle launching. Non-vital communications such as vehicle diagnostics are also monitored by the station computer,
as are such operational activities as platform allocation of the vehicles as well as passengers.
Collision Avoidance

Figure 3 is an operational sketch of the Collision Avoidance system. The Collision Avoidance
system consists of the present sensors which are
mounted in the guideway and hardwired to the Collision Avoidance logic. The Collision Avoidance
logic is in the same location as the station computer, but is a separate set of special purpose
logic utilizing redundancy and fail-safe design.
This logic, in turn, drives the tone loops reporting "safe" which are distributed along the guideway. The condition shown in the figure is that vehicle number 1 has activated present sensor A but
has not yet arrived at present sensor B. The collision Avoidance logic will, therefore, turn off
safe tone loops 1, 2 and 3. Safe tone loop 4 will
be turned on. If the ~eparation between the vehicles is greater than 4L, then vehicle number 1
will arrive at present sensor A and turn on safe
tone loop 3 before vehicle number 2 passes to that
loop. Thus, vehicle number 2 will always find a
safe tone loop and will proceed without hesitation.
If the separation is less than 4L, vehicle number 2
will arrive at safe tone loop 3 before vehicle number 1 arrives at present sensor A. In this condition, the tone loop 3 is turned off, the emergency
brakes are applied and vehicle number 2 is brought
to a stop. Once applied, the emergency brakes cannot be released except by human intervention.
The computing system analyzes the position information generated by the Collision Avoidance System
to monitor the flow of the vehicles throughout the
system. In addition to locating the vehicles, the
OPTIONAL

MESSAGE DISPLAY-,.-_ _ _ _ _ _- t
PANEL

Station Control Computer
and Communications

The basic tasks achieved by the Station Control
and Communications system are fare control, destination selection, station graphics, detailed vehicle
flow, collision avoidance, and com~u~ications. Figure 2 shows the destination selection terminal.
This terminal will be mounted with the fare collection equipment so that as one puts in his fare, he
is given an opportunity to select a destination.
When he selects the destination by pressing one of
the six buttons shown, the station computer will
check to see if it has a car within the station
which is already going to that destination. If there
is, it will simply turn on the graphics to tell that
person to go to that berth. If not, the station computer will request the Central Computer to assign a
car to carry that passenger. When that assignment
is made, the graphics in the destination selection
equipment and at the platform level will be energized
to guide the passenger.
16

DESTINATION
SELECTION PANEL

FEATURES:
- Touch operated pushbuttons
- Hidden legends and messages
- Messages and legends individually
computer controlled
- I nternal power supply for lamps
and computer inputs

Figure 2
DESTINATION SELECTION TERMINAL

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for August, 1972

CONDITION:

Presence Sensor A - not activated
Presence Sensor B - activated
LOGIC:

Vehicle between B and A
Safe tone removed from wires 1, 2, arid 3

RESULT:

If separation less than 3L, Vehicle V2, immediately
commanded to stop
If separation less than 4L, Vehicle V2 soon
commanded to stop

Figure 3
COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM OPERATIONAL SKETCH

computer can use this information to detect and correct overspeed and underspeed conditions prior to
activation of the Collision Avoidance System. This
is achieved by transmi t ting to the vehicle a required
performance level utilizing the FSK data link.
Vehicle Processor and Control

The vehicle processor is a command and control
interface between the guideway signals generated by
the station computers and the vehicle activators
such as the propulsion subsystem, braking subsystem,
and the steering subsystem. The~processorreceives
FSK data from the communications unit. The data is
decoded if and only if an address tag compares with
the address of the vehicle. Once decoded, the processor may also generate a return message iothe station computer, if a sensed fault'is'detected. Present
requirements call for up to 32 fault conditions. The
processor will assign each detected condition into
one of eight failure classes, which in turn dictates
the action required by the Central Computer.
The vehicle steering subsystem is a curb following
system. Basically it follows either a right hand
curb or a left hand curb at the command of the computer. The switching function is simply the change
from the right hand curb following to the left hand
curb following. In order to follow the curb, it is
necessary to sense the position of the curb.'This is
achieved by a horizontal guidewheel. The guidewheel
is pressed against the curb by the force from a bias
cylinder. The bias switch cylinder allows this bias
force to be applied to either the right or left hand
curb. The remainder o,f the steering 'subsys tem simply
senses the relative position of the vehicle and the
guidewheel axle and steers so as to keep this relative position zero. This is achieved through the
power steering control valve and a power steering
cylinder. Utilizing this curb following steering
system, the computer can control the path of the
vehicle through the network by changing from switch
(bias) left to switch (bias) right at appropriate
places.
The velocity control function is provided by the
braking subsystem and the propulsion subsystem under
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

the management of the point follower control loop.
The propulsion subsystem is powered by a 3 phase,
575 volt, AC, third rail mounted in the curb stone.
The torque output is regulated by a standard SCR
variable phase angle power control unit. The propulsion motor~is a 65 UP DC series motor providing
torque to the rear wheels through an automotive rear
end. This subsystem is one of the critical safety
items in the vehicle; so a considerable effort has
been expended to provide redundant fail-safe operation. The subsystem actually consists of 3 completely separate braking systems.
The point follower control loop follows the velocity profile which is hardwired into the guideway
as a set of speed Itones. The velocity profile can
be modified by the computing system. Utilizing the
vehicle performance parameter, the computer can slow
the operation of the entire system by adjusting the
parameter of each car or it can correct the improper
operation of an individual car by continuously adj usting the performance perameter in order to achieve
the desired operation. The vehicle speed control is
an open loop with respect to the velocity profile.
The Vehicle Processor and Communications system
utilizes the speed profile and the output of an onboard odometer to generate motor and brake commands.
These commands together with the disturbances represented by the variations in slope and change in wind
direction result in a distance travelled.
The
distance traveled is measured by the odometer and
fed back to the Vehicle Processor and Communications
system. The requirement of the point follower control loop is to maintain the position of the vehicle
within 10 feet of the nominal position. Since the
average trip is on the order of 10,000 feet, the resuI tant odometer accuracy requirement is 0.1 percent.
The variations in the odometer gain caused by changes
in drag, slope and variations in the passenger load
(which changes the effective radius of the tires)
are greater than permissible by this accuracy limit.
Therefore, each 1,000 feet of guideway has a 200
foot calibration tone loop. The Vehicle Processor
and Communications system utilizes this tone to zero
out the accumulated position error in the odometer
and to correct the odometer gain.
0
17

Who's Who in Computers and Data Processing
A SUBSCRIPTION PUBLICATION
jointly published by Quadrangle Books (a New York Times Company) and Computers and Automation.

The Fifth Edition 1971-72 was published March, 1971, in three volumes, hardbound, containing over 15,000 capsule
biographies.
Effective April 1, 1972, Who's Who in Computers and Data Processing became a subscription publication at two rates.
The subscription rate for 12 months is (1) $49.~0 when a cumulative edition and all subsequent supplements is supplied,
and (2) $22.00 otherwise. A subscription includes (a) at least 3 supplements totaling 3000 capsule biographies (new or
updated) and (b) an inquiry service whereby a subscriber may request 12 capsule biographies, which will be furnished to
him as soon as obtained.
If you wish to be considered for inclusion in the Who's Who (or i f information for you has been published previously
and requires updating), please complete the following form and send it to us.

WHO'S WHO ENTRY FORM
(may be copied on any piece of paper)
1.

Name?

Home Address (with Zip)?_______________________________________________________________________________

Organization?________________________________________________________________________________________

Its Address (with Zip)? ________________________________________________________________________________

Your Title? ________________________________________

Your Main Interests?

Applications
Business
Construction
Design
Yea r of Bi rth ?_______________________ 8.

Year Entered Computer Field?_______________ 10.

11.

(Please print) __________________________________________________________________________________

Logic
Management
Mathematics
Progrannning
Sales
Systems

Other (please specify)

Education and Degrees?________________________________________
Your Present Occupation?_____________________________

Publications, Honors, Memberships, and other Distinctions?_____________________________________________
(attach paper if needed)

12.

Do you have access to a computer?
a.

I f yes, what ki nd of computer?

Yes

Manufact u rer?____________________M.ode 1 ?__________________________

Address?___________________________________________________________________
c.
d.
13.

Please explain.________________________
Is your access: Batch?
Time-Shared?
Other?
Any remarks?_______________________________________________________________________________________

In which volume or volumes of the Who's Who -Vol. 1

Vol. 2
Vol. 3

(b) 00 you think
you should be included?

(a) Have you
been included?

Systems Analysts and Programmers
Data Processing Managers and Directors
Other Computer Professionals

14.

Do you subscribe to Computers and Automation?

15.

Associates or colleagues who should be sent Who's Who entry forms?

) Yes

) No

to The New York Times?

) Yes

) No

Name and Address

(attach paper if needed)
When completed, please send promptly to: Who's Who Editor, Computers and Automation, 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160
18

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Computer La boratory For Elementary Schools

Dr. Seymour Papert
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Mass. Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
"Three new roles for the computer in education are:
mathematical technology for children
a model for learning about learning and other cognitive skills
the use of theoretical computer science as a source for research
in elementary education

The methods being developed in this project add
new dimensions to the possibilities of reform of the
curriculum in mathematics, physics, biology, and
other conventional school subjects. They allow us
to remove artificial barriers between "subjects",
and in this way to integrate mathematics with the
other sciences, to integrate science with linguistics
and other academic areas, and even to establish significant links between "academic" work and freer
activities such as music and gymnastics. Partly
through removing these barriers, partly independently, we are able to achieve a much more involved and
personal participation of children in their work.
The key to achieving all this is recognizing three
new roles for the computer in education. These are:
• mathematical technologies for children;
• a model for learning about learning and other
cognitive skills;
• the use of theoretical computer science as a
source for research in elementary education.
Mathematical Technologies for Children

We find that the intention behind this computer
role is most effectively conveyed by a fantasy. One
might dream of having children learn mathematics by
giving them a ship to sail the ocean, a sextant to
fix their posi tion, and a cargo to trade wi th distant
peoples. A large part of our work is directed at
trying to make this dream come true (at least in
principle) by creating mathematical instruments more
manageable than ships and sextants, but which still
allow the child to develop and exercise mathematical
arts in the course of meaningful, challenging, and
personally motivated projects.
In our context the computer is not merely a device
for manipulating symbols. It actually controls real,
physical processes: motors that turn, trucks that
move, boxes that emit sounds. By programming it,
the child is able to produce an endless variety of
actions in a completely intelligible, controlled
way. New mathematical concepts translate directly
into new power for action. Self-generated projects
induce an immediate and practical need to understand
the mathematics of movements, the physics of moving
bodies, and the formal structure of sound patterns. l
A Model for Learning about Learning
and Other Cognitive Skills

Because "children learn by dOing," research in
education has the task of inventing better things
(Based on a proposal to the National Science Foundation for support of research on children's thinking
and elementary education.)

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

for children to do. We see our technologies as a
particularly good example that is completely justified on this score alone: one can do infinitely more
with our machines than with the rods and blocks and
shiny but passive laboratory apparatus of the curriculum reform of the previous two decades.
We are also influenced by another dimension of
educational philosophy indicated by an addition to
the slogan: "Children learn by doing, and by thinking about what they do." So, another dimension of
the task facing research in education is to give
children better ways and means to think about what
they do; and this includes looking for activities
whose structure might allow the child a particularly
clear view of his own intellectual activity and so
help him achieve a more articulate understanding of
"doing."
Programming a "Turtle"

To see how computer-controlled devices excel in
this function, consider a simple task of the kind we
assign during the first week of an elementary school
course using a device known as a turtle (see Figure 1).

A. Three wheels, on which it rolls; the wheels su.pport it,
steer it, and drive it
B. Light or photosensitive cell

Figure 1 - A "Turtle", schematically

(This work was supported by the National Science
Foundation under grant number GJ-I049 and conducted
at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, an M.I.T.
research program supported in part by the Advanced
Research Proj ec t s Agency of the Depa rtment of Defense
and monitored by the Office of Naval Research under
Contract Number NOOOI4-70-A-0362-0002.)

The turtle "understands" simple commands (typed
at the computer terminal) such as:
FORWARD 73
RIGHT 90
PENDOWN

Which makes it advance 73 units
Which makes it rotate around its
center through a 90 0 angle
Which makes the turtle lower its
pen and leave a trace of its
path

PENUP
To make the turtle do anything more complex, the
child must write a procedure. For example, the
child might want to "teach the turtle" the command
"BOX", whose effect is intended to make the turtle
move around a square. To define it, the child must
"tell the computer how to BOX." So he types:
TO BOX
1 FORWARD 100
2 RIGHT 90
3 BOX

The word "TO" i ndi ca te s tha t we
are defining. So the turtle does
not go forward and turn right
when the next lines are typed.
Instead, it" remembers" these
directions until it is given the
command BOX. Notice the use of
recursion in line 3 to set up a
self-perpetuating process.

END
The last line says the definition is finished.
child now has only to type:
BOX

with a little encouragement). Children almost unanimously see the turtle (rather than themselves) as
doing the "wrong thing." And, of course, we strongly encourage this, for the child is then much more
ready to be objective about what happened. Moreover,
we are able to urge them to understand exactly why
the turtle did what it did ... rather than merely
make it do the "right thing." The diagram ( in Figure 3)
will help the reader understand what did happen. An
elementary school child with a past history of unbroken failure in math needs a longer time. Often
it comes to him as a revelation that it is ever possible to understand anything "exactly."

The

This command causes the turtle
to go round and round and round
.. , a square whose side is 100
units long. For this example we
do not need to know how to make
the turtle stop.
Drawing a Triangle

Suppose, now, to develop our example, that the
child wants to make the turtle draw a triangle. He
writes:
TO TRI
FORWARD 100
2 RIGHT 60
3 TRI
END
But when the command TRI is given, instead of drawing a triangle, the turtle draws the hexagon in
Figure 2.

Figure 3
Debuggin"g His Own Mistakes

We have observed many children gradually transfer
the objectivity and skill acquired in debugging the
turtle to "debugging" their own mistakes and thus a
acquire a more constructive approach to their own
learning. 2 So, in a sense, they are learning something about the practical psychology of learning as
well as about programming and geometry.
They are also learning something about the nature
of thinking by seeing an objective, externalized example of that curious process called "formal" or
"rigorous" thinking, a process which remains deeply
mysterious to most people who pass through school
without ever understanding what mathematical thinking is, or why it should exist.
Finally. under this heading, we mention for completeness a further area of our work with children.
This is research on how people learn -- and can become better at learning -- physical skills such as
juggling, balancing feats, and other "circus arts."
Our conjecture, (for which we are gradually collecting confirmation) is that these skills can be learned
with special ease by persons who have acquired sophistication in the "debugging model of learning"
and in a number of similar concepts related to computation.
Theoretical Computer Science as a Source
For Research on Elementary Education

Figure 2

When a child makes mistakes in an arithmetic
class, he (and, alas, often his teacher) might conclude, "1'm dumb" or "1'm not mathematically minded"
or "I never could understand that" or "to hell wi th
it." The child rarely engages in constructive thinking about how and why the mistake happened and what
can be done about it. But when the turtle draws a
hexagon instead of a triangle, the reaction is much
more constructive (or at least easily becomes so
20

There has been very little interaction so far between the elementary curriculum reform movement and
the conceptual, theoretical wings of computer science.
We believe that by starting this interaction we may
be unleashing an intellectual force of great power;
for education might prove to be the area of research
and application needed for certain germinating ideas
in the theory of computation to acquire purpose and
maturity.
Artificial intelligence is an area of computer
science that should interact with education. But,
there are other, less obvious, examples with a greater potential for immediate impact. One of these,
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

which we shall use to illustrate our thesis, is computational geometry.

to motorize under computer control any construction
they care to make, say with an erector set.

Computational Geometry

Developing theoretical ideas and teaching methods
has become a strain on our present computational resources. We have exciting ideas for a full physics
course and a biology course. We have a strong group
working on teaching and studying music. We have an
increasing pool of mathematical talent eager to develop new ideas. For these ideas to flourish, we
need more access for our research staff and students
to computers and to children. We need a computer
facility of our own, with real-time interactive facilities designed for our needs.

This is an essentially new branch of mathematics
that derives from such sources as automata theory,
pattern recognition, and computational complexity.
From these diverse origins, it ha~ gradually moved
towards a coherent concept. The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at M.I.T. is a focal point of development of computational geometry and of the thinking
about education embodied in its development. One of
the best developed pieces of mathematics in our new
curriculum is "turtle geometry," which is firmly
rooted in both areas.
Enough other examples are germinating in our laboratory to convince us (as we suspected from general
ideas) that many branches of computational mathematics will come into being and that many of these
will prove to have pedagogic advantages. Turtle
geometry is apparently a rare innovation in mathematical curricula in actually being a new piece of mathematics, created for children. This is very different from the general character of what is called the
"New Math". The creators of that movement did not
create very much (if anyl) new mathematics, butrather seem to have scratched about in the mathematician's cupboard for fragments of already existing
(and generally rather old!) mathematics that seemed
suitable for children.
Computer scieniists have so far not been imaginative in developing mathematical ideas for teaching
their subject at any level. The traditional BooleanAlgebra-Finite-5tate-Machine-Lambda-Calculus'course
is offered as uninspired and uninspiring fare for
young computer scientists. We would rather teach
turtle geometry -- and other topics like it -- at
all levels, whether in fifth grade or in graduate
school. 3
We have scarcely begun to tap the three sources
of educational innovation mentioned above. We find
however that some of our illustrations of new technologies are sufficiently compelling to attract considerable interest from research groups and educators, including some who had become disenchanted
wi th curriculum reform and computers .. We hope this
interest may start a wave of more research strong
enough to deflect the national view of the role of
computers in education.
A New Curriculum

We have set ourselves for the present the goal of
developing enough material in the form of technology
(like turtles) and ideas (like turtle geometry) to
include the major part of a full elementary school
curriculum in mathematics, science, music, circus
arts, formal linguistics, and some new subjects one
could call "cybernetic models" -- all for use on the
elementary school level.
On the technological side, this task is less formidable than it might seem at first glance. Our engineering work no longer has the form of developing
particular devices such as turtles; instead we have
gained enough experience to shift over to developing
modular kits, out of which many different kinds of
devices can be constructed.
To this end we have already built a first model
of a universal controller to allow extremely easy
interfacing (of motors, relays, sensing devices, and
so on) to the computer. We shall soon be able to
install one of these in our elementary school computer laboratory, and the children will then be able
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

We are therefore designing a system that we need
for our own work, but we have kept in mind the possibility that the system might serve as a model for
general use in schools and other educational environments (colleges, museums, vocational training,
etc.). We have designed it (we believe without compromising our own needs) to facilitate this. The
system wi 11, it is expected, be very much ahead of the
"state of the art" for mini-computers, in power of
language, in real-time facilities, and in displays.
On the other hand, its cost (excluding the once-only
costs of engineering and programming) will be comparable to currently available systems. So, it will
almost inevitably be used much more widely than just
in our laboratory.
Technical Features of Computer System

The important technical features of the system
are:
(i) Language. The system will be dedicated to a
version of the programming language LOGO, extended
to provide full list structure, algebraic infix notation, and floating-point arithmetic.
(ii) Users. The system is designed for 10 users,
but will probably be extendable to 16. The design
takes advantage of the fact that many users will be
children working with very small programs.
(iii) Real Time. The system will allow users to
declare priorities for response time. The intention
of the design is that the top priority program should
be able to provide for some experiments a response
in less than 30 milliseconds.
(iv) Displays. The system will have five display
tubes of adequate quality for turtle geometry and
similar graphics, but of considerably lower quality
(and cost) than the standards usually considered
necessary by the computer industry. (If suitable
plasma storage tubes become available in time. we
might switch to them.)
(v) Autonomy. The system will be able to
operate autonomously, but will be connected by a . .
single high-speed line tc a central computer fac~II
ty to allow more convenient back-up storage, monItoring of programs for research purposes, etc.
Examples of What a Future School
Computer-Laboratory Might Contain

We foresee a number of kinds of new devices in a
future school laboratory. We shall try here to convey some images that guide our present thinking. But
we are firmly committed to the need for flexibility
in this kind of research, and we will certainly not
stick to a pre-conceived idea when better ideas appear.
Build-An-Animal Kit

We imagine an environment in which children's
study of biology is augmented and deepened byembodying various biological functions and mechanisms in
cybernetic model animals. The idea of studying bio21

logy by building models is not, of course, new. Our
contribution is to show how it can be done easily
and "cleanly" by a child. By "clean" we mean that
the child should not be frustrated by having to work
to great mechanical precision, and the process of
debugging sub-systems of the model should not be confused by bugs due to mechanical accidents.
A good example of a biological function suitable
for study in this way (and perhaps in no other way
at an elementary school level) is balance. To understand its mechanisms in any real sense one needs to
have mastered a small set of very powerful concepts
such as feedback, stabi Ii ty, momentum and a few
others. In an abstract setting these concepts are
difficult. Concretized in suitable projects in our
kind of laboratory these ideas are perfectly accessible.
To illustrate the way in which one might start
children off on understanding them, one project is
to program a turtle to balance an inverted pendulum.
A Lesson Unit on "Physics in the Finger-Tips":
Balancing a Broom

potentiometer (see Figure 5) and that this provides a number between -180 and 180. We also see
that he decided that the state of the system would
be represented by this angle. State is one of the
prime concepts in our fifth grade courses -- whether
or not we mean to use it in physical contexts. We
see this as a good example of a fundamental concept
that would appear very abstract in the context of
traditional schools and curricula, but which becomes
simple, concrete, and powerful in ours.
The next sub-project for the child is to understand exactly when this will "work." The reader
will easily see that it will work only for certain
lengths of rod, and for sufficiently gentle perturbing forces. He will less easily see that the
procedure allows a drift in the turtle that will
eventually bring it to the end of its permitted travel. Each of these observations leads to a modification or extension of the procedure. When it is
eventually debugged it may work too well, i.e., much
better than the boy in the original problem! The
final step will be to degrade its performance -perhaps by limiting its reaction time to the human
range.

The problem is to find out what objects are easy
to balance .•. and why. We begin wi th some crude experiments on balancing objects ourselves. See Figure 4.
Then we try to generalize to related situations: can
a child or a giant walk more easily on a tight-rope?
What length of stilts is best? Etc.)

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.

Light rigid rod
Weight clamp; variable mass and position
Hinge with 1 degree of freedom
Truck
Rail to make problem 1 - dimensional
Child keeps rod from falling by pushing truck back and
and forth
Figure 5A

Figure 4

The next two figures show stages in the construction of "models" of this balancing problem ... (making models is often a good way to understand things 1).
What kind of program can make the turtle balance the
rod? It is remarkable (but very typical of this kind
of work) that a very simple procedure will work
under restricted but realistic conditions. This
procedure (believe it or not!) is simply:

(

TO BALANCE
1 FORWARD ANGLE
2 BALANCE
END
The procedure uses a sub-procedure:
TO ANGLE
1 OUTPUT PORT 5
END
This sub-procedure causes the information from "PORT
5" to become the "value" or "output" of the procedure ANGLE. We guess that the child must have selected the fifth port as the inlet for his wire from the
22

A. Turtle keeps rod from falling by moving forward and back.
Potentiometer in hinge provides information for feedback.
B. Wire to computer.
Figure 5B
An Extension to Postural Balance

People can stand without moving their feet ... so
they have a different balancing method. But its
principles are the same. A project directed at findCOMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

ing out how this works should be accessible to a student who has understood the previous experiment, provided that he has suitable components. A set of components we propose for our kit includes a joint that
looks like two bars hinged together, but which has,
hidden in the bars, a "muscle" in the form of an
electrically driven actuator, and a sense organ.
Information and power signals would be passed internally in the bars. These joints connect together
easily, in the manner of standard "construction
kits." The kit also contains passive bars, and bars
with other sense organs, such as accelerometers, and
possibly other kinds of actuators. See Figure 6.
Project: Design a program to balance this device.
The letter A marks two places at which accelerometers are attached.

NUMBLES
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
Computers and Automation
A "numb Ie " 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. This month's Numble was contributed by:
Andrew M. Langer
Newton High School
Newton, Mass.
NUMBLE 726
T H E
N

Figure 6

N N H

I S

Visually Controlled Balance

The kit would contain simple light-sensitive
devices and could balance by using these as a source
of information. An excellent experiment for children who are aware of these issues is to study whether people balance by vision. Clue: People can
balance with their eyes closed, even on the ball of
one foot. But often fall over when placed in this
situation while looking through right-left inverting
spectacles.
These topics are obviously open-ended

Make a Radio-Controlled Motorcycle

We leave the reader to work this one out all on
his own. The only clue we give him is that the control theory of balancing bicycles is much easier
than popular beliefs (even those of physicists and
psychologists) would lead one to suppose.
[]
NOTES

1. A less lyrical, more technical account of some
of the actions we have already made accessible,
can be found in the paper, "Twenty Things To
Do Wi th A Compu ter." Available from the author.
2. Other examples can be found in the papers "Teaching Children Thinking" and "Teaching Children To
Be Mathematicians." Available from the author.
3. A monograph by Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert
developing ideas of this sort will soon be published by the American Mathematical Society.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

G H T

= GS

E N R M E H
H G

T U G U 0 H

86159

86149

78690

7684

Solution to Numble 725
In Numble 725 in the May issue, the digits 0 through 9
are represented by letters as follows:
U
N
T
A
I

G,H

2
3
4

R,S

6
7
8
9

The message is: Naught is never in danger.
Our thanks to the following individuals for submitting
their solutions - to Numble 725: Herbert Harvey, Morrisville, Pa.; and Don L. Richards, Chicago, Ill. - to Numble
724: A. Sanford Brown, EI Paso, Texas; and (Mrs.) Pat
Tischhauser, Manchester, Conn.
CORRECTION: In the May 1972 issue of Computers and
Automation, the following correction should be made:
Page 49, "Numbles": In Numble 725, replace the letter
U in line 4 by the letter V; line 4 will then read

D T T H I V.
We thank our readers who called this error to our attention.
23

For a no-tea-party
ACM 72.

Adrian Ruyle, recently of MIT's
Lincoln Laboratory and now head of
ARS Training Systems, is our Northeast Regional Representative. He's no
stranger to ACM annual technical
conferences-having attended each
one since ACM 65. Over the years,
he's formed some strong opinions on
how they should be run.
Now he's doing something about
them. As General Chairman of ACM 72
to be held in Boston August 14-16,
Adrian is helping his committee cook
up a thoroughly professional program.

"It'll be no Boston 'tea party' ," says
Adrian. "We're cutting out the frills.
ACM 72 will stand or fallon its service
to our members. We want people to
know what's going on in every major
field of computing-and then to get
more involved in their areas of interest
at ACM.
"Our call for papers has produced a
phenomenal response. Each Special
Interest Group and Committee will
showcase new developments in its
own area. There will be challenges for
the experts-and special tutorial

sessions for anyone who wants background on a particular topic. Overall
it will be an excellent chance for members to renew or enlarge their ties with
ACM. Or for non-members to join."
Plan now to join us at ACM 72. If you
are not a member, part of your admission fee can be converted to
annual dues-saving you $25. Send
in the coupon today!

......................................................................
ACM 72 Committee:
Walter Abrams
Jack Crowley
Jeffrey DeVeber
James Donohue
John Donovan
Carol Giltner
Elden Levine
Adrian Ruyle
Kenneth Scott
Rosemary Shields
Richard Waterhouse
Gunars Zagars

Association for Computing Machinery
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036
I am interested in ACM and ACM 72.
Please send more information.
Association
for Computing
Machinery

Name
Position
Address
City

State

Zip

The Computer and the Intellectual Frontier

Dr. Richard W. Hamming
Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc.
Murrav Hill, NJ 07974

"Perhaps the ultimate game is programming a computing machine. Here again,
all the rules are known in advance, but unlike other games, the object, producing
a particular working program, changes from game to game. Thus programming
offers the devotee an almost infinite number of variations on the basic game."

Outline

1. The Computer as an Experimental Tool
2. Music
3. Computer-Made Music

The first three are fairly straightforward, not
very exciting, and will be disposed of rapidly. Only
the last two are of maj or intellectual interest. But
before examining these we need to make a digression
on the topic of how digital computers handle information in the form of signals and data from the real
world, and the consequences of how this is done •...

4. The Use of a Computer Before an Experiment
5. Synthetic Worlds
6. Philosophy
7. What is Meant by Artificial Intelligence?
8. The Need for Machine Intelligence
9. Game Playing
10. Schools of Artificial Intelligence
11. Creativity

The Computer as an Experimental Tool

This chapter examines the use of the computer
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Before doing an experiment
During an experiment
After an experiment
In place of an experiment
As a source of new types of experiments

Excerpted from COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY by Richard. W.
Hamming. Copyright(c) 1972 by McGraw-Hili, Inc. Printed
with permission of McGraw-Hili Book Company.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

In spite of the great flood of publication of
books about computers, only rarely does a computer book appear which is thoroughly interesting
and stimulating both to persons in the computer
field and to persons not in that field at all.
Such a book is "Computers and Society" by Dr.
Richard W. Hamming of Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences of
The City College of New York, New York, N.Y., a
former president of the Association f9rComputing
Machinery, and for many years a member of its
Council.
We are fortunate to have received permission
from the author and from the publisher, McGraw
Hill Book Co., 330 West 42nd St., New York, N.Y.,
to publish some excerpts.
The book itself is full of ideas and is highly
recommended to all our readers -- and is much
more satisfying than just the excerpts published
here.
The following article is largely based on two
chapters, Chapter 9, "The Computer as an Experimental Tool", and Chapter 14, "Artificial Intelligence" .

lVIusic

Production of music has received a great deal of
attention from people who are interested in computers. Their efforts may be divided, mainly, into
two approaches: programming a computer to compose
music, and simulating musical sounds by computer.
(Analysis of music has also been done to some extent. )
Probably the first composed music to achieve national attention was a composition, based in part on
the use of random numbersi called Push-Button Bertha
(1956) and played briefly on radio stations on the
West Coast.
Much more serious were the efforts by Hiller and
Isaacson of the University of Illinois to compose
music on a computer. Their efforts resulted in the
"Illiac Suite" (from "Experimental Music", Hiller
and I saac son, McGraw-Hi 11, 1959). What they did,
briefly, was to write programs that described the
rules of composition of various musical forms, and
let the machine see if the next note chosen at random met the required rules. If it did, the note was
accepted, and if not, the note was rejected and another trial was made. If enough failures occurred in
a row, the program backed up and re-did one or more
of the previous notes.
Some of their results were organized into the
"Illiac Suite" (named after the Illiac computer on
which the computing was done) and was played by a
local musical group. Later it was played by the
University band.
Composing by, or more accurately, with the aid
of, a computer is popular in some circles. The
possibility of random composition is especially
attractive to many modern composers, John Cage being perhaps the leading exponent of the use of random effects in music composition.
Computer-Made Music

Computer-made music should be distinguished from
computer-composed music. Further, it is necessary
to di stingui sh various forms of making music (sounds).
Two approaches to using the new electronic capabilities that we now have for making sounds are the
French School of "Musique Concrete", which uses natural sounds recorded on a tape recorder as a basis
but alters and regroups and selects various parts by
electronic technique, and a German group, which uses
electronic sounds that are not originally natural.
Still other people use specially made electronic
equipment to form the sounds, such as the Moog instrument.
The computer-made music we shall discuss is produced directly from the computer in the following
manner. The computer calculates a stream of numbers
and these are converted via a digital-to-analog converter (plus a simple smoothing filter) to a sound
track that is later played on a tape recorder.
To understand how complex sounds can be produced
by such a system, consider what happens at the opening of your ear during a concert. These is at any
instant effectively a single air pressure at each
one of the two ear openings. This air pressure
varies with time and is the sum of sounds made by
all the musical instruments, the echos of the concert hall, the coughs of your neighbors, etc. All
the sounds are added together (except at very loud
sound levels) to produce a specific air pressure at
any single instant. Whether you hear this directly
or whether it is converted by a microphone to an
26

electrical voltage and then recorded on a tape to
be played later, it is a single, time-varying functio~
(one such function for each ea~). Thus on the magnetic tape of a tape recorder there is a magnetic
signal which varies from place to place along the
tape and is in some sense equivalent to the air pressure. Running the tape past the playing head of a
tape recorder produces a time-varying voltage very
much like the original time-varying air pressure.
This voltage activates the loud speaker which produces the variations in the air pressure you finally
hear.
If we produce numbers in the computer that correspond to the samples of the amplitude of the voltage
that corresponds to the sound, we can make a sound
track directly without using any musical instruments
at all. To do thi s a program is wri t ten for the computer that includes a musical score for one or more
instruments, and descriptions of the characteristics
of musical instruments (attack, overtone, and vibrato
pattern). This single program, written only once,
then computes numbers which are put on a digital
tape. Thi s digi tal tape, when passed through a digital-to-analog converter, makes the magnetic tape
that is played on a standard tape recorder to produce
the "music" you hear.
With this technique tor producing sounds the composer has at his command any sound that can theoretically exist, and not merely those that natural instruments can make. And if we distinguish between
the composer and the conductor, then the conductor
can go over a passage as often as he wants and precisely control the changes until he has exactly what
he wants. Thus in some sense we have reached the
ultimate in the matter of technically producing
music. We have in a very real sense reached perfect
control over any sound that can possibly exist.
For example, to produce a pure tone we would wri te
a program that computed the values of the sine function at a very small spacing. The pitch of the pure
tone you heard would depend on the spacing of the
angles used in the samples of the sine function.
The rate of computing the numbers is not important (except for the cost) since we can take as long
as we please to compute them. But when it comes to
running the digital tape through the digital-to-analog c(lnverter\ it is necessary to do this at a fixed
rate, preferably at the rate that the final music is
to occur (though obviously we can do it at half the
rate and later play the tape at twice the speed if
we please). Thus only the digital-to-analog converter needs to function at a rapid rate.
Where we lack control is in determining what
sounds to make to have the desired effect. The sudden opening of the new world of all possible sounds
leaves us in doubt about which ones to choose.
Most of the people who haie responded to this new
step forward (backward so far as some people are concerned, to be sure) have been engineers who are not
basically musicians, and what they have done with
the new tool is about what you would expect from them.
Therefore, before cri tici sing the new "music" (if
you will pardon the word), remember:
1. The composing was probably done by an amateur
musician and not a great composer. How well
would music that you composed sound?
2. Most of the currently classical music was regarded
as a "scandal" when it first appeared, and it
was often a generation or two before people
learned to appreciate and like it.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

3. When you hear Oriental music, you realize that a
different form of music requires experience and
perhaps training to appreciate. Electronic music also probably falls in this category.
At present (1970), the most fr~q~ent occurre~ce of
computer-made music and sounds I s In TV commerCIals.
The Use of a Computer before an Experiment

o
f

The use of a computer before an experiment is
coming into more use. Perhaps a good illustration
of this is my first experience with large-scale computation, the calculation of what a proposed design
of an atomic bomb could be expected to produce when
it was actually tried. From the calculated results
of one trial design the experts could make judgments
as to how to design the next try~,. In this fashion
they gradually came to a design that worked. The
results, at least to me, were surprisingly accurate
when compared with the actual field trial at Almagordo - however disturbing the whole aim and application.
In this situation there is no possibility of doing small-scale experiments. Either you tryout a
full-sized bomb or you don't try one at all. Some~
times before an experiment it is possible to do the
tradi tional laboratory :or ,pilot experiment, but
these 'have been found to be cos tly in time and money.
Thus the computer is used instead to simulate the
experiment. The computer serves as a basis for the
pilot study. For instance, in the current space
shots there are extensive simulations of the situation long before an ,actual field trial is made. Indeed, the use of computers before an experiment to
simulate what will happen is so widespread and successful that the very technique of experimentation
has been altered. Simulation plays a prominent role
in almost all large-scale experiments in which there
is a sufficient body of knowledge to provide even a
poor model.
The possibilities of this approach have not yet
been exhausted, and we are still learning new things
about how to carryon the art of simulation. However we shall leave the subject here, merely noting
that'this use consumes a large part of the capacity
of many machines.
The use of the computer,as a control device during
the experiment is gradually coming into more prominence. At first the computer was used merely to gather
the data from an experiment. Gradually it was also
used to direct the set up, and check out the equipment before the experiment was run. Sometimes it
was used to cycle the equipment through a series of
rcpeti ti ve experiments and to supply the input pulses.
We will examine such uses in more detail later.
Syntheti y Worlds

I have now started down a path that I expect most
readers will not wish to follow to the end, but will
prefer to drop off at some point along the way. Indeed, I am not sure how far I believe in it myself,
but let me present the vision. There are three distinct questions to be asked about the path:
1. How far can we go?
2. How far will we go?
3. How far should we go?
Let me introduce the idea of a "synthetic world."
By this I shall mean a world that finds its main inspiration not in the real world but in ~he mental
world. Games are good examples of synthetic worlds.
As a first example, consider the game of chess. No
one really pretends that it is a model of warfare.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

It is a game that is amusing to play.
teristics that I am interested in are

The charac-

1. The rules are explicitly known and are inherently simple.
2. The object of the game is also clearly known.,
3. How to combine the elementary rules to achieve
the stated goal is not known; rather, it is so
complex as to defy (up to now) any reasonable
analysis.
Bridge is another game that is really a synthetic
world. In addition to the stated rules there is a
random element whose characteristic (uniform distribution over all possible hands) is supposed to be
closely achieved by a moderate amount of shuffling.
(We will examine more of the details of machines
playing games in Chapter 14).
Indeed, almost all games fall in the class I am
calling a synthetic world, and I should like to
dwell for a moment on the powerful attraction such
synthetic worlds have for many people. They can be
very attractive indeed, and for some people can occupy a major part of their lives.
Perhaps the ultimate game is programming a computing machine. Here, again, all the rules are
known in advance, but unlike other games, the ob-'
ject, producing a particular working program, changes
from game to game. Thus programming offers the devotee an almost infinite number of variations on the
basic game. The rules stay the same, but the objective of the game is constantly being changed from
problem to problem. If you have any doubt of the
truth of my remarks you have only to watch or talk
to a professional programmer for a while to find
that often he really has only the slightest interest
in the use of the program that he writes. All he
cares about is being given a clearly state9 goal and
then being let alone to work out how, using the moves
allowed by the machine, to get from the stated problem to the working program. When the program works,
his interest usually vanishes. While there is some
ultimate reality both in the machine and the paper
he uses, as well as in the use the program is to be
put, his major activity has only the most tenuous
connection with the real world: it is a genuine example of activity in a synthetic world.
Whether we choose to view theoretical physics as
a game or not is not of importance here. Suffice it
to say that some people regard it as a game and some
do not. Much the same can be said in other fields
of science.
Having made clear, I hope, the main characteristics of what I mean by a synthetic world, as well as
its enormous attraction for many people, let me get
back to the path I wish to take you down. Obviously,
it is the path to synthetic worlds; but let us recall how far we have already gone. Evidently the
two experiments, acoustic and visual, I cited before
are a start toward the synthetic world. In both
cases the stimuli used were not naturally occurring
ones. They were highly artificial, and their possibility rested very much on the existence of computers. Furthermore, the possibility of imagining the
experiments rested heavily on an acquaintance with
co~puters and their capabilities.
The example
The next example I wish to take up involves the
same psychologist. One day I said to him that if
he would define a tribe of Martians, with everyone
being identical or else having statistically distributed characteristics, whichever he chose, I
would simulate the Martians' behavior on a computer
and we could then study the basic problem of "how
characteristics of the individual a['(~ transformed
27

through group interactions into different, group
characteristics." Suppose we had studied this for
5 years or so, with an increasingly larger group,
until we felt that we had a grasp on the basic question of How group interactions transform individual
characteristics into group characteristics. I claim,
and you may not care to go along with me this far,
that we would know much more than we now do about
such problems as the behavior of committees, mob
psychology, corporate behavior, etc., where it is
clear that the group behavior often does not resemble
what anyone individual would do alone. In short, I
am claiming that having studied a completely synthetic world of interactions between fictitious Martians we would be better off than spending the same
effort studying real people in real situations. It
is not that we have no need of real data, but rather
that we already have a lot of data, and in complex
si tuat-ions real data can often lead. to more confusion
than clarity.
Philosophy

This raises the awkwaid question of how much ~ore
real data we need to gather. If we want to continue
on the classical path of science and to control the
exterior world (which is the path science has been
following), then I believe that we will still need
to gather new, real data, though perhaps not in the
quantity that we have in the past. But there are
other paths we can follow, ones that do not require
the gathering of lots of real data. There are path~
that are more closely related to our interior lives,
where we already have all too much data.
Before you dismiss the concept of ignoring the
external world, stop to reflect ,the role that music
has played in the human life. It is not based primarily on the real world. Tone poems and similar
material are not closely connected with reality in
spite of what is claimed. No, music is mainly engaged in for the private internal plea~ure of humans, and there is no pretense that is is related
in any serious way with the external world.
Remember the three questions: How far can we go
into synthetic worlds and simply ignore reality?
How far will we go? How far should we go? We already have a lot of control over the exte~nal world,
and even i~ we gradually shift our major attention
in the future to synthetic internal worlds, we need
not completely abandon the real world. It is not an
all-or-nothing, it is a question of degree.
Well, how far can we go? I say we can go very
far, so far that the maj or attention of almos t everyone could be involved in synthetic worlds that give
him pleasure (just as some of us are nOh deeply involved with music, games, etc.) After all, what
limits us? With computers providing vast, as yet
unimagined synthetic worlds of pleasures to explore,
why engage in the already marginal exploration of
this all too unsatisfactory real world? I believe
there is potentially no limit on how far we can go
if we wish.
How far will we g?? Again, recall how far many
of us have already gone into music, games, and programming for the love of programming with only the
slig~test regard for utility. Recall the attractiveness of a world in which all the basic rules are
known, where the goals may be set arbitrarily and
cleanly, and where the whole challenge is in the
very complexity of the problem of getting from the
start to the finish. Don't sell the human too short
in his willingness to enjoy life. With the ability
to make synthetic worlds to fit his desires, far beyond what amateur daydreaming can do, worlds where
28

there is a real intellectual challenge and a sense
of accomplishment that transcends any reward that
mere daydreaming can offer -- think of how far many
people will choose to go.
Lastly, how far should we go? Here we are on
moral and ethical grounds. I, with my strong Puritan training that so often gets in the way of enjoying life, naturally believed at first that we should
shun the path of pleasures, of enjoyment for its own
sake, just as many of us believe that the path of
drugs used for pleasure should be avoided. But remember, these beliefs were appropriate for the world
when there was a lack of control over the external
forces. Is it so appropriate now? And even if it
is appropriate now, will it be in the future? I can
only wonder at and speculate on how much previous
conditioning has produced my instinctive judgment
that warns of danger. I can say, however, that every
time I rethink the question I go a bit further down
the pleasure path than I did the previous time.
What has all this to do with the topic of-this
chapter, the use of the computer as an experimental
tool? Simply this: at first, one naturally has a
very limi ted vision of what the computer can do as an
experimental tool. I took you rapidly through the
obvious uses, before, during, and after an experiment. I went more slowly through the region where
the computer provides a new tool for doing new experiments in the more or less classical fields of
experimentation. Finally, I ventured some speculation as to the use of the computer to explore unconventional worlds, worlds that are more internally
oriented than the usual externally objective world.
In the past we have demanded external verification.
Even in introspection we rarely venture far in psychology wi thout trying to gain some external evidence
for the reported internal states.
But there are human activities.that have to a
great extent remained outside the main stream of
science. Art, music, and literature come readily
to mind. Such activities have always attracted human attention because of the inherent internal
pleasure they give. Another example is "logical
pleasure" in, among other places, mathematics. It
seems to me that we will find that the computer provides us with a tool to explore our personal pleasures by allowing us to create what I have called,
for lack qf better words, synthetic worlds. When I
say that computers may provide a major tool for
creating and exploring synthetic worlds of pleasure,
remember that curiosity, both about others and about
oneself, is one of the major human char?cteristics.
We have traditionally honored those who have pursued
their strong drive of curiosity about how things
operate, we have honored those who have been capable
of creating new music, paintings, poetry, and literature even when it has had no economic contribution
to make in the form of control of the external world.
Are you now so sure that computers cannot, will not,
or should not be used to create and explore private
worlds of pleasure? ...
. What Is Meant By Artificial Intelligence'?

The idea of intelligence is a general concept,
and it is hard to define intelligence satisfactorily.
Sooner or later in almost any extended discussion of
computing machines, the question comes up of whether
or not computing machines can act intelligently. Put
more simply, "Can a machine think?" is a question
that is commonly asked. How is such a question to
be answered? Clearly we need a definition of intelligence or else a test to see if some process can
produce resul ts that requi re the use of intelligence.
Many people will give a definition of intelligence
such as "Something. like Newton or Einstein did." By
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

II1II1

this defini tion (if it can be considered to be a definition), most people are not intelligent. 'This tends
to make the proposed test rather inappropriate since
a definition of intelligence that excludes most of
us is hardly satisfactory.

to go about trying to give actual demonstrations. We
shall reject a vitalistic approach to thinking and
in te 11 igence.

If we are to proceed along the lines of testing
whether or not a machine can think, it is necessary
to frame a defini tion of the least act, or else something close to the least act, which~f done by a
machine, would persuade you to accept the idea that
machines have intelligence. How else could it be
demonstrated fairly? But the more you consider the
least act of intelligence, the more you are apt to
become disenchanted with the idea, for the very approach seems to contain a contradiction. Either you
have framed a task that is not minimal, or else so
simple a task cannot be showing intelligence.

The need for complex behav ior by machines is qui te
apparent in many cases. To take one simple example,
consider the problems that will face those who will
try to explore the surface of Mars. They will want
to send machines to do the work, but the machines
will inevitably face situations that were not foreseen by the planners back on Earth, and the round
trip signaling time from Mars to Earth and back to
Mars will run into quite a few minutes, during which
disaster may face the exploring equipment. Thus it
will be necessary to any sophisticated machine exploration to have a program in the local (on Mars)
computer that is directing the equipment, a program
which has the ability to take choices and call for
actions in situations that have not all been carefully examined beforehand. We will want at least a
low level of intelligence for the machines we send
to Mars to explore and relay back their measured results.

Let us be clear about it. If we are going to decide whether machines are capable of intelligence by
judging only the output of a machine, then itappears
to be necessary to have a statement that describes
in sufficient detail what will be an acceptable proof
so that we can examine the output of a machine. If
the result is as agreed, we will say that machines
can act intelligently.
There are, of course, other approaches to the
question. One can say that intelligence is not to
be judged by the output, but by the way it is done
("It ain't what you do, it's theway that youdoit").
In this approach, ·a child may be using intelligence
when he is mUltiplying two numbers together, whiIe a
machine which produces the same result is not using
intelligence.

The Need For Machine Intelligence

Indeed, this is almost our definition of intelligent behavior: the ability to act in suitable ways
when presented with a class of situations that have
not been exhaustively analyzed in advance, but which
require rather different combinations of responses if
the result inmany specific cases is to be acceptable.

There is still another approach, whichis to frame
the definition so that the effect is to have thinking and intelligence a property of humans (and possibly a few other animals, depending on how charitable you feel at the moment) and not a property of
machines. Of course, that settles the question the
way you want it settled. This approach is widely
used, and often some care is taken to disguise the
intention behind the definition. But when analyzed
the proposal amounts to prejudging the situation.

While the example of the exploration of Mars may
be rather dramatic, in increasingly many situations
there are so many alternatives that we simply cannot
program what to do in each case. There are also many
situations in which for one reason or another there
ii not time for man to intervene. Missile interception is an example. Or it may be that the situation
is under control much of the time during which no intervention by humans is needed, but when the occasional emergency occurs suddenly, it requires such
fast response that it is impractical to keep a human
on standby duty. Perhaps supersonic airplane flight
falls in this_pattern Cit has a lot of automatic control equipment built in).

Without debating the rightness or wrongness of
such a definition, it is easy to see that such a
definition is apt to be rather sterile, while the
opposi te assumption, that machines can think and act
in intelligent ways, is apt to be more fruitful.
The latter approach immediately sets the task of
producing programs that think.

There is also the further humane reason, namely,
a job may be so dull that i~ is cruel to require humans to monitor what is going on (Charlie Chaplin's
Modern Times dramatized the evils of dull routine
work). ~llOpes and expects that many of the dull
jobs of society will in time be taken over by machines.

Years ago there existed a somewhat similar situation in chemistry. It was then believed that only
life could create "organic" compounds. Unfortunately
for the theory, a number of organic compounds (including urea) were synthesized in a laboratory. Although up to now chemists have not yet created life
in a test tube (let alone a full-scale human) most
people have abandoned the "vitalistic" theory that
chemistry in living materials has a fundamental difference from chemistry in the laboratory.
What is clear, and we shall later give a number
of examples, is that many acts that were once thought
to require thinking (whatever that is and whatever
relation that has to intelligent behavior) are now
being done by computing machines, and it seems very
likely that as time goes on many more such acts will
be done by machines.
Thus as a practic.al matter, we shall simply assume
that of course machines can 'think and act intelligently, and then examine a few of the ways we have

Game Playing

One of the easiest fields to which machine programs are applied, and which at the same time seems
to require intelligence, is that of game playing.
For our purposes there are two types of games, those
like tic-tac-toe which have a known strategy that can
be followed, and those like checkers and chess, which
at present have no known, practical strategy of exactly what move to make next in every situation. The
first type are hardly worth considering in examining
the ques tion of whether machines can or cannot think.
The second is far more interesting, and quite early
in the history of computing there were papers written about how to program a machine to play chess.
The early attempts were not very succe~sful, and
only recently have there been reasonably effective
programs. A. L. Samuels, formerly of IBM, now of
Stanford Univ., tried a serious attack on checkers,
and managed to produce a program that at times has
beaten some checker experts, and in any case certainly plays a bet ter game than Snlllllcl s himself can.
(please turn to page 43)

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

The Alaska Pipeline
Reading Lesson

Stewart M. Brandborg
Executive Director
The Wilderness Society
725 15th St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

Done any reading lately? Well, hold you. spectacles.
Because the Interior Department has just given you the
reading assignment of your life.
You have until May 4* to:
•

Lay your hands on a copy of the nine-volume environmental impact statement on the proposed trans-Alaska
pipeline. (Only 600 were printed.)

•

Read its 3,550 pages.

•

Render a "thoughtful, substantial comment." (See
above.)

This is what the Interior Department considers public
involvement in the decision-making process.

We hope you will be able to read the statement and
render comments, but you should know the following:
1. There are exactly seven copies available for public
inspection in the "lower 48" states. They can be seen
during office hours in certain government agencies in
Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland
and Seattle. (See addresses on back page.)
2. Sets can be purchased through the mail, but they cost
$42.50, and delivery time is unknown;
3. The statement is not well organized or indexed, and
finding what you're looking for may require days of
tedious searching.
4. Secretary of the Interior Rogers C.B. Morton has said
he may issue a pipeline permit on or after May 4. *
Is it any wonder that conservationists are asking for more
time and for public hearings to evaluate this "complex report"?
*If you don't see this until after May 4, there may still be time
to act. Write to the author.
30

The Department of Interior feels that
another public hearing at this time is not
necessary ... It is the Secretary's view that
this complex report [on the trans-Alaska
pipeline] needs to be read; needs to be
understood; that a public hearing would
be a circus in comparison to the kind of
thoughtful, substantial comment that
might come in to the Council on Environmental Quality or other offices.
Public hearings ... would interfere with
a more thoughtful and rational analysis
of this complex document.
Statement of William T. Pecora,
Under Secretary of the Interior,
March 20, 1972.

Whose Government Is This?
No doubt the seven oil companies which own the
Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. are anxious to go ahead and
impatient with what they view as delays. But we believe it's
time they learned that the government of the United States
isn't some third-level subsidiary which they can order
around. And the public lands of the United States are not
their private domain.
Two years ago they were shocked and outraged that
conservationists could force the government to comply with
the National Environmental Policy Act. Last year they were
offended by the adverse public reaction to the first, abortive
environmental impact statement, which had been submitted
to them for editing before it was released to the public.
And now, though the new impact statement reveals strong
reasons for building the pipeline through Canada rather than
south to the Alaskan port of Valdez, they are anxiously
awaiting a permit to go ahead with their original plans, using
the pipe and equipment already placed presumptuously along
the proposed route.
As a person concerned about the environment, you ought
to blow the whistle on this whole charade of sanctifying
previously-arrived-at conclusions. Why should the American
people be frozen out of this critical environmental decision?
Why, as we asked in an earlier alert, must "the public be
damned"?
Note the words of Under Secretary Pecora, above: a
public hearing would be a "circus." And note, too, the
implication: hearings involving the public are not particularly
thoughtful or rational.
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Why Public Hearings Are Needed
Actually, the impact statement itself is one of the best
arguments for public hearings. One of the strongest impressions one gets reading through it is of the number of
unsolved problems which still exist - problems that the
statement openly recognizes and for which it has no answers.
These problems relate to untried and untested engineering
methods, incomplete environmental research, deficient landuse control and planning, and other matters of critical importance.
Many important aspects of the proposed Prudhoe Bayto-Valdez pipeline are described for the first time in the
statement. Without hearings, the many interested scientists
not involved in government or oil company research will
have no meaningful opportunity to comment on this new
material. Or, if they do, their communications can be safely
filed away and ignored.
Here are some other reasons why public hearings are
needed:

Gas transportation systems

(

The department says "it seems clear that a single gas line
will be built through Canada to the United States markets."
(Economic Analysis, Vol. I, p. C-22.) It says such a transportation system is an "essential" element (Vol. 1, p. 50) of
any oil pipeline system and states that "less environmental
cost would result from a single [gas and oil] transport
corridor than from two separate corridors" (Vol. 1, p. 273).
But no etIort has been made to evaluate these savings in
environmental cost, and on March 20 a department spokesman said, "We are completing such an analysis from the
economic point of view only." Further, impact analysis is
limited (Vol. 1, p. 176) because the "absence of any firm
gas transportation proposal by the owner companies limits
the amount of descriptive information available." (Vol. I, p.
74.) Apparently Interior didn't even ask the oil companies
for information on Canadian pipeline plans - despite the
intensive st udies going on in Canada.
Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin points out w/zy the
Interior Department hasn't received :lI1 application for an
Alaska - Canada pipeline. 'The same oil companies which
dominate the Alyeska (trans-Alaska pipeline) consortium also
dominate the Mackenzie Valley Pipe Line Co., and they are
hardly likely to submit an application in competition with
themselves." However, it's important to note that as recently
as March 29 the Canadian government reiterated its longstanding interest in having the oil pipeline go through
Canada rather than having tankers carrying oil from Valdez
past and through Canadian coastal waters to the west coast
of the United States

Alternative oil pipeline through Canada
Acknowledging that potential gas pipeline routes through
Canada are also attractive oil pipeline routes, the report
notes that the Canadian routes avoid the maximum earthquake threats, eliminate impacts and hazards to west coast
marine areas, and have no greater terrestrial impact in many
significant respects in spite of their greater overland lengths.
(Vol. 5, p. 238.)
The report states that an oil pipeline through the
Mackenzie Valley of Canada would be "an equally efficient
[economic] alternative" to the trans-Alaska route (Economic
Analysis, Vol. 1, p. 1) but also admits it did not consider the
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

additional economies of building an oil pipeline through the
same corridor as the gas line. (Economic Analysis, Vol. I, p.
C-23.) Obviously, with such economies considered, the
Mackenzie alternative would not be "equally" but "more"
efficient. This gross error must not be allowed to stand!

Marine transportation system
Volume 3 (449 pages) contains extensive descriptive material on the marine environment and tanker transport of oil between Alaska and west coast ports. The evaluation of oil
tanker traffic indicates unavoidable adverse effects from
chronic oil pollution in port areas, from intentional ballast
treatment discharge at Port Valdez, and from accidental
discharge by collision or by negligence. Estimates of accidental discharge are as high as 140,000 barrels a year, but "the
impacts of oil upon the various biological systems cannot be
predicted in a quantitative manner." (Vol. 4, p. 196.)
Elsewhere the report (Vol. 4, p. 608) says an "irreversible
commitment of some marine biotic resources would occur in
Valdez Arm as a result of chronic oil pollution." But the
actual area or extent can't be predicted. Even so, "permanent and far-reaching effects upon certain forms of plankton
would occur," causing a "general decrease in primary productivity, which would in turn affect other organisms of the
ecosystem, such as salmon, herring, razor clams, murres,
auklets and other species of birds, fish and shellfish."
But all this was known before the statement was written.
Is this the kind of solid, substantial and detailed information
on which decision-makers can render a sober and objective
judgment? With no more than this to go on, how could they
know we would gain more than we lost by proceeding with
the pipeline-tanker transportation system?

PipeJine breaks and con tingency plans
The statement acknowledges that a "no-spill performance" would be "unlikely." (Vol. 1, Summary.) It goes on
to say that even under emergency shutdown procedures as
much as 64,000 barrels (2.6 million gallons) of oil could
escape from a pipeline break (Vol. 1, p. 23); and that
"minor leaks are practically undetectable" (Vol. 4, p. II). A
"minor leak" turns out to be anything less than 750 barrels
(31,500 gallons) a day (Vol. 4, p. 135). In spite of this, the
effectiveness of surveillance, monitoring and cleanup procedures has not been fully discussed.
What effect would a pipeline break have on the environment and ecology? Throughout the report there is an unwillingness to quantify the damage. But occasionally one
stumbles on a shocker like this: "For example, a significant
spill into the upper Gulkana River during the peak of the
salmon run would likely cause fishery damages of catastrophic proportions." (Vol. 4, p. 135.) And this is only
part of the story, for as one can find in Volume 3, page
311, the Gulkana flows into the Copper River, which supports one of the greatest birdlife concentrations on earth.
(Here lies one of the more irritating aspects of the impact
statement; you have to search through the massive text and
piece together many of its implications - one of the reasons
public hearings are so necessary.)
Despite all these dire implications, the recently announced
Interior Department engineering stipulations fail to require
Alyeska to submit its contingency plans to the government
before the construction permit is gran ted!
31

when they warned of damage that could be inflicted by the
trans-Alas~a pipeline. But no longer. Here is what the
Interior Department itself has to say about these environmental dangers:
• "It is almost a certainty that one or more large earthquakes will occur in the vicinity" of the southern
two-thirds of the pipeline. (Vol. 1, p. 97.)

• "Construction scars would be visible for the life of the
project and for years after the pipeline had been removed." (Vol. I, p. 211.) These scars would occur at
12 pumping stations, seven airstrips, 26 permanent
steel towers for microwave transmission, the main haul
road and numerous access roads to the 234 gravel sites
and 54 quarries; and 12 construction camps, as well as
the pipeline itself. Excluding the Prudhoe Bay field,
these would occupy an estimated 40,000 acres (Vol. 4,
p. 257) and require nearly 70 million cubic yards of
gravel (Vol. 4, p. 68).
• In spite of oil industry claims to the contrary, including newspaper and television ads, experiments on revegetating the tundra that will be torn up by pipeline
construction have not worked. (Vol. 4, pp. 102-3.)

ALTERNATE ROUTES - Shown are the proposed transAlaska pipeline route from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez and
alternate routes through Canada, including route through the
Mackenzie River Valley which avoids major earthquake zones

(shown in overlays, the darkest areas showing greatest risk).
Solid lines are existing pipelines.

The alternative of deferral
Much of this voluminous statement consists of advocacy
rather than a careful weighing of alternatives open to the
U.S. government. Excluding Volume 6 (comments and attachments) and the three-volume economic and security
statement, some 1,850 pages - 77 percent of the first five
volumes - are devoted to the environmental impact of
granting the permit. Fewer than five pages - two-tenths of
one percent - deal with the alternative of deferring the
project. (Vol. 1, p. 258; Vol. 5, p. 1 and pp. 8-10.)
Yet the paragraphs devoted to deferral note these advan-'
tages: (a) an opportunity for studies of "innovative pipeline
technology," (b) _"operation of a pilot plant for ballast
treatment," (c) "installation and operation of a large-scale
hot oil pipeline experiment" in relation to permafrost terrain, (d) "pipeline leak detection research," (e) "more exact
definition of the gas transportation system that would be
proposed," and (f) more definitive studies of marine and
arctic ecosystems.

Environmental Dangers Confirmed
Until the Interior Department released this statement it
was still possible for pipeline advocates. to say that conservationists were "extreme," "far out" and "fright-peddlers"
32

• A year ago conservationists were ridiculed for suggesting that buried pipe carrying hot oil would melt the
permafrost, causing the pipe to collapse. Belatedly,
Alyeska now plans to elevate 354 miles (44 percent) of
the 789-mile pipeline (Vol. 4, p. 16) - compared to its
original plan for only 40 miles (5 percent) of elevated
pipe. But there is still no definite determination of
how many miles of pipe will be buried. And there is
an additional, unsolved problem: Wherever protective
vegetation is destroyed on the tundra, the underlying
permafrost will thaw, bringing drainage and erosion
problems for years to come - at supports, construction pads, ditching, roads, buildings, etc.
• As wildlife authorities have been saying all along, the
report acknowledges that caribou and other animals
will die needlessly from loss of habitat, the spilling of
toxic substances on forage, and disruption of migration
patterns. (Vol. 4, pp. 152, 171, 154-5.)
The report further acknowledges the possibility of catastrophic salmon losses (Vol. 4, pp. 135-36); the likelihood of "pronounced reductions" of grizzly bear popula tions (Vol. 4, p. 534); the certainty of
"considerable" siltation of three rivers noted for their
fish resources (Vol. 4, p. 527); the threat of "both
locally and internationally significant losses to waterrelated birds due to oil" (Vol. 4, p. 538); the possibility of increased mortality rates among young moose,
mountain sheep and caribou because of aircraft disturbance (Vol. 4, p. 149); the threat of "illegal and
wanton shooting of peregrine falcons and the robbing
of the young for falconry" arising from access to
habitat (Vol. 1, p. 204); and the killing of indeterminate numbers of sea otters and fur seals, which are
sensitive to even small amounts of oil. (Vol. 1, pp.
207-8.)

National Security and Oil Economics
The final three volumes of the report deal with "An
Analysis of the Economic and Security Aspects of the
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Trans-Alaska Pipeline." Congressman Aspin, a former member of the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers, has
called the study "pseudo-economics, a sham and a hoax."
As noted above, the economic study fails to take into
account the most obvious economy of all: constructing the
gas line and oil line in the same corridor instead of separate
corridors.
In addition, we note the following:

Na tional Security
The contention is made that the United States can't
afford to be dependent on oil from the Middle East. Yet the
report admits that North Slope oil (2 million barrels a day)
would supply only 9 percent of our projected oil needs in
1980 (22 million barrels per day, according to Economic
Analysis Vol. I, p. B-1). Depending on the amount which
Canada and South America might be able to supply by that
time, we would still need 5 to 6 million barrels a day from
the Middle East. (Vol. I, p. B-12.)
Last year conservationists were ridiculed by the president
of Alyeska and officials of the Interior Department when
they suggested that some of the Prudhoe Bay oil, allegedly
needed for "national security," would end up in Japan. Now
we find in the Economic Analysis an admission that some of
the Alaskan oil would indeed go to Japan and that British
Petroleum (which owns about 50 percent of the Prudhoe
Bay reserves) has signed an agreement with Japanese oil
companies for marketing Prudhoe Bay crude oil in Japan.
What is more, the Interior Department, having professed
interest in the "national security" need for Prudhoe Bay oil,
has not deigned even to ask British Petroleum how much
North Slope oil it has already committed to Japan. (Economic Analysis, Vol. I, p. F-20.)
Can they really have it both ways? Surely the public
should have a right to comment on these glaring inconsistencies.

Profi tability
North Slope oil is low-cost oil. If delivered to the West
Coast by tanker, it would reduce prices theoretically by 70
cents per barrel, saving consumers about $800 million per
year. If delivered to Chicago by pipeline, prices could be
reduced 40 cents per barrel, with similar savings to consumers. That's what the economic study says (Vol. I, pp.
H-3, H-6).
But there's one catch to that argument. As the report
itself points out, "Mechanisms of the oil import quota system would keep supply and demand in balance at current
price, so that prices would not fall and there would be no
consumer saving."
Who, then, gets the benefit? The fog of figures is hard to
analyze, but the answer is not. If the trans-Alaska route is
approved, the profit will go to the oil companies. (Vol. I, p.
H-5.)

Who Favors Public Hearings?
For all its weight. and girth, the impact statement fails to
give deserved emphasis to the tremendous wilderness and
wildlife values of Alaska and the menace to these values
posed by the unprecedented pipeline project. For this and

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

other reasons most of this country's major conservation
organizations have joined in calling on the President to
schedule public hearings on the pipeline impact statement.
These organizations include: Boy Scouts of America, Citizens' Committee for Natural Resources, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Action, Environmental Defense Fund,
Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, Friends of the Earth,
Izaak Walton League of America, John Muir Institute for
Environmental Studies, National Audubon Society, North
American Wildlife Foundation, National Parks and Conservation Association, National Rifle Association, Sierra Club,
Sport Fishing Institute, The Conservation Foundation, The
Wilderness Society, The Wildlife Society, Trout Unlimited,
Wildlife Management Institute and Zero Population Growth.
Similarly, 82 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have joined in signing a letter to the President calling
on him to hold pipeline hearings before a decision is reached.
And on the other side of the Capitol 23 Senators have made
the same request.
Finally, the three plaintiffs in Wilderness Society et al vs.
Morton - the Alaska pipeline lawsuit - wired the President
on March 20 r,mewing their request for public hearings.
Besides The Wilderness Society, the plaintiffs are Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. and Friends of the Earth.

What YOU Can Do
In spite of this imposing array of conservationists, Congress members and private citizens, the Nixon Administration
appears determined to bow to the demands of the oil industry and issue the pipeline permit. Your help is needed,
and it's needed now.
Unless this decision is reversed and hearings are held,
Secretary Morton could ask the federal court on or after
May 4 to lift the pipeline injunction and allow him to grant
a permit to Alyeska.
We urge you to act today. Send a letter - or a telegram
- to the President asking for 90 days to review the statement followed by full public hearings to bring the knowledge and wisdom of the American people into this important
decision-making process. Write or wire:
President Richard M. Nixon
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
But don't stop there. Send information copies to your
congressman and senators. Enlist your friends, neighbors,
local clubs and organizations. And inform your local news
media - including editorial writers - what you're doing. If
you can use more copies of this flyer, ask for them. Get
started today!
Copies of the Environmental Impact Statement available for
public inspection in the "lower 48" states can be examined during
office hours in the following government agencies: Department of the
Interior library and U.S. Geological Survey library, both in Washington, D.C.; Service Center, Bureau of Land Management, 710 N .E.
Holladay St., Portland, Oregon; Regional Office, Bureau of Outdoor
Recreation, 1000 Second Avenue, Seattle, Washington; Field Office,
Pacific Southwest Region, Department of the Interior, 450 Golden
Gate Avenue, San Francisco, California; Field Office, Pacific Northwest Region, Interior Department, 1002 N .E. Holladay St., Portland,
Oregon; and Regional Office, U.S. Geological Survey, 7744 Federal
Building, 300 North Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, California.

DALLAS: WHO, HOW, WHY?

Part IV: Conclusion

Mikhail Sagatelyan
Moscow, USSR
"Objectivity and justice demand from all who attempt to explore the origin
of the assassination that they ask a very precise question:
'Did the former Vice President know in advance what was
supposed to happen on November 22, 1963? "
How the President Was Killed

Seven people took an active part in the assassination. They were Cuban counter-revolutionaries and
Americans from the ranks of semi-legal, armed "ultra"
groups. They fired from three points, including the
window of the schoolbook deposi tory where Oswald
worked. Three snipers fired. Beside them were three
assi stants whose job it was to pick up the spent cartrides which, along with the guns, were hidden in a
van which was driven away hours later from a side
street leading off the Dealey Plaza. As is known,
once the Dallas police caught Oswald, they stopped
looking for anyone or anything else. The seventh
member of the ambush, dressed in green combat fatigues, had the job of creating a diversion. A few
seconds before the motorcade arrived at the ambush
point, he shrieked wildly and fell to the ground,
simulating an attack of epilepsy, thus attracting
attention to himself and away from the snipers who
were in posi tion. The coordination between the seven
was precise because they kept in contact by radio.
Two of the seven were picked up by the police following the assassination but were released almost immediately, after which they di sappeared from view.
Their whereabouts are unknown, though Garrison has
their names.
Why Was John Kennedy Killed and Who Organised the Plot?

The seven killers were -controlled by Clay Shaw
through David Ferrie and others. He did so with the
knowledge and blessing of the CIA and was financed
by a number of incredibly rich oi 1 magnates who stayed
in the background and were well screened. President
Kennedy, Garrison maintained, was killed for only one
reason: he wanted to alter the course of America's
foreign policy and to normalise relations with the
Soviet Union and Cuba. The conspirators, including
the CIA, intended to resort to the most extreme measures in order to thwart such a possibility.
In
Garrison's opinion, Lyndon Johnson was aware of the
background to the assassination, of the true identi ty
of the killers, but played no active role in the conspiracy.
Such is Jim Garri son's story. Why then, i f he had
the necessary proof, did the District Attorney lose
his case against Clay Shaw, who was found not guilty?
The answer to this reasonable question is not as complex as one might think.
In the first place, with the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the support whi ch he lent to the i nve stigation, ended. That such support was extended,
there is no doubt. It is known for instance, that
a few weeks before his death Robert Kennedy sent
Garrison a letter in which he expressed his conviction that there had been a plot and that Garrison
was on the right track. In the same letter Robert
Kennedy promised that if he were elected President,
the conspiracy would be exposed and the real plotters would be punished.
34

It was much harder for Garrison to proceed without the support of the Kennedy clan. Shortly after
the death of his second brother, Edward Kennedy publicly dissociated himself from the Garrison inquiry.
Who could blame him? What was the point of making
a target of yourself prematurely?
Secondly, and this is the main point, at the beginning of the Clay Shaw trial in 1969, a considerable
part of Garrison's file on the case, including concrete evidence, was stolen. Jim Garrison described
the si tuation in the following somewhat guarded terms
to Henry Borovik. Soviet APN correspondent in the
United States:
"I understand now, looking back, how naive I was
two years ago. I had no idea how powerful the CIA
was in this country.
"We were short-handed. That is why, when people
came in and offered their services, we carried out
only the most superficial inquiries and if they appeared honest, we availed ourselves of their help.
Imagine for yourself -- a man comes in and says he's
a journalist and even shows us his published, signed
articles in various magazines and says: you don't
have to tell me anything, you don't have to show me
anything, I simply want to help. Well, why not?
"We didn't notice right away that these people had
connections with each other. To be honest, I was the
last one to realise it, because I'm used to trusting
people. Afterwards we discovered that the information they provided led off on a tangent. They confused the investigation. They provided false clues
and false witnesses.
"Besides me, there are only three investigators
working in my office. We couldn't tear ourselves into bits. We were given a written statement from a
man who was supposed to be living at a certain address.
who had a telephone, his name was in the directory,
he even had a paid telephone bill in his name. Then
it turned out the address and the bill and everything
was phony. I somehow never thought then that it was
nothing for the CIA to provide their agent with a
false telephone bill.
"All kinds of people got into the office. One of
them must have been a pretty high-ranking agent. Probably he was in charge of the whole operation directed against our investigation. We exposed him a few
hours after he began to destroy our files and almost
succeeded. The rest of them melted away with him, so
they must have been connected. Of course, it's flattering that one of the most powerful agencies in the
world -- the CIA -- was so scared of me, but it's
small comfort. Over two years they managed to make
off with almost all our files." (Retranslated from
the Russian -- Tr.)
Now it is clear why Garrison was not simply removed, like scores of others who knew too much about
the murder in Dallas. It was much more effective to
deprive him of the evidence and destroy his case.
That is why the District Attorney hardly bothered to
appear in court and the reporters were quite right in
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

concluding that he had lost interest in the Clay Shaw
trial.
Now all that remains is to discuss one more outcome
of the Garrison investigation, one that is preferably forgotten in America. So, to repeat the question
posed at the beginning of this chapter: is the New
Orleans District Attorney the Don Quixote of the 20th
century?
It would seem so. Jim Garrison's Don Quixotism
consisted in the fact that he sincerely believed in
the existence of a democracy in his country which
would permi t him, according to the letter of the law,
to do what he considered essential. That was his
biggest mi stake. He had the support of powerful
forces, he had the support of the general public.
But all this was not enough because his opponents
held the reins of political power and by their actions they clearly demonstrated that for them -- the
masters of America -- no laws existed, none of the
"democratic tradi tions and principles" of which American propagandists like to boast so much.
It seems that Garrison himself realised this.
any case, this is what he himself wrote:

"What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in
great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist
state. It will be a different kind of fascist state
from the one the Germans evolved: theirs grew out of
depression and promised bread and work, while ours,
curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power
and on the inability to put human goals and human
conscience above the dictates of the state. Its orIgIns can be traced in the tremendous war machine
we've built since 1945, the 'military-industrial complex' that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which
now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of
the States and Congress has gradually been abandoned
to the execu ti ve department, because of war condi tions:
and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen
bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks
and balances of the constitution.
"In a very real and terrifying sense, our government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't
spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around.
You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build
Dachaus and Auschwitzes: the clever manipulation of
the mass media is creating a concentration camp of
the mind that promises to be far more effective in
keeping the populace in line.
"We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping
off to work. But this isn't the test. The test is:
what happens to the individual who dissents? In nazi
~ermany, he was physically destroyed: here the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the
same, I've learned enough about the machinations of
the CIA in the past year to know that this is no
longer the dreamworld America I once believed in."
So this, it seems, is what life taught Jim Garrison in the course of the road he trod.
Who? How? Why?

On March 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson made his famous
TV appearance announcing that he would not seek reelection and would not accept the Presidential nomination at the forthcoming Democratic Party Convention. The US News & World Report was one of those
COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION for July, 1972

that risked naming one of the most important reasons
for Johnson's decision. It was a case of the President being squeezed out of the White House by his
own party, the magazine stated, and quoted a close
friend of the President as saying that you can't remain in office when people call you an assassin and
when rioting crowds take to the streets.
Yes, in the spring of 1968, thousands of Americans openly referred to their President in similar
terms. Things came to such a pass that even among
the political elite of Washington, among Senators
and congressmen stories like the following circulated:
"What was Lyndon Johnson doing 45 seconds before
the shots in Dallas were fired?"
The question was followed by the speaker plugging
both his ears with his fingers,
As a matter of fact, this joke was related even
to foreigners, Soviet people included. This was not
just another nasty joke invented by Johnson's political opponents, as we shall see. There are some
facts behind the story,
It goes without saying that it is an exceedingly
serious matter when society accuses the leader of
its country of being involved in murder, and an incumbent leader at that. The suspicion could not
settle merely as a result of intrigues, without at
least some foundation. In 1966, two out of 100
questioned in a poll conducted by the Louis Harris
Institute of Public Opinion, stated that Lyndon
Johnson was behind the assassination in Dallas.
Judging by thinly veiled accusations in the press
and several other factors, in the spring of 1968
this percentage had increased significantly. I say
"j udging by" because a similar poll was not conducted in 1968 or if it was, the results were not made
public.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that objectivity and
justice demand from all who attempt to explore the
origin of the assassination, to ask a very precise
question: Did the former Vice-President know in advance what was supposed to happen on November 22,
1963? Or did the conspirators, aware that Johnson
had plenty of personal reasons t~ wish Kennedy out
of the way, decide not to burden the conscience of
the future President with such information? The
answers to these questions are extremely important.
-Is anything known about this side of the story?
Some things are known,
On November 24, 1963, several White House reporters learned the following: as the Presidential
motorcade moved through the streets of Dallas, Johnson told his Secret" Service guard who was sitting in
the front seat, to switch on the car radio. The
Vice-President listened attentively to the local
radio station, paying no attention to the throngs of
welcomers. The incident was remembered, but at the
time, along with others, was not thought important,
But two years later, witnesses who were present
in the car with Johnson (Senator Yarborough and
Secret Service guard) ,began to talk. Johnson ordered the car radio turned on a few blocks before
the murder site. All the way along the route he
looked not only glum, but extremely tense. The VicePresident listened,to the radio which he requested be
turned up full volume and which drowned out the roar
on the street. Nevertheless, Johnson immediately
recognized the first shot for what it was. The same
second, Secret Service guard Rufus Youngblood yelled:
35

"Get down!", hurled himself over the seat and covered
Johnson with his body. Youngblood, according to his
own words, was not absolutely sure that he had heard
a gunshot. He had time for the thought that if he
were wrong. it would be rather embarrassing.
William Manchester emphasises Johnson's absolute
conviction as to the nature of the explosion he had
heard and the Secret Service guard's uncertainty, a
man whos~ profession should make him quite familiar
with the sound of gunfire.
Such are the known facts. What do they signify?
Well, as they say in America, "Your guess is as good
as mine."
When John Kennedy was already President, a limerick went the rounds which in an amusing and risque
fashion suggested that Johnson was in the pay of the
"fat cats" of Texas - the oil billionaires of Texas,
such as Harold Hunt, one of the richest men in the
world.
The name of Harold Hunt was barely mentioned in
the American press in the first few months following
the assassination. Nevertheless, this man obviously
played an important role in the conspiracy. Here
are the facts.
July, 1960. The Democratic Party Convention in
Los Angeles. Harold Hunt established himself in a
hotel not far from Johnson's headquarters. He kept
his favourite posted daily with memoranda and advice
as to how to ensure the Presidential nomination.
Then, when this proved impossible, Hunt complained
to friends: "If Lyndon had just strictly followed
my advice, Kennedy would never have made it. And it
so happens I'm the man who told Johnson to agree to
second place on the ticket once it became clear Kennedy had won."
Autumn, 1961. The American journalist, Al Burke,
is a guest at the Hunt estate. In his presence the
oil king hurls abuse at Kennedy for his policies,
which in Hunt's opinion are directed above all, at
destroying his, Hunt's, oil empire. Already then
the magnate suggests the physical removal of Kennedy
from the scene. "There is no other way to get rid
of the traitors who have taken over our government,"
Burke writes down Hunt's words in his notebook.
"They should all be shot."
November 14, 1963. In a back room of Jack Ruby's
nightclub, a number of people gather - including
the owner, the Dallas policeman Jack Tippit (the same
one who according to the Warren Commission was shot
by Oswald), and another person whose name was not
mentioned in the Report. The American press later
reported that Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the US
Supreme Court and Chairman of the Commission, in
questioning Ruby called the unidentified person a
"wealthy oil man". Interestingly enough, Warren has
not denied the allegation.
November 22, 1963. The Dallas Morning News comes
out with the widely-known ~dvertisement, bordered in
black like an announcement of mourning and sarcastically headed: "Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas." Ted
Dealey, Birchite publisher of the News, was one of
H. L. Hunt's closest friends. Later the Warren Commission established that the advertisement had been
paid for by three Texas businessmen, one of whom was
Nelson Bunker Hunt, son of Harold Hunt.
On the morning uf the same day Jack Ruby showed
up in Ted Dealey's office and they talked privately.
Several days before the assassination Ruby was seen
36

in the office of another son of H. L. Hunt - Lamar.
Here too, Ruby spent a long time in private conversation.
In all the above incidents, only once - in reference to the meeting in the back room of Ruby's nightclub - does the name "Hunt" not openly figure. However, the authorities demonstrated quite clearly that
they knew exactly who the "wealthy oil man" was. A
few hours after the killing, on the evening of November 22, FBI agent~ arrived at the Hunt estate. They
did not come to arrest him - such things simply
don't happen to billionaires in America. They had
come to warn him: it was not safe for him to remain
in Dallas since many people associated his name with
the murder. That same night the oil magnate was secretly transported to Baltimore where he quietly remained for several weeks until passions died down.
And all this time he was guarded by local police and
FBI agents!
Today the most well-founded and documented version
of the assassination of John Kennedy is that of Jim
Garrison. This is so if only because the investigation of New Orleans' Don Quixote evoked such rabid
and scandalously illegal counteraction on the part of
Lyndon Johnson's Administration. The facts were
there for America and the world to see and can hardly
be discounted.
And so, the "fat cat", the ex-politician from Texas and the CIA, all of them, to a greater or lesser
degree, have been exposed, both through their own actions and through eyewitness accounts. And all of
them, as is not hard to spot, can easily be brought
down to one common political denominator - oil.
It is possible that history will add further names
to the sinister list of conspirators.
John Kennedy lost his political game, the stake in
which turned out to be his own life.
Why did he lose?
resorted to?

Why were such extreme measures

On January 20, 1961, when the new President took
his oath of office in Washington, which is situated
on the same latitude as Ankara, the temperature was
20 degrees ~elow zero and that night a vicious blizzard swept over the city. In the National press
club, beside a blazing log fire, Republican supporters among the reporters gloomily traded wise cracks:
"Even nature is protesting against the White House
being taken over by that nice, smooth young man with
dangerous ideas."
That day, in his first official Presidential
speech, the young man had spoken somewhat unusually,
if his speech were to be compared to those made by
his postwar predecessors, beginning with Harry Truman.
The most interesting and unusual thought in that
speech touched on internal matters: "If the free society cannot help the many who are poor, it can never
save the few who are rich." Further, obviously addressing himself to those "who are rich", Kennedy
appealed: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what
your country can do 'for you, ask what you can do for
your country."
These two sentences contain all of John Kennedy's
philosophy, his mission in life, the reason for which
he fought to become President of the United States.
This mission could be defined even more briefly, in
three words: to save capitalism.
COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION for July, 1972

Walter Lippman, the well-known American columnist,
gave an interview in May 1964 to a West German weekly Der Spiegel. He was a thousand times right when
he pointed out that many Europeans not only idealised
Kennedy, but had formed an erroneous conception of
the man. He had been before his death the darling of
the left, but he himself was not liberal, he was a
conservative.
The West German interviewer hastened to agree with
Lippman and added that this was particularly so as
regarded internal policy.
Yes, above all in internal policy questions. In
foreign policy this tendency was revealed much later
-- in the third and final year of his Presidency.
And it showed itself of necessity in connection with
internal problems and the main goal -- to save the US
system.
In order to explain this, one must understand the
Changes which have taken place in the structure of
American society and which first became evident sometime in the early 1950s. At that time very few defenders of imperialism (Kennedy was one of them) saw
the potential threat posed by those changes. I am
referring to the population explosion in the United
States. In 1940 there were 132,600,000 Americans.
By 1960 the figure had risen to 180,700,000. In 1970
the population was over 200,000,000.
However, only two age categories have climbed
sharply: those under 18 and those over 50. The
number of able-bodied Americans, in other words, producers of material wealth, has of course also grown,
but in comparison with non-wage-earners, very little.
This is creating serious social problems: the aged
and the young have to be fed, schooled and given medical attention. But American capitalism does not
wish to expend a greater share of its profits for
this purpose. Even the present share is given up
grudgingly, only under pressure of class struggles.
And also because a new world system of socialism has
appeared and thrived in the world, where schooling
and medicine and much else is provided free of charge
to the people.
Nevertheless, the masters of America did not wish
to increase the allotments for social needs. And
then, at first here and there and politically not
very noticeably, crises began to arise -- in education (a shortage of schools and teachers), in medical services and among the aged. The working sections of the population could no longer provide, on
their wages, support and security to the ever increasing number of non-working members of society.
In its historical blindness, American imperialism
chose another path. It began to improve the situation of only one section of the labouring populace:
those engaged in working the new post-war "gold vein"
-- armaments production, particularly in the nuclearrocket field. In actual fact, as far as Marxists
were concerned, American imperialism had not invented
anything new. That path of development was predicted
by Lenin back in 1916 when he wrote Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism:
The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extraordinary dense and widespread network of relationships
and connections which subordinates not only the
small and medium, but also the very small capitalists and small masters, on the one hand, and the
increasingly intense struggle waged against other
national state groups of financiers for the division of the world and domination over other counCOMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

tries, on the other hand, cause the propertied
classes to go over entirely to the side of impe7
rialism. 'General' enthusiasm over the prospects
of imperialism, furious defence of it and painting
it in the brightest colours -- such are the signs
of the times. Imperialist ideology also penetrates
the working class. No Chinese Wall separates it
from the other classes.
American capitalists have made an art out of the
practice of corrupting significant sections of the
working people and making them share the capitalist
viewpoint.
One of the most complex aspects of the process of
social corruption is intended to direct the enormous
native energy of the average American away from his
class interests and toward personal aggrandisement.
Contemporary American society simply cannot be understood if individualism as a moving force is ignored.
"Every man for himself and may the best man win." Anyone who has seen the film It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
can say he has seen the mainspring of American society
in action (naturally putting aside the exaggerations
of the comedy element).
In order to allow wider sections of the American
working people than in the past to "participate" in
the interests of the bourgeoisie, a material base is
required. This has been provided in the past decade
by the scientific-technological progress of the United
States and by the huge profits extracted from the
wholesale grabbing and exploitation of the natural
resources of other countries. For instance, in the
years 1950-64, American companies transferred 5,975
million dollars in profits to the USA from Venezuela
alone. The geography of exploitation and impoverishment of whole nations is not limi ted to Latin
America
In addition to the two "eternal" sources of profitmaking, a third was added after the Second World War
-- the arms race in conditions of cold war. Over the
past 20-odd years, a huge military-industrial complex
has been created in America. The world press hardly
allows a day to go by without some story on the subject. The more far-seeing sections of the American
bourgeoisie (out of self-interest) are now trying to
limit theall-embracing influence and power of this
complex. How successfully American imperialism has
bent the country to its will can be judged by two
statistics: every fifth person in America earns his
living from funds allotted to the arms race; over
100,000 American companies are working for the
Pentagon.
However, instead of liquidating the danger of social upheavals, such "common cause with the interests
of imperialism" has only hastened their onset. After
all, wide sections of the'working people have remained
outside the "cold war prosperity". And slowly but
surely this has led and will lead to situations promising social unrest which could rock America to its
foundations. The first rumblings of such eruptions
have already been heard. Back in 1960 they could
only be guessed at.
That is why Kennedy appealed to his class brethren
give a little in order not to lose all. On one
occasion the new President called his policy "a strategy of survival".
The President began with a decision to shake up
the oil producers. It must be said that the personal
business interests of the Kennedy clan and of the
whole Boston financial grouping not only would not
have suffered as a result, but would have gained.
37

The "Bostonians", as did the rest of America, had to
pay a high price for their oil products.
Once in power, John Kennedy wasted no time in worming the oi 1 industry out of the grasp of the Department
of the Interior where from generation to generation
oil affairs had been handled by trusted and loyal
henchmen of the Texas "fat cats". A special Presidential Assistant, Myer Feldman, was put in charge
of the oil and gas resources. Under his overall
leadership a re-established interdepartmental commission began to work on a new bill which would regulate
oil production and taxes levelled on the industry.
The prepared draft was published in July 1963. Its
essence came down to one thing: if the bill was passed,
the profits of the oil companies would be slashed by
three-and-a-half billion dollars annually!
This was an open challenge to the oil magnates.
Naturally, they counterattacked, and did their best
to delay the bill's progress. When in October 1963
the press reported that in the near future the President intended to place before Congress a bill that
would repeal the oil depletion allowance and introduce other new rules into the exploitation of oil
resources, the magnates undertook their final open
demarche: they requested an audience with the President. On November 8, two weeks before the assassination, the presidents of the three biggest American
oil conglomerates met with Kennedy for half an hour.
The next day Texas newspapers reported that the oil
men were "disappointed" with the outcome.
Exactly two weeks after assuming the Presidency,
Lyndon Johnson returned oil affairs to the Department
of the Interior. Myer Feldman was out of a job. In
the Walter Lippmann interview ~lready mentioned, the
columnist also declared that Kennedy had divided the
country, whereas Johnson was like a well-worn slipper
very comfortable.
John Kennedy's second at tempt to restrain the moneybags in their inordinate greed became known as the
"steel crisis". At the beginning of April 1962, the
steelworkers trade union --one of the biggest in the
country -- came to an agreement with the steel companies after long and difficul t talks in which the then
Secretary of Labour, Arthur Goldberg, participated.
It was agreed that steel prices would not be raised.
Literally within a few days, the president of the
major steel monopoly -- US Steel -- Roger Blough,
placed on Kennedy's desk a four-page memorandum which
announced US Steel's decision to raise steel prices
$6.00 a ton. While Blough was still inside the White
House, reporters were handed copies of the memorandum.
Such a move almost automatically entailed price increases on many goods -- both industrial and consumer.
Major strikes were in the air and consequently the
heating up of the social temperature which the President so feared. Kennedy was enraged by the contemptuous lack of respect for himself and the post he
occupied shown by the steel magnates who did not wish
to look beyond their own narrow interests. Among his
own friends the President said: "My father always
told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but
I never believed it till now." This sentiment got into
print and for a long time under various guises the papers kept repeating that "Kennedy was against business".
Kennedy did not only talk, he acted. He gave orders
to the Pentagon to cancel military contracts made with
companies that had raised prices. The steel magnates
began to back down. Kennedy's entourage exulted, considering that the President had won the "steel crisis".
In fact, he had won only a battle, not the war.
By his actions during the steel dispute, Kennedy
had seriously alarmed considerable sections of the
38

business world in the United States. No postwar
President had even dared to threaten to take away
military contracts from such important companies,
much less thought of actually doing so. Incomprehension of the "Boston Pup" and mistrust of his policies visibly intensified.
In the fall of that same year of 1962, America had
lived through the Caribbean missile crisis. Thisprovided a severe mental shake-up for millions and millions and millions of Americans. For the first time
in all my years in the United States, I saw empty
shelves in grocery stores -- the result of panicbuying.
A group of government leaders, including Kennedy,
had peered into the abyss of Hell, as newspapers wrote
at the time. After that Kennedy began to understand
certain home truths about the nuclear age. He realised, for instance, that in order to save Lhe country
from nuclear catastrophe, whether as a result of calculation or of inertia arising from the uncontrolled
nuclear-rocket arms race, the two opposing social systems absolutely must enter into talks with the aim
of liquidating the danger of frontal confrontations.
The American press was practically unanimous in
its view: President Kennedy's attempts to seek ways
of easing world tensions and above all of normalising
American-Soviet relations, were dictated precisely by
the lessons learned in the fall of 1962.
However, a wall arose before Kennedy's intentions.
Every single ultra-right organisation in the United
States, and what is more important, the mili taryindustrial complex, was vehemently opposed to a detente
which inescapably would lead to a deceleration of the
arms race and consequently a decrease in profits.
The pressure was unrelenting. It shackled Kennedy's
actions, in most cases rendering them impossible or
fruitless. Recall the storm of opposition raised in
the United States against the limited nuclear test
ban treaty.
In this si tuation John Kennedy took an impermissible
step, according to all former American concepts. (Before him, only Franklin Roosevelt had done the same
thing.) The President addressed himself directly to
the American people, wishing to ensure their support
in putting pressure on the military-industrial complex. That was the essence of John Kennedy's speech
at the American University in Washington, D.C. in the
s.ummer of 1963. Kennedy called on Americans to re-examine at ti tudes to the cold war and to the Soviet Union.
He said:
Today, should total war break out again -- no
matter how -- our two countries will be the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact
that the two strongest Powers are the two in the
most danger of devastation. All we have built,
all we have worked for, would be destroyed ... We
are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous
cycle, with suspicion on one side breeding suspicion on the other, and new weapons begetting
counter-weapons.
In short, both the United States and its allies,
and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and
in halting the arms race.
It is my deep conviction that that speech was the
last drop that filled the cup to overflowing and decided his fate.
(please turn to page 43)
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

FORUM
On The Legal Side:
A LIEN ON COMPUTER TAPES?
Milton R. Wessel, Attorney
New York, N. Y.

A recurring question in times of financial distress, is whether, and to what extent, a computer
company has a lien on its customers' property for
unpaid bills. The answer in most American jurisdictions is "Maybe a lien exists, depending on the particular circumstances." But in the context of real
life, often that is little better than a flat, resounding "No."
Frequently the difficulty is because the lien
question arises regarding a relatively small bill
which has accumulated over a long period wi th respect
to the processing of routine commercial data such as
accounts receivable. The customer says that he is
cash tight, with all creditors clamoring, and that
no one is enti tIed to a preference on past due charges.
When further services are finally cut off, he demands
his tapes or access to them so that the data can be
processed elsewhere. He says that if he can't invoice his receivables he will go out of business,
and that his trustee in bankruptcy will be delighted
to have a several million dollar lawsuit (including
punitive damages!) for the wilful and malicious withholding of his property and consequent destruction
of his business.
In contrast to the trustee (who employs assets of
the bankrupt estate to prosecute the claim), the EDP
manager knows that even a successful defense can cost
him many multiples of the unpaid bill, unless there
is certainty of dismissal of the litigation at its
outset.
Of course, the mere threat of a lien can often
work wonders, avoiding the legal question of whether
it really applies -- especially where confidential
data is involved. Indeed, the threat of making or
withholding a duplicate confidential tape, foreclosing on it and marketing the information to competitors can sometimes be decisive. But all too frequently
the threat doesn't work and the EDP manager mus t make
his decision to "chirp or get off the perch."
Conceptual legal analysis is not very helpful. An
artisan has a lien at common law, still applicable
in most states, for reasonable (not necessarily contract) charges for unpaid labor and costs expended
on improving personal property. However, there is
no clear answer as to whether the addition of electrical impulses to a tape constitutes such "improvement." In one state case (involving the construction
of a statute similar in this respect to the common
law), an accountant was ruled to have a lien on the
books of his client where he had entered the client's
information into the books. This is a helpful precedent. But even assuming that with it the EDP manager can successfully contend that the impulses conCOMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

sti tute "improvement," there is the further difficul t
question whether the resulting lien will be limited
to charges for the particular computer run which
added the impulses to the tape -- a fraction of the
unpaid bill -- rather than the total of the back
charges, which includes the preliminary key punch
effort and the other earlier services necessary to
the crea tion of the updated data bank and final product.
Perhaps with some of these problems in mind, many
states have enacted statutory liens modifying the
common law and eliminating the requirement of improvement, not always successfully. Thus, one statute
provides for a lien to anyone who "alters" an article of personal property; this seems simply to substitute the issue of whether EDP impulses "alter" a
tape for the common law issue of "improvement."
Another statute provides a lien to anyone who "performs work or services of any nature and description
upon ... an article of personal property." Although
there is no record of the relevant legislative history, it is a fair guess that the legislative intent
was to eliminate the common law requirement of "improvement," perhaps even at the urging of those with
EDP problems in mind. A third statute gives a lien
(in the amount of the contract price, not just the
reasonable value as at common law), to anyone "who
has expended labor, skill or materials upon any chattel." Even these latter statutes, however, by no
means resolve all the problems. For example, they do
not deal with the extent of the lien insofar as back
service charges are concerned. A wrong guess here
might be as serious as one about the lien itself.
Another problem -- electronic impulses are probably not "personal property" or "chattels" under
these statutes; so that the lien they create must be
with respect to the tape or other storage device.
Suppose the customer simply demands his underlying
invoices back. Can there then be any lien on such
invoices, where the only work done was to copy by
key punching without changing them in any respect?
Pi ty the EDP organization that has destroyed its customer's raw data under these circumstances, without
clear advance permission. Or, even more perplexing,
suppose the customer asks only for a chance to copy
his electrical impulses onto his own tape, at his
own expense.
If all of this isn r t enough to insure that certainty
is impossible, confusing the matter further is the
suggestion in some recent cases that the imposition
of a lien on someone else's property without prior
judicial approval, may be subject to constitutional
impediment.

My personal view is that there is. a lien in most
jurisdictions on a customer's tape for accrued and
current reasonable charges on continuing processing,
where the final product reflects all that has gone
before. But the businessman who decides to assert
such a lien surely assumes a risk both as to its existence and extent. Few computer companies will voluntarily permit themselves to become "test cases"
under these circumstances, and will simply yield to
a customer's demand and swallow the loss.
This is an example of an area in which some kind
of joint computer industry action is appropriate,
such as by establishing a clearing house of information with regard to legislative and judicial activi ty
in the hope of securing proper guidance to those considering these problems, or by drafting a model statute. It is also another instance of the special
managerial difficulties faced by entrepreneurs in
this new industry.
[]
39

DATA BANKS ENDANGERING
PERSONAL LIBERTY: Report of
Debate' in Parliament, London,
England, April 21, 1972
The Times, April 22, 1972
Printing House Sq.
London EC 4, England
Mr. Gummer, M.P.: "This may well be as important to
human rights as any of the great steps the Government
have taken. Magna Carta may be putting it too high,
but not by much."
Mr. Huckfield (Nuneaton, Lab), moving the second
reading of the Control of Personal Information Bill,
said its purpose was to set up a data bank tribunal
and to establish a comprehensive legal framework to
govern and regulate the supply of personal andconfidential information.
We are now approaching the stage (he said) and
may already have approached it, where there are so
many people in Government departments, private companies and agencies gathering so much personal information on us all that our personal liberty, privacy and freedoms are already endangered.
Once they introduced the computer into the storing and compiling of information its particularly
unique contribution was that it enabled them for the
first time to store vast quantities of information
of a magnitude which they had not been able to encompass and comprehend before. Access could be had
to that information almost immediately.
An even more threatening contribution the computer
could make was that it enabled one to integrate various categories of information. That was where he
saw the main danger building up. They were speaking
of a machine which in 10 years would be as commonplace as the telephone and television.
Everyone had the right to be left alone -- the
right to personal anonymity.
The Bill aimed to establish a data bank tribunal
to licence stores of information and to set up a
data bank inspectorate -- data guards -- to make
sure the conditions of the licences were being ad~
he red to.
The Bill provided that no store of information
on more than 100,000 people should be operated without a licence. There would be a right for the individual to see his own files at least every twoyears,
or every time he asked for them.
The tribunal would have power to order the erasure
of information. Provision had been made completely
to regulate the flow of information. Not only must
the individual have the right of access to his own
files, but the tribunal must have power to update
the files and make sure they were accurate.
Council house tenants who signed the means test
form to get a rent rebate would literally sign away
their birthright. If anything was ever an encouragement to the building up of personal files and dossiers on people it was the Housing Finance Bill.

People were still a little too trusting when they
completed a government form or hire purchase contract. If the Bill did no more than make them ask
questions about confidentiality and its protection it
would have served some useful purpose.
This country was building for the not too distant
future what he could only call the goldfish bowl society. They could end up like goldfish, swimming
around with every individual activity being observed
and recorded. Their most precious commodity was
time. They had got to act now.
Mr. Gummer (Lewisham, West, C) said it was a necessary Bill. It was too late because it would be
more difficult to control information, more difficult
to say whether information was right, now that information had already been collected in computers.
This may well be (he said) as important to human
rights and personal freedom as any of the other great
steps the Government have taken. Magna Carta may be
putting it too high, but not by much.
Mr. Davidson (Accrirtgton, Lab) said the Bill was
to protect the interests of people who did pot choose
to give information about themselves -- for innocent
reasons or otherwise (Cheers).
He feared that not enough people expressed their
fears over information being stored about them. If
it was brought to people's attention just how much
information about them was being stored and the possible uses to which it was put, there would be far
more cries of protest.
Mr. Carlisle, Minister of State, Home Office (Runcorn, C) said the problem with which the Bill was
concerned existed in isolation from the computer.
All that the computer had done was to accelerate
what was in any event happening already in a twentieth century industrialized society. The computer had
made simpler the collection and holding of vast
amounts of personal information and their method of
transfer from one body to another more speedily
available than would otherwise be the case.
The problem was the safeguarding of information
and security of files and the integrity of those who
had the keys to the places where the information was
stored. It was because the previous Government recognized the concern about this that the issue ofprivacy was referred to a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Kenneth Younger.
The Prime Minister, shortly after taking office,
set up an inter-departmental group under leadership
of the Home Office to make a comprehensive survey of
the categories of personal information held orlikely
to be held in the computer system of Government departments and the rules governing its storage and use.
Within the next few weeks or months he expected
the Younger Committee to be in a position to give
their report to the Home Secretary. The review of
the use of computers by the Government was also complete and would soon be in the hands of the Home
Secretary.
If the Government felt that further safeguards
were required for the protection of personal information in data banks they would not hesitate to take
whatever measures were necessary.
The debate was adjourned.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

PERSUASION--ITALIAN STYLE
Peter Tumiati, Rome Correspondent
The Financial Times, April 21, 1972
10 Cannon St.
London, EC-4, England

The world's two biggest computer manufacturers,
IBM and Sperry Rand's Univac division (which with
its acquisition of RCA's computer division has moved
up to become the world's number 2), have chosen Italy
for a European computer "soft sell."
Last year IBM bought one of Lombardy's loveliest
country homes, at Novedrate, between Milan and Como
for the purpose_ It is being converted into a guest
house for the chairmen and managing directors of
Europe's big companies, for Generals and Admirals
and the most senior Civil Servants.
Univac started its "International Executive
Centre" on the outskirts of Rome 3 years ago in a
villa called "Les Aigles," belonging to a Greek
millionaire, M. Jean Papadopoulos (no relation to
the Colonel). Already over 1,000 "guests" have
spent a couple of days thereo
The only other similar establishment Univac has
is in Japan. The explanation Mr. Gerald Probst,
president of Univac, gives for the lack of a similar
"guest house" in America is that top American businessmen are too busy, they do not have time for ito

Two-day symposiums and seminars are held at "Les
Aigles." They are guided by one absolute rule: Univac must never be mentioned. Mr. Probst says: "they
are devoted to the philosophical approach to computers. They give our guests an opportunity to get to
know us."
The Roman Catholic Church is Univac's newest target. "Les Aigles" has just staged a "Roman Catholic
Church seminar." Mr. Probst says that until recently
he had not thought of the RCC as a possible customer
for computers. An American cardinal "who is absolutely enthusiastic about computers" sold him the
idea.
From the programme for the seminar, it looks as
though the Monsignors (about 20 of them, including
the Vatican's best golfer, the American Monsignor
Marcinkus, who is head of the Vatican's financial
department) have had a busy three days.
Mr. Papadopoulos does pretty well out of his former residence. According to the centre's managing
director, its upkeep costs Univac about $500,000 a
year "nearly all of which goes for rent and to the
catering comp~ny Mr. Papadopoulos has set up to service the centre."
The guest house IBM is completing at Novedrate
will be used for the same purposes as Univac's Rome
centre. Up to last year Novedrate was one of the
last aristocratic country homes near Milan. It consists of a 19th century country house surrounded by
some 30 acres of gardens and parkland (the park is
a national monument). The old stable and carriage
house wing is being converted into bedrooms and
ba throoms for IBM gues ts.
0

You are invited to enter our

COMPUTER ART CONTEST
the special feature of the August, 1972 issue of

815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160

"Seahorses"
- Derby Scanlon

GUIDELINES FOR ENTRY
1. Any interesting and artistic drawing, design or sketch made by
computer (analog or digital) may be entered.
2. Entries should be submitted on white paper in black ink for
best reproduction. Color entries are acceptable, but they may
be published in black and white.
3. The preferred size of entry is 8Y2 x 11 inches (or smaller); the
maximum acceptable size is l2Y2 x 17 inches.

The winning entry will appear on the cover of our
August issue - more than 25 entries will be published
inside, and other entries will be published later in
other issues. The 1971 first prize winner, "Seahorses",
is shown here at the left.

4. Each entry should be accompanied by an explanation in three
to five sentences of how the drawing was programmed for a
computer, the type of computer used, and how the art was
produced by the computer.
There are no formal entry blanks; any letter submitting and describing the entry is acceptable. We cannot undertake to return
artwork, and we ask that you NOT send originals.

DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ENTRIES IN OUR OFFICE IS JUL Y 2, 1972.

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

CALENDAR OF COMING EVENTS
June 22-23, 1972: ADAPSO's 35th Management Conference and
3rd Software Conference, Sheraton Boston Hotel, Boston, Mass. /
contact: ADAPSO,551 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017

December 5-7, 1972: Fall Joint Computer Conference, Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, Calif. / contact AFIPS Headquarters, 210 Summit Ave., Montvale, N.J. 07645

June 26-27, 1972: First Ahnual Government Data Systems Conference, New York City, N.Y. / contact: William A. Kulak, New
York Univ., Div. of Business and Management. Suite 2G, 1 Fifth
Ave., New York, N.Y. 10003

Jan. 17-19, 1973: 1973 Winter Simulation Conference, San Francisco, Calif. / contact: Robert D. Dickey, Bank of California, 400
California St., San Francisco, Calif. 94120

June 27-30, 1972: DPMA 1972 International Data Processing
Conference & Business Exposition, New York Hilton at Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y. / contact: Richard H. Toro, (conference director), or Thomas W. Waters {exposition managed, Data
Processing Management Association, 505 Busse Hwy., Park Ridge,
III. 60068
July 3-6, 1972: First Conference on Management Science and
Computer Applications in Developing Countries, Cairo Hilton,
Cairo, U.A.R. / contact: Dr. Mostafa EI Agizy or Dr. William H.
Evers, IBM Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. 10504

Mar. 4-9, 1973: SHARE Meeting, Denver, Colo. / Contact: D.M.
Smith, SHARE, Inc., Suite 750, 25 Broadway, New York, N.Y.
April 10-12, 1973: Datafair 73, Nottingham University, Nottingham,
England / contact: John Fowler & Partners Ltd., 6-8 Emerald St.,
London, WC1 N 3QA, England
April 10-13, 1973 PROLAMAT '73, Second International Conference on Programming Languages for Numerically Controlled
Machine Tools, Budapest, Hungary / contact: IFIP Prolamat, '73,
P.O. Box 63, Budapest 112, Hungary

Aug. 6-12, 1972: Rio Symposium on Computer Education for
Developing Countries, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/contact: Luiz
de Castro Martins, C.P. 38015 - ZC-20, Rio de Janeiro - GB
Brazil
Aug. 7-11, 1972: SHARE Meating, Toronto, Canada / contact:
D. M. Smith, SHARE, Inc., Suite 750, 25 Broadway, New York,
N.Y.
Aug. 15-17, 1972: Seminar on ADP in Law Enforcement, Washington, D.C. I contact: ADP Management Training Center, U.S.
Civil Service Commission, Washington, D.C. 20415
Aug. 21-23, 1972: Sixth Annual Mathematical Programming Seminar and Meeting, Vail, Colo. I contact: George M. Lowel, Symposium Director, Haverly Systems Inc., 4 Second Ave., Denville,
N.J. 07834
Oct. 1-4, 1972: New York State Assoc. for Educational Data
Systems' 7th Annual Conference, Fallsview Hotel, Ellensville,
N.Y. I contact: Alfred N. Willcox, Educational Data Processing
Center, 17 Westminster Ave., Dix Hills, N.Y. 11746

ADVANCED NUMBLES
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
Computers and Automation
Solution to Advanced Numble No. 72401
E
N

T
V

4
1
7

ON E X TEN = SEVEN
305 X 150 = 45750

We invite our readers to send us solutions, together with
human programs or a computer program which will
produce the solution.

Oct. 3-5, 1972: AFIPS and IPSJ USA-Japan Computer Conference, Tokyo, Japan / contact: Robert B. Steel, Informatics Inc.,
21050 Vanowen St., Canoga Park, Calif. 91303
Oct. 8-11, 1972: International Conference on Systems, Man and
Cybernetics, Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C. / contact: K. S.
Nurendra, Yale Univ., 10 Hill House, New Haven, Conn. 06520
Oct. 16-20, 1972: IBI-ICC World Conference on Informatics in
Government, Venice, Italy / contact: Intergovernmental Bureau
for Informatics (IBI-ICC), 23 Via Ie Civita del Lavoro, 00144 Rome,
Italy
Nov. 9-10, 1972: Second National Conference of Society for Computer Medicine, Williamsburg, Va. I contact: Society for Computer Medicine, B0x M488, Landing, N.J. 07850

USE ECONOMICAL C&A CLASSIFIED ADS to buy or sell
your computer and data processing equipment, to offer services to the industry, to offer new business opportunities, to
seek new positions or to fill job vacahcies, etc.

Rates for Classifed Ads:
90e per word - minimum, 20 words
First line all capitals - no extra charge

Nov. 15-17. 1972: DATA CENTRE '72, Sheraton-Copenhagen
Hotel, Copenhagen, Denmark I contact: Data Centre '72,
Danish lAG, DIAG, 58 Bredgade, OK 1260, Copenhagen K,
Denmark
Nov. 20-21, 1972: 8th Data Processing Conference in Israel, Tel
Aviv Hilton, Tel Aviv, Israel I contact: Information Processing Assoc. of Israel, Programme Committee, The 8th Data Processing Conference, P.O.B. 16271 ,c/o "Kenes", Ltd., Tel Aviv

(Ads must be prepaid)
Send Copy to:
COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION
815 Washington Street
Newtonville, MA 02160
Telephone (617) 332-5453
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Hamming - Continued from page 29

What are we to say to this? We can deny that the
game requires intelligence, but we will be"doingviolence to the idea of the common man who plays the
g3me since he feels that he is thinking hard when
he tries to beat his opponent.
The attraction of playing games on a computer is
that there are such nice, clean-cut rules of play
and such a clear recognition of a win that it does
provide a good testing ground for ideas.
Schools of Artificial Intelligence

There are a number of approaches to the general
field of artifical intelligence. One school tries
to duplicate human behavior and might be called the
robot school. Another, for which the author feels
more empathy, is more interested in using machines
to supplement human behavior. The machine has such
obvious advantages over humans in so many directions
that it seems a shame not to combine our abilities
with the machine's to produce a team that is more
powerful than either one alone. To list a few of
the advantages that are on the machine's side, first
there is its blinding speed. Whereas humans signal
through their nervous system at a few hundred meters
per second at best, the signalling speed of machines
is close to thE:yeloci ty of light in a vacuum, namely,
186,000 miles per second. Second, there is their
tremendous reliability. There is no question that
a machine can do arithmetic and follow out simple
instructions, one after another, far more accurately
than humans can, no matter how hard humans try. In
one second a machine can do more arithmetic than the
average person will do in a lifetime, and so far as
is known, no human ever did a full year of ari thmetic
wi thout making a single mistake, yet machines usually
get through a second safely. Third, there is the
freedom from boredom that machines seem to exhibit
while man is all too susceptible to it.
There are still other schools of artificial intelligence. One school tries to simulate small
parts of the human nervous system, such as artificial neurons. Another tries to simulate gross behavior, such as having the machine produce an output much like that of a human when he is presented
with a problem similar to the classic cannibals and
the missionaries.
There is an amusing program which gives the illusion of acting like a psychoanalyst, another which
answers a wide range of questions concerning baseball put to it (in slightly restricted English), and
so it goes: many special programs appear on the surface to act intelligently.
Creativity

We have tended more or less to equate intelligence
and thinking and have occasionally slipped in the
word originality. We shall now change a bit and use
the word creativity. These ideas are all closely
associated, so that since we apparently cannot actually define anyone of them in a precise enough
manner for testing on a machine, we will not bother
to distinguish shades of meaning between them.
Creativity is a fancy word for a very common
thing, originality. In women's clothes originality
means fashion. It is something that almost everyone in our society wishes to have -- he likes to
feel that in some way he is unique. But, we agree
that some people have it more than others. The margin between originality and crackpottery is as thin
as that between genius and insanity is traditionally
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

considered to be. The difference between fashion
and bizarre clothes is likewise very little.
But creativity is something that our current culture puts great value on, regardless of whether that
is wise or not. Until now theories of creativity
(originality, or whatever you wish to call it) have
necessarily been complex and beyond the hope of
checking in detail. Now with the machine we have a
chance to explore the question. If we have a detailed theory of what creativity is, then it can
probably be simulated by a machine, or at least parts
of it can, and the model can be tested out.
Such has been the approach in music composition,
in theorem proving, and some other programs that
fall in the field of artificial intelligence. The
results to date seem, to this author at least, to
show more where creativity is not than where it is.
But that is the way mos~ fields begin. There are
many false starts, a few small gains, and a great
deal of confusion. Sometimes this is followed by
clarity, and sometimes not. But only where there
is activity is there much hope for progress. Again,
it is better to assume that machines can do it than
it is to assume that they cannot: one leads to action, often foolish to be sure, but the other is apt
to lead to nothing but a dead end.
Let us repeat the point. The machines for the
first time in human history give us the power ~ex
plore the fascinating field of creativity. Given a
detailed enough model it seems likely that we can
simulate it, or part of it, on a machine to test out
whether the model has any merit or not, and thus
correct our errors and recognize our good guesses so
that progress can be made.
[J
Sagatelyan - Continued from page 38

John Kennedy wanted to save American capitalism.
He intended to manoeuvre a bit, to strengthen the rear,
to plaster over the cracks that had appeared in the
social fabric, in the hope that after such minor repairs, imperialism, having gathered its forces, would
once more be able to renew its onslaught, open ard
direct, on the world of socialism. However, the 35th
President was not allowed to do this. That is Kennedy's
personal tragedy.
He was a misunderstood President ...
He was a victim of the historical blindness of the
most war-like sections of American imperialism. The
murder in Dallas reeked so strongly that the stink was
smelled by America and the rest of the world. The
sentence on John Kennedy, pronounced by the darkest
forces in the country, was executed by the oil magnates through their henchmen.
Even such an outcome satisfied wide circles of
American business. They, too, had been frightened
by Kennedy's activities -- all those owners and coowners of over 100,000 firms fed by the American taxpayers through the intermediary of the Pentagon.
That is the paradox: John Kennedy was removed from
the poli tical arena by the very system which he sought
not only to strengthen, but to preserve forever.
The 35th President of the United States of America
was, perhaps, imperialism's last hope. Buthis planned
operation of rejuvenation on this greatest evil of our
time did not take place. It did not take place because
the surgeon was cut down in the heart of "the festering
ulcer -- Dallas.
[J
43

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK
Computing and Data Processing Newsletter
COMPUTER HELPS A TREE-CARE COMPANY
SCHEDULE AND PLAN
Davey Tree Surgery Company
P.O. Box 351
Livermore, Calif. 94550

The West Coast division of a well-known tree-care
company, Davey Tree Surgery Company in Livermore,
Calif., is using a computer to control rising costs.
The computer keeps track of crews, equipment, and
jobs from the Rocky Mountains to Hawaii.
In addition to offering tree care and landscaping
services, the crews clear branches from thousands
of miles of utility line right-of-way. Power-line
clearing, in fact, has become the largest single
aspect of the company's work in the West.
"Wi th crews spread out all over the place, we
need to know how many men and how much equipment are
going into various jobs, then compare this with what
we're being paid for the work," said E. W. Haupt,
vice president and general manager of the West Coast
operation. "The computer system lets me know."
"We've grown 400 per cent in the last two years, and
it would have been'impossible without our computer."
The computer permits determining, for instance,
if part of a San Diego-based crew should be transferred to Los Angeles, where the workload is heavier,
or if a certain piece of heavy equipment currently
in Phoenix would find more use in Portland, Ore.
The computer reports exactly how much each of 350
vehicles is costing every month -- gasoline, oil,
maintenance, depreciation, every thing. From these
figures it's easy to tell which equipment isn't being used enough to justify cost and upkeep.
The company was started in 1901 by English-born
John Davey, whose lifelong interest was the diseases
and ailments of shade trees; he planted hundreds of
trees thoughout northeastern Ohio.
Though the company was started essentially tocare
for trees at private homes, it has widened its work
to include the landscaping of commercial buildings
and institutions. Today it does much of its landscaping on freeway right-of-way.
"We are investigating the use of the 'computer in
keeping track of repeti ti ve jobs," Mr. Haupt said.
"The time may come when such information will be
stored in the computer and printed out each day, directing us to the specific trees or shrubs that need
spraying, root feeding, or pruning." The computer
is an IBM System/3 Model 6.
TOXICOLOGY RESEARCH DATA AVAILABLE
VIA ON-LINE NATIONWIDE NETWORK
Informatics, Inc.
6000 Executive Blvd.
Rockville, Md. 20852

What is described as a maj or advance in making research information on human and animal toxicity studies and other data on drug reactions, poisons, chemicals and' pollutants, available to the public as rapi44

dily as possible, was demonstrated recently at the
Annual Meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association in Houston, Texas. Representatives of the
Toxicology Information Program of the National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health,
U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare,
and Informatics Inc., a computer software and systems firm, performed on-line demonstrations of TOXICON, a service sponsored by the Toxicology Information program and operated by Informatics.
Utilizing a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) terminal, commands were -issued via a keyboard to a computer in
Washington D.C. to search files of citations and abstracts of published toxicology and pharmacology
studies of drugs, pesticides, and environmental pollutants and to provide information in the specific
areas. The response from the computer took a matter
of seconds.
Dr. Walter F. Bauer, president of Informatics,
said, "TOXICON puts the health researcher, be he employed by a commercial firm, a governmental agency,
a foundation, a college, a hospital, or working on
his own, in direct touch with the information he may
be seeking from virtually any point in the country
and from many places in the wo~ld.
No special computer know-how is necessary. The researcher can be
trained in a short time to operate any of a number
of existing typewriter-like terminals which interface with the network. Besides the considerable
savings in time spent searching for information compared to manual or butch processing methods, the online system may considerably reduce research costs
because the software needed to operate the system
is already buil t-in."
The cost of the service is nominal, Dr. Bauer
said, and may consist of an installation and monthly
rental of a terminal (subscribers may elect to use
terminals already installed for other purposes) plus
possible communications costs and computer time
~harges.
The netw6rk already has numerous entry
points from which a subscriber can contact the network without incurring separate communications charges.
Other subscribers incur standard telephone tariffs
to the nearest entry points. Foreign exchange and
wide area telephone service (WATS) apply to the use
of TOXICON just as they do to ordinary voice calls.
An added security feature of TOXICON, Dr. Bauer
said, is that the computer does not keep any record
of the nature of the information sought; it comp.utes
times charges only. Further information on TOXICON
may be obtained from Informatics Inc., Systems and
Services Co., Rockville, Md.
HEALTH AND EDUCATION OF MIGRANT WORKERS
IS BEING WATCHED BY A COMPUTER
Ayer Public Relations
1345 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N. Y. 10019

The critical needs of a child's health and educational development are usually attended to by the
family doctor and the community school. However,
in this country there are more than 800,000 children who have never received this kind of attention.
On an average these children move from school to
schooland state to state anywhere from 3 to 15
COMPUTERS and AU,TOMATION for June, 1972

times per year; and in most cases, both their
health and education suffer significantly.
These children are the offspring of migrant
workers who follow the harvests to eke out a living
to support their families. Today, with the aid of
advanced technology, their health and educational
development is being watched by a computer. This
enables teachers to give them the kind of care and
individual attention they deserve.
Recognizing the needs of these children, the Directors of the Departments of Education of the 48
contiguous states met in 1968 to discuss what kind
of system should be developed to accommodate them.
At this meeting the Migrant Student Record Transfer
Committee was formed. "The major objective of the
committee," says Vidal A. Rivera, Jr., Chief-Migrant
Programs Branch, United States Office of Education,
"is a multiple assessment of a migrant child's needs
on an individual basis. Moving from school to
school need not be a disadvantage if his records
are kept properly."
The committee's first task was to create a transfer record that would be acceptable throughout the
48 states. Essentially it would offer a profile of
the chi Id as he moved from school, to school. The
next problem, due to the migrant child's mObility,
was to get the transfer record to the school he was
attending before he left for another district.
Originally transfer records were mailed, but. in
most cases, by the time the transfer record reached
a school, the child had moved on to another; his
record was lost; his whereabouts were unknown. The
obvious solution to the problem was transferring
the student's records from a computer over regular
telephone lines to the new schools they were registered in.
Among the states involved in the program, Arkansas, California and New Mexico were the only ones
to compete for a contract to develop a computer base.
Based on a formal proposal, the United States Office
of Education under the Health, Education, Welfare
Department allotted the contract to Arkansas. The
development of the computer base and the depository
of migrant student information in Little Rock has
probably become one of the most coordinated efforts
of communications aiding an educational system in
the United States.

Today, a central computer base in Little Rock,
Arkansas is connected by Wide Area Telephone Lines
(WATS) to 137 teletypewriters (serving over 7000
schools) positioned throughout the United States.
At the computer base, health and educational information on 245,000 migrant children is updated and
transmitted over these lines every time a child
changes schools. Transmitting migrant student information anywhere in the country takes four hours.
Every time a migrant child arrives at a school,
his identifying and enrollment data are collected
and relayed to the nearest teletype operator. The
operator prepares a paper tape of this information
and transmits it to the depository in Little Rock.
The computer scans its flIes to determine if the
child is currently registered at the data base. If
this is the case, the enrollment information is updated. The computer then extracts critical data
(information which is significant to the initial
placement and care of the migrant student) from the
student's record and transmits it back to the operator, who in turn relays the data to the school.
The entire process takes four hours. (Additional indepth data is air mailed to the school within 24
hours.) Furthermore, elaborate safeguard measures
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

programmed in the computer make it virtually impossible for any of this information to be sent to the
wrong school or to get in the wrong hands.
Currently there are about 245,000 of the estimated
800,000 migrant children in the country registered
at the deposi tory. The chief aim of the coordinators
of the program is to register them all.
COMPUTERS TO HANDLE PROBLEMS ON NATIONAL
ECONOMY, POWER NETWORKS AND ECOLOGY
Department of Information Services
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Ind. 46556

Two electrical engineers at the University of
Notre Dame have received a $57,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study improved techniques for using computers to handle complex, largescale problems like the national economy, power networks and ecology.
Drs. Ruey-wen Liu and Richard Saeks, professor
and associate professor of the electrical engineering, respectively, explained that while computer
simulation techniques have been applied to some problems in the social sciences or ecology, most issues
in these fields are too complex for the traditional
techniques of mathematical modeling. Liu and Saeks
are working on a two-year project to develop theoretical foundations for new techniques capable of
handling complex, large-scale systems. In particular,they hope to develop a method for considering
one unknown quantity at a time, while also taking
into account the ways in which each unknown is related to the whole system.
Liu and Saeks believe their new methods will be
applicable to a wide range of complex systems, but
are beginning their examination with the problem of
"faul t isolation." Identifying what part of a large
machine is faulty without taking the whole system
apart is similar, they explained, to diagnosis in
medicine -- another area where their new techniques
might find application.
DATRAN RECEIVES INITIAL CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
University Computing Co.
P. O. Box 6228
Dallas, Texas 75222

The Federal Communications Comnission recently
announced the grant of initial construction permits
to Data Transmission Company (Datran) for the company's proposed national data communications network. (Datran is a subsidiary of University Computing Company.)
In addition to the 63 permits granted today, Datran will have completed filing all additional applications with the Commission for the remaining
sites on the all-digital data network by summer and
expects to have them granted by fall of this year.
Construction is expected to begin during the last
half of 1972 and service offerings on initial routes
are expected to be made in late 1973 or early 1974.
Last June in a landmark decision, Datran received
approval from the FCC to compete as a specialized
carrier in the data transmission field, which has
heretofore been dominated by AT&T and Western Union.
Datran's nationwide, switched network is designed to
provide high-quality, economical data communications
service in and between major metropolitan areas for
its subscribers.
45

NEW CONTRACTS
Control Data Corp., Minneapolis, Minn.

Defense Dept. and General Services Administration

Burroughs Corp., Detroit,
Mich.

Defense Dept. 's General Services Administration

Burroughs Corp., Paoli, Pa.

Electronic Systems Division
(ESD), Air Force Systems Command
Gosbank, Leningrad, U.S.S.R.

Honeywell, Inc., Waltham,
Mass.
Univac Division, Sperry Rand
Corp., Blue Bell, Pa.

Berlin Power and Light Co.
(BEWAG), Berlin, West Germany

National Cash Register Co.,
Dayton, Ohio

Strasbourg Savings Bank
Strasbourg, France

GTE Sylvania Inc., Western
Div .. Mountain View. Calif.
Univac Division, Sperry Rand
Corp .. Blue Bell. Pa.
Epsco, Inc., Westwood, Mass.

San Antonio Ai r Materiel Area,
Kelly Air Force Base. Tex.
Erste Osterreichische SparCasse (EOSC), Vienna. Austria
U.S. Navy

Varian ADCO, Palo Alto, Calif.

Planning Research Corp., Los
Angeles, Calif.

GTE International, Inc.,
New York, N.Y.

Compania Paulista de Forca
e Luz, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Computer Optical Systems,
Inc., Burlington, Mass.

World Market Centers, Inc.,
Oklahoma City, Okla.

Trans-A-File Systems Co.,
Sunnyvale, Calif.

Virginia Commonwealth University

Univac Division, Sperry Rand
Ltd., London, England

Miles Druce and Co., High
Wycombe, England

Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

Department of the Navy,
Arlington, Va.

Honeywell, Inc., Minneapolis, Minn.

Rocketdyne Div. of North
American Rockwell Corp. (NR),
Canoga Park. Calif.
State of Wisconsin, Crime Information Bureau, Madison,
Wisc.
NASA, Washington, D.C.

EMR Computer, Minneapolis,
Minn.
RCA Aerospace Systems Div.,
Burlington, Mass.

Custom Computer Systems, Inc.,
Plainview, N.Y.

Eastern Hudson Parkway Authority, N.Y.

Information International,
Los Angeles, Calif.

Univac Division, Sperry Rand
Corp., Roseville, Minn.

Interdata, Inc., Oceanport,

N.J.

Kearney & Trecker Corp., Milwaukee, Wisc.

Alan M. Voorhees & AssoInc., McLean, Va.

West Virginia Department of
Highways

~iates,

One medium and six large-scale systems for
implementing new and advanced management
techniques which are expected to produce
savings of over $100 million during 7-year
life of contract
Lease of two B6500 systems and related
support servi ces; systems wi 11 be ins ta lIed
at Defense Logistics Services Center, Battle Creek, Mich. for Defense Integrated
Data Systems (DIDS)
B6700 system (replaces B5500) to support
educational and scientific users at the
Air Force Academy in Colorado
Two Honeywell Model 615 systems which wi 11
form a communications network designed to
automate administrative functions and control a variety of banking applications
UNIVAC 1108 system to process customers'
bills for computation of load distribution and to execute technical and scientific
calculations involved in power engineering
Two NCR Century 300 computers which will
process savings, checking, and loan accounts at 34 French savings banks
Modernization of Air Force electronic receiving system
A UNIVAC 1106 and associated equipment to
establish a real-time banking system
Modifying signal data converters currently
used in the P-3C ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) aircraft
Development of automated, remote-access
microfilm storage and retrieval system;
initial maximum capacity, 28millionpages;
ADCO A626 System will be core of a fullyautomated Mi Ii tary Personnel Records System
at Randolph AFB. San Antonio. Texas
Supply and ins tall computeri zed supervi sory
control and data acquisi tion system to monitor and control generation, distribution
and transmission of all electric power
Design development of do-it-all electronic
cash register using magnetically encoded
cards
An all-digital automated filing and retrieval system to be installed at Medical
College of Virginia's Health Science Div.
Two UNIVAC 9400 computers, extending firm's
real-time order entry and inventory contro 1
systems; replaces two UNIVAC 1050 systems
Establishment of an Artificial Inte.lligence
Laboratory; initial goal is to conduct research on techniques that wi 11 endow robotlike devices with human-like learning,
viewing. and manipulative capabilities
Electronic control system to serve as
"brain" of Space Shuttle main engine

$83 mi llion
(approximate)

A twin EMR 6135 computer system to serve as
control center of statewide law enforcement
communications network
Laser land-surveying system called "Smokey",
consisting of two ruggedized, back-packable,
40 lb. units; upon acceptance, US Forest
Service will conduct a one year, all weather,
envi ronmental evaluation program in national
forests through U.S.
Automated toll data collection system maintaining "round-the-clock" surveillance of
traffic flow and operator activity
FR 80 COM (Computer Output Microfilm) recorder to produce logic diagram drawings
and software listings in development of
large-scale 1110 computer; FR 80 replaces
a pen-and-ink drum plotter used in development of previous UNIVAC systems
New Series Model 70 processors with RealTime Operating Systems (RTOS) and peripherals for use in K&T's SYSTEM GEMINI
Developing a coordinated data system for
highway planning

$600,000
(approximate)

$24.3 million

$5.2+ million
$5 mi Ilion
(approximate)
$4 mi llion
(approximate)
$3.3 mi Ilion
$2.2 mi llion
$2.1 million
$1.8+. million
$1. 8 mi Ilion

$1. 7 million
(approximate)
$1.2 million
$1,090,000
$1+ mi Ilion
$1 million

$800,000

$175,000

$129,000

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

NEW INSTALLATIONS
AT
Burroughs B 2500 system

Western Data Associates, Casper,
Wyo.

Burroughs B 4700 system

Wiremold Company, West Hartford,
Conn.
Virginia Commonweal th Services, Inc.
(VCS), Richmond, Va.

Control Data Cyber 70 Model 72
system

Methods et Traitment de l'Information (METTO, Western France
Mexico Department of Communications
and Transport, Mexico City, Mex.

Control Data 3150 system

LIPS, Netherlands

Control Data 6600 system

Reactor Centrum Netherlands (RCN)

Control Data 7600 system

Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif.
University of London, London,
England

Honeywell Model 2060 system

Metropolitan Savings, Brooklyn,
N. Y.

IBM System/360 Model 50

(2 systems)
Fulton County Juvenile Court,
Atlanta, Ga.

IBM System/370 Model 135

City of Garland, Garland, Texas

IBM System/370 Model 145

Macy's of Northern California,
Cupertino, Calif.
Beistle Company, Shippensburg, Pa,

NCR Century 50 system

NCR Century 100 system
NCR Century 200 system

Bray Lines, Cushing, Okla.
Chicago, West Pullman & Southern
Railroad Co., Chicago, Ill.
Concord Union School District,
Concord, N. H.
Wickes Furniture, Northbrook, Ill.
(6 systems)
Commercial Cold Storage, Atlanta, Ga.
Internationale Verbandstoff-Fabrik
IVF, Zurich, Switzerland
Capri Beachwear, Inc., Farmingdale,
N. Y.

UNIVAC Series 70/7 system
UNIVAC 1106 system

Co-operative Pure Milk, Cincinnati,
Ohio
South African Permanent Building Society, Johannesburg, South Africa
(2 systems)
Florida Power and Light Co.,
Miami. Fla.
Burndy Corp., Norwalk, Conn.

UNIVAC 9200 system

Keystone Life Insurance Co.,
New Orleans, La.
M. L. Engineering Company, Ltd.,
Slough, Trading Estate, England
H. Rollett & Co., United Kingdom

UNIVAC 9300 system

Abraham & Co., New York, N, Y.

UNIVAC 9311 system

Wyoming Valley Distributing Co.,
Wilkes-Barre, Pa,
Records Automation, Frederick, Okla.

UNIVAC 9400 system
Xerox Sigma 8 system

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

Research Computers, Oklahoma City,
Okla.
Coronadata Company, Gothenburg,
Sweden
Federal Aviation Administration,
Atlantic City, N. J.

Serving data processing needs of Casper area businesses; will provide capabili ties to expand services
to small businesses throughout the state
(system valued at $356,000)
Market demand forecasting, order entry payroll
preparation and purchasing
General ba~king applications including Mastercharge,
certificates of deposit, and trusts
(system valued at approximately $2.5 million)
Expanding time-sharing data center activi ties; services customers in banking, agriculture, general
business, construction, etc.
(system valued at $1.4 million)
A variety of internal business data processing procedures; also will process data resulting from com-munication and transportation studies
(system valued at $1.2 million)
Scientific research and business data processing;
replaces two current computers
(system valued at $251,000)
Processing nuclear reactor problems
(system valued at $2.2 million)
Performing scientific and engineering computation
Expanding exis ting data processing services; serves
as regional DP center for 9 universities in SE
England
Internal accounting and on-the-spot updating of
customers' savings accounts
(system valued at $1.18 million)
Maintaining name index and family history of juveniles handled by the court; a daily census of juveniles
in detention; automatic preparation of court calendar
Tasks ranging from projecting the city's financial
growth to controlling traffic
Customer-account identification and account status
verification
Order pr.ocessing and invoicing, accounts receivable, accounts payable and inventory control
Payroll, billings, and general ledger accounting
Replacing a manual system of inventorying inbound
and outbound freight cars
Student scheduling, grade reporting and general
accounting
Inventory control, sales analyses and computation of
sales commissions at 6 new warehouse/showrooms
Inventory control and invoicing
General office applications, production planning,
statistics, and shareholders register
On-line inventory system, also order processing,
payroll, etc.
Route control, inventory-and payroll functions
Nucleus of nationwide on-line computer network; will
connect all 71 branches with Johannesburg data center
(system valued at $3.4 million)
Production applications and assembly, compilation,
and testing of programs for firm's computer complex
An on-line entry system as well as general office
applications
(system valued at $1.7 million)
Insurance applications and general office applications
Payroll, purchase ledger and contract costing
work
Providing up-to-date sales, invoicing, stock and
payroll information
Implementing a special back-office brokerage system
known as TRADES; replaces a UNIVAC 1004
Expediting the firm's business and general accounting operations
Accounting services for customers which include
radio stations and small municipalities
Teaching data processing and for general insurance applications
A variety of business applications including investment analysisj a 9700 system will be added in 1974
Simulating air traffic conditions as part of study
to meet future demands of U.S. air transportation;
system joins a Xerox Sigma 5 computer
(system valued at approximatdy $WO,OOO)
47

MONTHLY COMPUTER CENSUS
Neil Macdonald
Survey Editor
COMPUTERS AND AUTO~~TION
The following is a summary made by COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION of reports and estimates of the number of general purpose electronic digital computers 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. Please note the variation
in dates and reliability of the information. Several important manufacturers refuse to give out, confirm, or comment on any figures.
Our census seeks to include all digital computers manufactured anywhere. We invite all manufacturers located anywhere to submit information for this census. We invite all our readers to submit information that would help make these figures as accurate and complete as
possible.
Part I of the Monthly Computer Census contains reports for United
States manufacturers. Part II contains reports for manufacturers
outside of the United States. The two parts are published in alternate months.

The following abbreviations apply:
(A) -- authoritative figures, derived essentially from information
sent by the manufacturer directly to COMPUTERS AND
AUTOMATION
C
figure is combined in a total
(D)
acknowledgment is given to DP Focus, Marlboro, Mass., for
their help in estimating many of these figures
E
figure estimated by COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION
(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
(R)
figures derived all or in part from information released
indirectly by the manufacturer, or from reports by other
sources likely to be informed
(S)
sale only, and sale (not rental) price is stated
X
no longer in production
information not obtained at press time

SUMMARY AS OF MAY IS, 1972
DATE OF
NAME OF
NAME OF
FIRST
MANUFACTURER
COMPUTER
INSTALLATION
Part II. Hanufacturers Outside United States
8/68
NORD-l
A/s Norsk Data Elektronikk
NORD-2B
8/69
Oslo, Norway
NORD-5
(A) (Hay 1972)
NORD-20
1/72
A/S Regnecentralen
GIER
12/60
Copenhagen, Denmark
RC 4000
6/67
(A) (Jan. 1972)
10/67
Elbit Computers Ltd.
Elbit-IOO
Haifa, Israel
(A) (Jan. 1972)
902
5/68
GEC Computers Ltd.
12/65
Hertfordshire, England
903,920B
Marconi-Elliott 905
5/69
(R) (Har. 1972)
Harconi-Elliott 920M
7/67
Harconi-Elliott 920C
7/68
Hyriad I
1/66
Hyriad II
11/67
Harconi-Elliott M2l40 10/69
Atlas 1 & 2
1/62
International Computers, Ltd. (ICL)
London, England
Deuce
4/55
(A)
KDF 6-10
9/61
(Jan. 1972)
KDN 2
4/63
Leo I, 2,
-/53
Mercury
-/57
Orion 1 &
1/63
Pegasus
4/55
Sirius
-/61
503
-/64
803 A, B, C
l2/6Q
1100/1
-/60
1200/1/2
-/55
1300/1/2
-/62
1500
7/62
2400
12/61
1900-1909
12/64
Elliott 4120/4130
10/65
System 4-30 to 4-75
10/67
Japanese Mfrs.
(N) (Sept. 1970)
Harconi Co., Ltd.
see GEC Com:Quters Ltd. above
N.V. Philips Electrologica
The Netherlands
(A)
(Jan. 1972)

Redifon Limited
Crawley, Sussex, England
(A) (Hay, 1972)
Saab-Scania Aktiebolag
Linkoping, Sweden
(A) (May, 1972)
Selenia S.p.A.
Roma, Italy
(A) (Har. 1972)
Siemens
Hunich, Germany
(A)
(April, 1972)

AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
$ (000)
2.0
4.0

NUNBER OF INSTALLATIONS
Outside
In
In
U.S.A.
U.S.A.
World

3.5
2.3-7.5
3.0-20.0

(S)

4.9

(S)

82
20
1
7
40
19

0
0

(S)

0
0
0
0

0
1
0
0
0
0
0
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
0

65.0
10-36
10-24
20.0

5.0
3.9
4.0
6.0
23.0
3-54
2.4-11.4
5.2-54

82
20
1
7
40
19

0
4
0
3

300

15
258
45
98

15
259
45
98

2
85
14

47
32
21
6
7
'58
1
59
13
17
30
22
16
83
22
68
196
110
4
2200
160
160

47
32
21
6
7
58
1
59
13
17
30
22
16
83
22
68
196
110
4
2202
160
160

(Mfrs. of various models include: Nippon Electric Co., Fujitsu,
Hitachi, Ltd., Toshiba, Oki Electric Industry Co., and Hitsubishi
Electric Cor:Q. )
PlOOO
P9200
P9200 t.s.
P-800
ELXl
ELX2/8
DS714
PR8000
R2000

8/68
3/68
3/70
9/70
5/58
3/65
-/67
1/66
7/70

7.2-35.8

12/62
11/68
4/69
7/69

7.0
15.0
10.0
10.9
5.6

301
302
303
304

11/68
1/68
4/65
5/68

0.9
2.1
2.7
4.5

(S)
(S)

16
X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X
X

C
C
C
Total:
400

Total:
4150 E

Total:
800 E
34
50
0
200

89
300
4
50
20
27
31
23
14

0
0
0
0

38
31
16
95

38
33
16
95

12.0
6-21

D2l
D22
D220
G-16
GP-160

NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS

99
30
71
79

3
2
38250
14
6
1
15

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

NAt-IE OF
CO}1PUTER

NAt-IE OF
HANUFACTURER

DATE OF
FIRST
INSTALLATION

305
306
2002
3003
4004/15/16
4004/25/26
4004/35
4004/135
4004/45
4004/46
4004/55/60
4004/150
4004/151
404/3
404/6

Siemans (cont'd)

USSR
(N)
(Hay 1969)

2/68
6/70
6/59
12/63
10/65
1/66
2/67
10/72
7/66
4/69
7/66
10/72
10/72
4/71
10/71

AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF HONTHL Y RENTAL
S(OOO)

NUNBER OF INSTALLATIONS
Outside
In
In
World
U.S.A.
U. S.A.

6.1
7.9
16.4
15.8
6.1
10.0
14.2
20.5
27.3
41.0
35.0
49.0
61.0
2.1
4.5

113
23
39
32
102
68
211
15
340
15
27
4
3
19
32

16
5

Total:

1251

297

C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C

BESH 4
BESH 6
HINSK 2
HINSK 22
HIE
NAIR 1
ONEGA 1
URAL 11/14/16
and others

Total:

6000 E

PROBLEM CORNER

sent a program to compute E _1_
equal to - -1"
e- 1

Walter Penney, CDP
Problem Editor
Computers and Automation
PROGRAM 726:

A POPULARITY PROGRAM

When Joe walked into the Computer Center, he saw
AI and Bob huddled over a pile of coding sheets. "Whenever I see you guys working so hard on a program, I can
be sure it's not company business," he said. "What is it
this time?"
"There's a contest to pick the order of popularity of a
group of songs," AI said. "We're,trying to write a program for it."
"Something like the old Hit Parade contest?"
"Yes, but here it's the number of places you get right,
not necessarily the top three."
"How many songs are there?"
"Ten. We figure with a little computer assistance we'll
be able to determine the smallest number of tickets that
will stand the best chance of winning a prize."
"Oh, there's a cost, then? Joe began to get a little
suspicious.
"Yes, it's a little like a football pool," said AI. "But
this may turn out to be more like a race - a race against
factorial n. The numbers seem to go up very fast."
"What numbers are these?"
"The number of tickets that have to be bought to be
sure of getting a certain number of positions right out of
n." Bob pointed to some calculations he had made.
"You have to put in a lot more, for: example, to be sure
of getting five right out of ten than five right out of
nine."
"Yes, but how about other numbers? Is it true that
the number to guarantee r right out of n is always greater
than the number to guarantee r right out of n -I?"
Solution to Problem 725: Stuck-Up Stick-Ons
The boxes A = A -1 and A = D +1 have been interchanged. If these are reversed the flow chart will repreCOMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

2
2+

NlllBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS

2
16
39
49
31
1
47
12
43

Total:

6000 E

... which is

3+ .. .

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

CORRECTIONS
In the May 1971 issue of Computers and Automation, the following corrections should be made:
Page 19, "Deciphering an Unknown Computer
Program, as Compared With Deciphering of
Ancient Writing", at bottom of right column.:
Replace the contract number "N0014-C-700225" by "N00014-C-70-0225".
Page 26, "Deciphering an Unknown Computer
Program, as Compared With Deciphering of
Ancient Writing", under "References":
Replace "Chadiwick" by "Chadwick".
ADVERTISING INDEX
Following, is the index of advertisements. Each item contains: name and address of the advertiser / name of the
agency, if any / page number of the advertisement.
ACM (ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY),
1133 Ave. of Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036/ Corporate Presence, Inc. / Page 24
THE C&A NOTEBOOK ON COMMON SENSE, ELEMENTARY AND ADVANCED, published by Computers
and Automation, 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass.
02160/ Pages 50 and 51
GML CORPORATION, 594 Marrett Rd., Lexington, Mass.
02173 / Page 52
WHO'S WHO IN COMPUTERS AND DATA PROCESSING,
jointly published by Quadrangle Books (a New York
Times Company) and Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., 815
Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160/ Pages 2 and 3
49

Announcement

The Most Important of All Branches of Knowledge
(Based on the editorial in the April 1971 issue of Computers and Automation)
It may be that there is a branch of knowledge which 'is
the most important of all.
If so, I would maintain that it is a subject which used to
have the n'ame "wisdom" but nowadays does not have a
recognized scientific name, or in any college a recognized
department or faculty to teach it. This subject currently is a
compound of common sense, wisdom, good judgment,
maturity, the scientific method, the trained capacity to
solve problems, systems analysis, operations research, and
some more besides. Its earmark is that it is a general
subject, not a special one like chemistry or psychology or
astronautics. Useful names for this subject at this time are
"generalogy" or "science in general" or "common sense,
elementary and advanced".
Many editorials published in ~'Computers and Automation" have in one way or another discussed or alluded to
this subject:

Examples, Understanding, and Computers / December 1964
The Barrels and the Elephant: Crackpot vs. Pioneer /
May 1965
Some Questions of Semantics / August 1965
Perspective / April 1966
Computers and Scientific Models / May 1967
New Ideas that Organize Information / December
1967
How to Spoil One's Mind - As Well as One's
Computer / August 1968
The Catching of Errors by Inspection / September
1968
Tunnel Vision / January 1969
The Cult of the Expert / May 1969
Computers, Language, and Reality / March 1970
Computers and Truth / August 1970
The Number of Answers to a Question/March 1971
In the editorial "The Cult of the Expert" we offered a
leaflet that belongs in this subject, "Right Answ~rs - A
Short Guide for Obtaining Them". More than 600' readers
asked for a copy; so clearly this subject is interesting to the
readers of C&A.
This subject is related to computers and the computer
field in at least two ways:
First, many of the general principles which this subject
contains can be investigated in experimental or real situations by means of a computer. In fact, far more can be
investigated by computer than can possibly be investigated
by ordinary analytical mathematics.
Second, since computer professionals are in charge of
computing machines, many people consider these professionals responsible for the worthwhileness of the results of
computers. Because of "garbage in, garbage out", computer
professionals have a responsibility to apply common sense
and wisdom in at least three ways:
50

Input - in the selection and acceptance of the data
with which they begin;
Processing - in the processing through a system;
Output - in the interpretation and use of the answers.
Then the computerized systems will produce strong structures that human beings can use and rely on, and not weak
structures which will crash with false information or ridiculous results.
"Computers and Automation" for April 1971 contains an
article, "Common Sense, Wisdom, General Science, and "computers", which deals with this subject. For more than a dozen years I have been studying this subject - ever since I searched in avery large and good public library for a textbook on
common sense or wisdom and found none at all. There is,
however, a great deal of i'nformation to be gathered on this
subject because a large number of great men, ancient, medieval, and modern, have made remarks and comments (usually while talking or writing about something else) that belong
in this subject.
The subject of wisdom is particularly important in these
modern days. The subject has been neglected, while special
sciences have been cultivated. Investigators have pursued
the special sciences with the enthusiasm of a child with a
new toy. Specialized science and specialized technology
have rendered our earthly world almost unrecognizable:
All major cities on the planet are only a few hours
apart by jet plane.
Millions upon millions of people who otherwise
would be dead are alive because of miracle drugs,
- thus creating a population explosion;
Nuclear weapons if used can destroy mankind and
civilization in a few hours; etc.
To deal with so many diverse, vast problems we need
wisdom. To use wisdom we should study it.
The staff of "Computers and Automation" have decided
that it is desirable to make the drawers full of information
we have been collecting on this subject more accessible and
more widely distributed. We have decided to publish twice
a month a publication of newsletter type called "The C&A
Notebook on Common Sense, Elementary and Advanced".
For more details, see the announcement on the opposite
page. (The first few issues of the Notebook are free.)
We invite you, our readers, to join us in the pursuit of
this subject, as readers of the Notebook, and as participators with us in the research and study.
Wisdom is a joint enterprise - and truth is not shaped so
that it can fit into the palm of anyone person's hand.

~~~~~
EDITOR

COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

INVENTORY OF THE ISSUES OF

TITLES AND SUMMARIES

THE C&A NOTEBOOK ON COMMON SENSEI VOLUME
1. Right Answers -- A Short Guide to
Obtaining Them
A collection of 82 principles and maxims.
Example: "The moment you have worked out
an answer, start checking it -- it probably isn't right."
2. The Empty Column
A parable about a symbol for zero, and the
failure to recognize the value of a good
idea.
3. The Golden Trumpets of Yap Yap
4. Strategy in Chess
5. The Barrels and the Elephant
A discussion of truth vs. believability
6. The Argument of the Beard
The accumulation of many small differences
may make a huge difference.
7. The Elephant and the Grassy Hillside
The concepts of the ordinary everyday world
vs. the pointer readings of exact science.
8. Ground Rules for Arguments
9. False Premises, Valid Reasoning, and True
Conclusions
The fallacy of asserting that the premises
must first be correct in order that
correct conclusions be derived.
10. The Investigation of Common Sense
II. Principles of General Science and Proverbs
8 principles and 42 proverbs
12. Common Sense· - Questions for ConsideratiotJ
13. Falling 1800 Feet Down a Mountain
The story of a skimobiler who fell 1/3
of a mile down Mt. Washington, N.H.,
and was rescued the next day; and how he
used his common sense and survived.
14. The Cult of the Expert
Rules for testing expert advice.
15. Preventing Mistakes from Failure to Understand
Even though you do not understand the
cause of some trouble, you may still
be able to deal with it. The famous
example of a cure for malaria.
16. The Stage of Maturity and Judgement
17. Doomsday in St. Pierre, Martinique -- Common
Sense vs. Catastrophe
How 30,000 people refusing.to apply their
common sense died from a volcani c eruption.
i8. The Jlistory of the Doasyoulikes
A parable in which the stern old fairy
Necessity plays a part.
19. Individuality in Human Beings
Their chemical natures are as widely
varied as their external features.
20. How to be Silly
71 recipes for being silly. Example:
"Use twenty words to say something when
two wi II do."
21. The Three Earthworms
A parable about curiosity; and the importance of making observations for oneself.
22. The Cochrans vs. Catastrophe
The history of Samuel Cochran, Jr.,
who ate some vichyssoise soup.
23. Preventing Mistakes from Forgetting
The commonest cause for mistakes probably
is forgetting. Some remedies.
24. What is Common Sense? - An Operational
Definition
A proposed definition of common sense
not using synonyms but using behavior
that is observable.
25. The Subject of What is Generally True and
Important - Common Sense, Elementary and
Advanced
COMPUTERS and AUTOMATION for June, 1972

26. Natural History, Patterns, and Common Sense
Some important techniques for observing.
27. Rationalizing and Common Sense
Coming to believe what you want to believe;
and some antidotes for this common mistake.
28. Opposition to New Ideas
Some of the common but foolish reasons
for opposing new ideas.
29. A Classification and Review of
the Issues of Vol. 1
30. Index to Volume 1
Some Comments from Subscribers

Harold J. Coate, EDP Manager, St. Joseph, Mo.:
I believe these to be the best, if not the
most important, reading that I have had this
year.
William Taylor, Vice President, Calgary, Alberta:
Very good articles; something all managers
should read.
Edward K. Nellis, ,Director of Systems Development,
Pittsford, N.Y.:
As I am involved with systems work, I can
always use one of the issues to prove a point
or teach a lesson.
David Lichard, Data Processing Manager, Chicago:
Thoroughly enjoy each issue.
Richard Marsh, Washington, D.C.:
Keep it up. All are good and thought-provoking - which in itself is worthwhile.
Ralph C. Taylor, Manager of Research and Development, West Chester, Ohio:
Especially liked "Right Answers".
Jeffrey L. Rosen, Programmer, Toronto, Canada:
Your tendency to deal with practical applications is very rewarding.
As a new subscriber, you do not miss
past issues. Every subscriber's subscription
starts at Vol. I, no. 1, and he eventually receives all issues. The past issues are sent to
him usually four at a time, every week or two,
until he has caught up, and thus he does not
miss important and interesting issues that never
go out of date.

PAST ISSUES:

(I) You may return the fi rst batch of
issues we send you, for FULL REFUND, if not satisfactory. (2) Thereafter, you may cancel at any
time, and you will receive a refund for the unmailed portion of your subscription. -- We want
only happy and satisfied subscribers.

GUARANTEE:

- - - -(may be copied on any piece of paper)To: Computers and Automation
815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160
YES, I would li ke to try the "Notebook on
Common Sense, Elementary and Advanced".
Please enter my subscription at $12 a year,
24 issues, newsletter style, and extras.
Please send me issues I to 6 as FREE PREMIUMS
for subscribing.
I enclose
) Please bill me.
Please bill my organization.
Name ________________________Title ________________
Organization_____________________________________
Address ___________________________________________
Si gna t u re ______________________-.;P .0. No. _______
51

A Quick, Easy, Fingertip Reference
COMPUTER CHARACTERISTICS REVIEW
the most current, complete, compact, professional
computer reference source available anywhere.
$25/YEAR
Three issues. Each over 250 pages of objective, authoritative, detailed data
on all computers (mini, midi, maxi), associated peripherals (auxiliary storage,
magnetic tapes, card equipment, line printers, paper tape equipment,
alphanumeric displays, interactive graphic displays), applications,
systems configurations and power classification. A directory
of manufacturers is standard.
(POCKET SIZE)

BITS PER MICROSECOND

SAMPLE PAGES:
Bi"/><,
MkrD-

C.,dt!Tirne
(in micro. BitspnucontbJ
C'Jdt!

ucond

2181.81
1185.18
800.00
800.00
185.51
160.00
128.00
112.50
~.OO

CONTROL DATA 7600
IBM
IBM
IBM
IBM

360/195
!6()/85
370/165
!70/l5~

i~~igE~~SSI.r~~L PROCESSORS C
UNIVAC 1110
"''''tROUGHS B6700

MZ75
0.054
0.08
0.08
0.~5

64
64

64
64
16

MAGNETIC TAPE

360/65. 67

PROCESSORS

CEM1RS~~ 116 fORf.\GN)
l262 U.. ,

360j75

~a?~S B6500

:YWELL 600/635
YWELL 6000/6070
'WELL 6060/6080
WELL 200/8200
OL DATA 6400
JL DATA 6500
·)L.DATA 6600

GML CORPORATION
Publishers of Computer Display Review

594 Marrett Road • Lexington, Massachusetts 02173
(617) 861-0515

'1I
I

Source Exif Data:

File Type                       : PDF
File Type Extension             : pdf
MIME Type                       : application/pdf
PDF Version                     : 1.3
Linearized                      : No
XMP Toolkit                     : Adobe XMP Core 4.2.1-c043 52.372728, 2009/01/18-15:56:37
Producer                        : Adobe Acrobat 9.1 Paper Capture Plug-in
Modify Date                     : 2009:03:24 23:41:27-07:00
Create Date                     : 2009:03:24 23:41:27-07:00
Metadata Date                   : 2009:03:24 23:41:27-07:00
Format                          : application/pdf
Document ID                     : uuid:98f38b03-c1d0-4294-9a4f-5d094c95cdcd
Instance ID                     : uuid:aa578880-22fc-4215-abda-7f500ecdd300
Page Layout                     : SinglePage
Page Mode                       : UseNone
Page Count                      : 52

EXIF Metadata provided by EXIF.tools

197206

197206 197206

Navigation menu

Versions of this User Manual:

Views

Navigation