197402
197402 197402
User Manual: 197402
Open the PDF directly: View PDF 
.
Page Count: 44
| Download | |
| Open PDF In Browser | View PDF |
--=-__
SClFNCE & TECH_Oct
7
February, 1974
Vol. 23, No. 2
computers
and people
formerly Computers and Automation
"COMPUTER TAPESTRY -
Top Level Control of Data Processing
Automated Recycling
What to do BEFORE Your Computer Blows Up!
How Congress Uses the Computer
Technology as a Social Force and Ethical Problem
The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Part 1
DETAIL"
Edward L. Hennessy, Jr.
Stephen D. Senturia
E. G. Jancura and J. A. Drefs
Robert D. Schlappe
Charles Susskind
Wayne Chastain
INVENTORY OF THE 36 ISSUES OF
- TITLES AND SUMMARIES
THE NOTEBOOK ON COMMON SENSE, FIRST YEAR
VOLUME 1
VOLUME 2
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
11. Principles of General Science and Proverbs
8 principles and 42 proverbs.
12. Common Sense - Questions for Consideration
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
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 volcanic eruption.
18. The History of the Doasyoulikes
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 will 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
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
26. Natural History, Patterns, and Common Sense
Some important techniques for observing.
27. Rationalizing and Common Sense
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.
30. Index to Volume 1
31. Adding Years to your Life Through Common Sense
A person who desires to live long and stay well needs
to understand some 20 principles, including how to
test all the health advice he receives for its common
sense, and how to develop habits of health practices
which fit him.
32. The Number of Answers to a Problem
Problems may have many answers, one answer, or no
answer ... and answers that are good at one time may
be bad at another.
33. "Stupidity has a Knack of Getting Its Way"
" ... as we should see if we were not always so much
wrapped up in ourselves."
- Albert Camus
34. Time, Sense, and Wisdom - Some Notes
The supply of time, the quantity of time, the kinds of
time, and the conversion of time .... A great deal of
the time in a man's life is regularly, systematically, and
irretrievably wasted. This is a serious mistake.
35. Time, Sense, and Wisdom - Some Proverbs and Maxims
56 quotations and remarks by dozens of great men.
36. Wisdom - An Operational Definition
"A wise person takes things as they are and, knowing
the conditions, proceeds to deal with them in such a
manner as to achieve the desired result."
- Somerset Maugham
EXCITING:
Q: Is the Notebook exciting?
A: Some of the issues, like "Falling 1800 Feet Down a
Mountain" and "Doomsday in St. Pierre, Martinique",
are among the most exciting true stories we know.
USEFUL:
Q: Is the Notebook useful?
A: It ought to be useful to anybody - as useful as
common sense. There exists no textbook on common
sense; the Notebook tries to be a good beginning to
common sense, science, and wisdom.
PAST ISSUES: As a new subscriber, you do not miss past issues. Every subscriber's subscription starts at Vol. 1, 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.
2
GUARANTEE: (1) You may return (in 7 days) the first 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.
- - - - - - - - - - (may be copied on any piece of paper) - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To: Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160
) YES, I would like 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 1 to 6 as FREE
PREMIUMS for subscribing.
I enclose _ _ _ _ __
) Please bill my organization.
Name _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Title _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Organization _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___
Signature _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Purch. Order No. _ _ __
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
The Notebook on
COMMON SENSE, ELEMENTARY AND ADVANCED
is devoted to development, exposition, and illustration of what
may be the most important of all fields of knowledge:
WHAT IS GENERALLY TRUE AND IMPORTANT
+
+
SOME PARTS
OF
OPERATIONS
RESEARCH
+
+
+
+
+
+
Topic:
THE SYSTEMATIC
PREVENTION OF MISTAKES
Topic:
SYSTEMATIC EXAMINATION
OF GENERAL CONCEPTS
Already Published
Already Published
PURPOSES:
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
help you avoid pitfalls
prevent mistakes before they happen
display new paths around old obstacles
point out new solutions to old problems
stimulate your resourcefulness
increase your accomplishments
improve your capacities
help you solve problems
give you more tools to think with
Preventing Mistakes from:
Failure to Understand
Forgetting
Unforeseen Hazards
Placidity
To Come
Preventing Mistakes from:
Bias
Camouflage
Interpretation
Distraction
Gullibility
Failure to Observe
Failure to Inspect
Prejudice
8REASONS TO BE INTERESTED IN THE FIELD OF
COMMON SENSE, WISDOM, AND GENERAL SCIENCE
COMPUTERS are important But the computer field is over 25 years old. Here is a new
field where you can get in on the ground floor to make
your mark.
MATHEMATICS is important But this field is more important than mathematics, because
common sense, wisdom, and general science have more
applications.
..
LOGIC is important But this field is more important than logic, because common;
sense plus wisdom plus science in general is much broader
than logic.
WISDOM is important This field can be reasonably called "the engineering of
wisdom".
COMMON SENSE is important This field includes the systematic study and development of:
common sense.
SCI ENCE is important This field includes what is common to all the sciences, what :
is generally true and important in the sciences.
MISTAKES are costly and to be AVOIDED This field includes the systematic study of the prevention of ;
mistakes.
MONEY is important The systematic prevention of mistakes in your organization
might save 10 to 20% of its expenses per year.
o
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
The Concept of:
Expert
Rationalizing
Feedback
Model
Black Box
Evolution
Niche
To Come
Strategy
Understanding
Teachable Moment
Indeterminacy
System
Operational Definition
••••••••.•••••• (may be copied on any piece of paper) ••••••• - - - - - - • - • - - - - •• - - - -
To: Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160
0
(
0
(
o
1. Right Answers - A Short Guide to Obtaining Them
2. The Empty Column
3. The Golden Trumpets of Yap Yap
0
+
) Yes, please enter my subscription to The Notebook on Common
Sense, Elementary and Advanced at $12 a year (24 issues), plus
extras. I understand that you always begin at the beginning
and so I shall not miss any issues.
)
Please send me as free premiums for subscribing:
( ) I enclose $
4. Strategy in Chess
5. The Barrels and the Elephant
6. The Argument of the Beard
) Please bill my organization
RETURNABLE IN 7 DAYS FOR FULL REFUND IF NOT SATISFACTORY
HOW CAN YOU LOSE?
Name ___________________________
Title
----------------
Organization ______________________________________
Address (including zip) ______________________________
Signature _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Purchase Order No.
---3
Vol. 23, No. 2
February, 1974
Editor
Edmund C. Berkeley
Assistant
Editors
Barbara L. Chaffee
Linda Ladd Lovett
Neil D. Macdonald
Art Director
Grace C. Hertlein
Software
Editor
Stewart B. Nelson
Advertising
Director
Edmund C. Berkeley
Contributing
Editors
John Bennett
Moses M. Berlin
Andrew D. Booth
John W. Carr III
Ned Chapin
Ted Schoeters
Richard E. Sprague
Advisory
Committee
Ed Burnett
James J. Cryan
Bernard Quint
Editorial
Offices
Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St.
Newtonville, MA 02160
617-332-5453
Advertising
Contact
The Publisher
Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St.
Newtonville, MA 02160
617-332-5453
"Computers and People," formerly
"Computers and Automation," is published
monthly, 12 issues per year, at 815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160, by Berkeley
Enterprises, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. Second
Class Postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing points.
Subscription rates: United States, $11.50
for one year, $22.00 for two years. Canada:
add $1 a year; foreign, add $6 a year.
NOTE: The above rates do not include
our publication "The Computer Directory
and Buyers' Guide".
If you elect to receive "The Computer Directory and Buyers'
Guide," please add $12.00 per year to your
subscription rate in U.S. and Canada, and
$15.00 per year elsewhere.
Please address all mail to:
Berkeley
Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160.
Postmaster: Please send all forms 3579
to Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160.
© Copyright 1974, 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.
4
computers
and people
formerly Computers and Automation
Computers and Top Management
14 Top Level Control of Data Processing: Some Guidelines
[A]
by Edward L. Hennessy, Jr., Vice President, United Aircraft
Corp., E. Hartford, Conn.
How a computing operation of 1700 people and an investment of $50 million is being guided and directed, using an
array of management concepts and controls.
Computers and Pollution
8 Automated Recycling
[A]
by Associate Professor Stephen D. Senturia, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
How a research team at M IT has approached the problem
of dealing with the disposal of unsorted solid wastes from
towns and cities, using a system of sensors, acting mechanism, and a computer.
Computers and Security
[A]
16 What to Do BEFORE Your Computer Blows Up!
by Dr. Elise G. Jancura, Cleveland State University, Cleveland,
Ohio, and Jerolene A. Drefs, The Sherwin-Williams Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio
How to prepare systematically, and in detail, to recover from
a major destructive event at the heart of a computer installation.
Computers and Congress
11 The Computer Information System of the U.S. House of
[A]
Representatives: How Congress Uses the Computer
by Robert D. Schlappe, Smithfield, Texas
How a computer has begun to provide informational services
to the members of the House of Representatives regarding
voting, finding the status of bills, updating precedents, and
other purposes.
Computers and Society
6 "Understanding Technology"
[E]
by Edmund C. Berkeley, Editor, Computers and People
The book Understanding Technology by Charles Susskind
and its value to the field of computers and data processing.
7 The Tabl~ of Contents of Understanding Technology
by Charles Susskind
[F]
[A]
18 Technology as a Social Force and Ethical Problem
by Dr. Charles Susskind, University of California,
Berkeley, Calif.
A thorough examination of the social and ethical aspects
of technology and the behavior of technologists, including
a proposed Engineer's Hippocratic oath: Chapter 7 of his
book Understanding Technology.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
The magazine of the design, applications, and implications of
information processing systems - and the pursuit of truth in
input, output, and processing, for the benefit of people.
The Profession of Information Engineer and the Pursuit of Truth
5 Unsettling, Disturbing, Critical
Statement of policy by Computers and People
[F)
30 The Assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,
[A]
and Possible Links with the Kennedy Murders - Part 1
by Wayne Chastain, Reporter, Memphis, Tenn.
The report of a diligent study into the details and circumstances of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther
Kind, Jr., on April 4, 1968, and related events, and the
considerable evidence of a conspiracy.
Computers, Games, and Puzzles
26 NA YMANDIJ: A Game for People and Computers - Part 2
[A]
by Edmund C. Berkeley and Andy Langer, Berkeley
Enterprises, Inc., Newtonville, Mass.
How a computer program discovers departures from an array
of random digits which a resourceful opponet called "Nature"
may produce.
29 Naymandij Puzzles
by Neil Macdonald, Assistant Editor
[C)
29 Numbles
by Nei I Macdonald, Assistant Editor
[C)
Front Cover Picture
The author of this computer art,
Manfred Mohr, Paris, France, reports: "Labyrinthic paths through a
matrix are calculated .... The programs are written in Fortran IV,
run on a CDC 6600 computer, and
plotted on an X-V incremental
plotter."
Departments
35
29
43
41
39
40
Across the Editor's Desk Computing and Data
Processing Newsletter
Advertising Index
Calendar of Coming Events
Monthly Computer Census
New Contracts
New Installations
Unsettling, Disturbing, Critical . .
Computers and People (formerly Computers and Automation),
believes that the profession of information engineer includes not
only competence in handling information using computers and other
means, but also a broad responsibility, in a professional and engineering sense, for: the reliability and social significance of pertinent input data; the social value and truth of the output results. In the
same way, a bridge engineer takes a professional responsibility for
the reliability and significance of the data he uses, and the safety and
efficiency of the bridge he builds, for human beings to risk their
lives on.
Accordingly, Computers and People publishes from time to time
articles and other information related to socially useful input and
output of data systems in a broad sense. To this end we seek to
publish what is unsettling, disturbing, critical - but productive of
thought and an improved and safer planet in which our children and
later generations may have a future, instead of facing extinction.
The professional information engineer needs to relate his engineering to the most important and most serious problems in the
world today: war, nuclear weapons, pollution, the population explosion, and many more.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
Key
[A] -
[C)
[E)
[F)
Article
Monthly Column
Editorial
Forum
NOTICE
*0 ON YOUR ADDRESS IMPRINT
MEANS THAT YOUR SUBSCRIPTION INCLUDES THE COMPUTER
DIRECTORY.
*N MEANS THAT
YOUR PRESENT SUBSCRIPTION
DOES NOT INCLUDE THE COMPUTE R 01 RECTORY.
5
EDITORIAL
ttUNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY"
A recent very interesting and important book is Understanding Technology by Charles Susskind, a member of
the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley,
Calif.; the book was published in 1973 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Though not a long book (162 pages) it is full of keen
observations and conclusions on significant topics, and
well-selected and pertinent examples that provide evidence
for his conclusions. He defines his subject technology as:
man's efforts to satisfy his material wants by working on physical objects.
He comments on how surprising it is that:
In a "liberal" education, technology is virtually ignored, despite its central place in contemporary culture - more important in many ways than the prevailing political system.
And he proceeds to present this vast subject in a wellorganized guide through the territory, accompanied by
many illuminating remarks, such as:
- The advent of adult education centered around
evening study, can be traced to effective lighting.
- The greatest effect of improved transport technology has been the tremendous increase in the
volume of commerce which .•. contains the
means of bringing the new abundance to all corners of the earth.
- The principle that workers engaged in mass production, suitably rewarded, also become consumers
of their own products (including housing) played
an important part in making the American standard of living the highest in the world - certainly
a greater part than, say, social legislation ....
Designing automated machinery to do some of the
most boring jobs [is] an example of the way in
6
which a problem created by technology is ultimately solved by more technology.
This important book affects the objectives of Computers
and People (formerly Computers and Automation) in at
least two ways.
First, it helps us see computers in perspective as a part
of technology. A few of the interesting remarks of Susskind are these:
The ability of the electronic digital computer to
perform complicated calculations at great speed
... has made it the outstanding machine of the
Second Industrial Revolution, an artifact that far
eclipses any other in significance.
The evolution of the high-speed digital computer
from the primaeval ENIAC was a scientific and
technological achievement of the first order, the
more so since it was accomplished in about 15
years.
A computer can adapt its store of knowledge automatically as a result of information that it has itself generated. . .. This adaptive ability makes it
seem that the computer can learn or understand,
in other words, exhibit intelligence; and in fact the
term "artificial intelligence" has been coined to
describe this property.
People in the computer field need perspective. We need
to see computers in the light of other kinds of technology;
and we need to see technology in the light of man's surviving on this earth. There is hardly anything easier than
"ignorance, prejudice, and a narrow point of view". But
Susskind's book is a helpful antidote for this condition.
An even more important way in which this book affects
the objectives of Computers and People is in its discussion
of the ethics and social value of technology. When is a
technologist doing good or doing harm? How should a
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
technologist guide himself so that he does good? The answer which Susskind gives - and a description of the sharing of responsibility between the technologist and his society - is contained in Chapter 7, "Technology as a Social
Force and as an Ethical Problem". This chapter makes use
of reports on two important examples, one of a beneficial
technology (Agricultural Extension in the United States),
and one of an evil technology (the technology for putting
to death millions of people, as developed in Hitler's Germany
1941- 45). It also contains an excellent proposal for an
Engineer's Hippocratic Oath, that an engineer use his engineering knowledge for the benefit of man.
We are very grateful to The Johns Hopkins University
Press and to Charles Susskind for permission to reprint
this chapter as an article in this issue of Computers and
People. And we hope that a great many of our readers
of that article will follow this up by reading the whole of
this most worthwhile and significant book.
Edmund C. Berkeley
Editor
"UNDERST ANDING TECHNOLOGY"
by Charles Susskind
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
Birth of Modern Technology
5
Energy
The New Food Revolution
Materials Made to Order
Technology and the Healing Arts
Technology and the Fine Arts
Technology and the Pedagogic Arts
Technology and Humanistic Studies
Technology
History of Technology
Industrial Revolution
Takeoff into Self-sustained Revolution
Mature Industrialization
Political Consequences of the Industrial
Revolution
6
2
Coming of Age of Technology
Rise of Modern Technology
7
8
The Computer Technology
Cybernetics
Solid-State Electronics
Electronic Computation
. Electronic Control Involving Computers
Technology as a Social Force and Ethical Problem
Technologist: Benefactor or Monster
Agricultural Extension
Euthanasia
Division of Responsibility
An Engineer's Hippocratic Oath
The Second Industrial Revolution
Contribution of Electronics to the Second
Industrial Revolution
Industrial Electronics
Radar
4
Ideologies of Technology
Technology and a Social Order Based on
Humanism
Technocracy
The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham
The New Industrial State by John Kenneth
Galbraith
The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
The Quest for Utopia
Marxist Views of Technology
Continuing Evolution of Industrialization
Energy Conversion
Materials Processing
Communications Technology
Building Technology
Mass Production
Higher Technical Education
3
Some Aspects of Contemporary Technology
Challenges
International Understanding
OverpopUlation
Leisure
Technology Assessment
Alienation
Reprinted with permission from Understanding Technology by Charles Susskind, copyright 1973 by and
published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, hardbound, $6.95.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
7
RUTomRTED RECYCtln6
Associate Professor Stephen D. Senturia
Room 13-3061
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
The Mountain of Refuse
Every person is responsible, on the average, for
generating seven pounds of refuse per day. Even
moderate-sized cities, therefore, are faced with a
monumental refuse-disposal problem, roughly 1000
tons per day for a city of 250,000 population.
Present solutions to this problem use one of two
principal disposal methods -- landfill, in which the
refuse is thrown in a hole and covered with earth,
and incineration, in which the refuse is burned and
the residue is thrown in a hole and covered with
earth.
These methods suffer from a variety of ills.
Landfills are sources of severe air and water pollution, and are often breeding grounds for rats, flies,
and other pests. Furthermore, the cost of land for
landfill sites is becoming prohibitively high. Incinerators are very expensive to build and operate,
are sources of air pollution, and rarely operate
with the thoroughness and efficiency expected by the
community.
In both methods, there is an irretrievable loss
of both natural resources and energy. Energy is
lost first because combustible material is discarded
without first extracting its energy content by careful combustion and efficient recovery of heating
values, and second, because the replacement of the
refined and finished materials being thrown away
requires energy in addition to new natural resources. At a time of severe energy shortages and
of anticipated shortages in such goods as paper and
metals, the continuation of these inefficient and
wasteful disposal methods seems to operate against
our national interest.
Wilson and by the author has recently assembled a
prototype recycling plant that would permit largescale recycling in densely populated areas without
requIrIng individual householders to separate and
transport recyclable materials to recycling centers.
The plant is designed to accept municipal refuse
from ordinary collection vehicles, physically separate the refuse into individual items, and then
sort the items into recyclable and non-recyclable
fractions.
The key to successful operation of the plant is
a computer which examines data from sensors and determines an output category on the basis of a
pattern-recognition algorithm. Preliminary analyses
of municipal refuse indicate that this kind of plant
could separate 50 percent of the incoming refuse
into recyclable components such as paper, glass,
metals, and plastics, and in addition produce a significant savings in overall refuse-disposal costs.
A Model Plant
Figure 1 shows a model of the plant. Refuse
trucks deposit their loads at the plant. Front-end
loaders feed the refuse onto a conveyor which feeds
a hopper (A), which in turn feeds a multi-deck vibrating screen (B). A fan (C) pulls loose sheets of
paper nd plastic film off the top of the screen,
and n .nagnet (0) removes ferrous objects. The items
which drop through the bottom of the screen go to a
shredder (E), a second vibrating screen for size
sorting (F), and then to a vortex classifier for
separation (G). The larger items, which do not fall
Voluntary Recycling
Many small communities, in response to these
ills, have instituted voluntary recycling programs
in which individual householders are asked to separate refuse into recyclable fractions such as paper, glass, and metals, and to bring the separated
fractions to centralized recycling centers, often
located at the town dump or incinerator. The goals
of these programs are several, to save the natural
resources and the energy that has been spent refining those resources into useful materials, to
reduce pollution, and to reduce the landfill and/or
incineration costs that the community must pay for
disposal of the refuse. Some of these programs have
been successful, usually in small, relatively affluent suburban communities where there is a high
level of citizen awareness and participation. In
large urban areas, successful voluntary recycling
programs are rare.
Recycling by Machine
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology supervised by Professor David G.
8
Figure 1
Block model of the MIT automated solid-waste separation
plant: (A) Hopper; (B) vibrating screen; (C) fan; (D) magnet;
(E) shredder; (F) vibrating screen; (G) vortex classifier; (H) carts;
(J) sensor location; (K) computer; (L) dumping station.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
"PRELIMINARY ANAL YSIS OF MUNICIPAL REFUSE INDICA TES THAT THIS
KIND OF PLANT COULD SEPARATE 50% OF THE INCOMING REFUSE
INTO RECYCLABLE COMPONENTS, AND IN ADDITION PRODUCE A SIGNIFICANT SAVING IN THE OVERALL COSTS OF REFUSE-DISPOSAL."
through the screen, are dropped from a feed conveyor
into carts (H). The carts run on an oval track.
Each cart has sloping sides and a slit in the bottom, so that the item falls to a position over the
slit. Through this slit sensors (J) interact with
the refuse item. Data from the sensors are fed to a
computer (K) which decides how the item should be
classified. The classification is then written on
the cart which then moves past a series of dumping
stations (L). When the cart reaches the correct
dumping station the sloping sides of the cart retract, allowing rapid emptying of the cart. Once
emptied the cart rejoins the queue awaiting filling.
Clean
aluminum
t
Reflected
intensity
The Sensors
The heart of the plant is the large-item sorter.
Three sensors are used: 1) a commercial metal detector similar to the instrument used to search airline passengers for metallic objects; 2) an impact
sensor, and 3) an infrared sensor. These latter
sensors are novel developments of the MIT program.
The impact sensor consists of a small accelerometer mounted on a loudspeaker cone. The loudspeaker
is driven with a signal which causes the accelerometer to vibrate up and down. As a cart is passed
over the impact sensor, the vibrating accelerometer
strikes the object through the slit in the cart,
producing an acceleration waveform characteristic
Glass
Wavelength -
Figure 3
Selected reflection spectra from the infrared sensor
Deceleration
Steel
Glass
Wood
f-----i
100 jLsec/dlv
Figure 2
Selected deceleration waveforms from the impact sensor
of the material being struck. Figure 2 shows waveforms for selected samples of refuse. Data on the
height, width, and ascending and descending slopes
of the impact waveform are measured electronically,
converted to digital form, and fed to the computer
for processing.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
Stephen D. Senturia, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute
of Techn010gy, joined the department immediately
after completing his education (Harvard, BA in
Physics, 1961; MIT, Ph.D. in Physics, 1966). His
research interests have included nuclear magnetic
resonance and other physical studies in semiconductors, and most recently, polymeric semiconductors. A parallel thread in hi s research has been
the application of the methods of physical measurement to practical problems. lie is in charge of
teaching MIT's survey course in basic electronics,
and is the author of a textbook now in press. He
is a member of Phi I3eta Kappa, Sigma Xi, the American Physical Society, and the Instrument Society
of America.
9
The infrared sensor is a special-purpose highspeed reflection spectrometer which measures the
diffusely reflected light intensity at four selected
infrared wavelengths. By careful selection of the
particular wavelengths used, it is possible to make
the relative intensities of the four wavelengths extremely sensitive to the material doing the reflecting. Figure 3 shows several typical spectra.
The four peak heights are measured electronically,
converted to digital form, and fed to the computer
for subsequent processing.
Sorting by Computer
Data from the metal detector, the impact sensor,
and the infrared sensor are collected for each refuse item and fed to the computer. The computer is
programmed to process this data and yield a classification.
The Programming Method
The method used to develop this program has been
borrowed from the lexicon of pattern recognition.
The set of numbers collected for each item (one number from the metal detector, four numbers from the
infrared sensor, and five numbers from the impact
sensor) are considered to constitute a la-dimensional vector D. The specific pattern-recognition method used, called linear separation, seeks to develop
a matrix M which has d columns and crows, d being
the dimension of the data vector 0 and c being the
number of categories into which separation is made.
In lInear separation algorithms, this matrix M is
multiplied by the vector 0 yielding a c-dimensional
vector C. If M is selected properly, the location
of the maximum component of C will correspond to the
category into which the data vector D should be
classified.
imum of the product is compared with the category of
the data vector. If they agree, a new data vector
is selected at random and the process is repeated.
If they do not agree, the matrix M is adjusted by
adding a fraction of 0 to the kth row and subtracting a fraction of 0 from all other rows. Then a
new data vector is selected for another trial. This
iterative process of correcting M is repeated until
all data vectors in the original sample are classified correctly.
Once a matrix is found which can correctly classify all of the data vectors in a test sample, the
program is ready to operate as a classifier. A new
data vector is fed into the computer from the sensors. The matrix multiplication is carried out, and
the position of the maximum in the product vector is
declared to be "the classification" into which the
item belongs. If the test data were selected wisely,
and if the M are able to sort the test data, then
the classification of the new item should be correct.
Current Progress
At the present time, a prototype version of the
large-item sorter using only two sensors, the metal
detector and the infrared sensor, has been put in
operation. Items were loaded into the carts from a
feed conveyor, were then carried over the sensors,
and were dumped into output categories under direction of the computer. Four output categories
were selected for this initial test, glass, metal,
plastic, and cellulose. The computer was able to
identify members of these various categories with
better than 90% accuracy. This initial success is
leading to improved computer programs to obtain both
better sorting into existing categories and the development of new, more refined categories.
Looking Ahead
TABLE 1
Iterative training of a
linear-separation pattern-recognition algorithm
1. Select trial matrix M
2. Select data vector of category k
The MIT plant described above has several novel
features in addition to the sensor-computer combination. This plant attempts a primary separation
of totally heterogeneous refuse without prior sizereduction, either by shredding, incineration, or
water treatment. Homogeneous items such as glass
bottles and bundles of newspaper are left intact;
size-reduction is used only where large-item classification is not possible. This approach is not
only economical, but it should make possible the
recovery of less contaminated end products.
3. Form product vector C
Flexibility
C = M'O
4. Search C for position j of maximum component
5. If j
If j
=k
for data vector, select new data vector
¥ k, adjust M, then select a new data vector
Repeat until all data vectors in the trial set are
correctly classified.
The sorting matrix M is found by iterative techniques (see Table I). A set of typical data vectors
with thei~ correct classifications are stored in the
computer. They are selected at random for one-at-atime trials with M. An initial trial matrix is selected (a matrix containing alii's is often used as
a starting point). This trial matrix is multiplied
by the first data vector. The position of the max-
10
Another novel feature of the MIT plant is its
flexibility. Most sorting processes rely on a sequency of binary sorting operations, each operation
requiring a separate piece of capital equipment. In
the MIT plant, all items are treated identically,
the sorting decision being made electronically. It
is possible, therefore, to modify the operation of
the sorting process merely by modifying a computer
program. Thus as the market conditions for secondary materials change, the operation of the sorting
plant can be correspondingly changed to sort out
selective items known to bring a good return.
Looking ahead, separation plants of this type
will be a necessary adjunct to solid-waste disposal
systems, if only to reduce the load on the overtaxed incinerator and landfill capabilities of
crowded urban areas. The technical feasibility of
automatic separation has been demonstrated. It is
now time to test these methods in the more rigorous
laboratory of actual practice.
o
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
The Computer Information System of
the U.S. House of Representativ'es:
How Congress Uses the Computer
Robert D. Schlappe
5508 Dublin Court
Smithfield, Texas 76080
"The business manager has turned to the computer and its informational
powers to improve the quality of his information and, hopefully, the
quality of his decisions; it is time for Congress to do the same thing."
Why a House Information System?
There are at least three good reasons for the
House of Representatives to have a computer-based
information system: (1) to help the legislative
branch of government regain equal status with the
executive branch; (2) to increase the efficiency of
the legislative process; and (3) to improve the
quality of the legislation passed by Congress.
The conduct of the Vietnam War and the successful
impoundment of appropriated funds by the executive
branch have emphasized the inequity in power between
the executive and legislative branches of government. One of the biggest inequities between the two
branches is in the use of computer-based information
systems. Historically, Congress has been spoon-fed
information from the executive branch. In 1971 the
House of Representatives finally took a step toward
establishing its own computer-based information system, the House Information System (H.I.S.). The
gross inequities between the computer capabilities
of the two branches of government can be seen by
comparing the annual computer costs of the House
with agencies of various sizes within the executive
branch. Table I gives this comparison.
If Congress is going to regain equity with the
executive branch, it needs to have equal access to
information. A computer system which gave Congress
direct access to federal files would go a long way
toward restoring equity.
Congress used to complete its business and adjourn
its annual session before Thanksgiving. Now it not
only stays in session the full year, but it is also
postponing more and more important legislation to
future sessions. In short, Congress is no longer
able to get its work done. Energy legislation, welfare reform, tax reform, environmental legislation,
and trade legislation are repeatedly shelved for the
next session. Although some bills are shelved for
TABLE I
Comparative Annual Computer Costs 1
Fiscal Year 1972
(Costs in Thousands of Dollars)
House
of
Rep.
Federal
Deposit
Corp.
No. of Employees
122
102
No. of Computer Systems
2
1
Salaries
$1,422
$1,500
Equipment
$632
$600
Contracted Services
$158
$54
Veterans
Admin.
Dept. of
Health
Education
& Welfare
Dept.
of
Defense
1,967
5,927
77,829
64
88
3,415
$23,599
$63,715
$784,~82
$3,521
$30,010
$254,218
$263
$11,885
$158,289
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
Mr. Robert D. Schlappe is a test engineer for the
Convair Aerospace Division of General Dynamics in
Fort Worth, Texas. He is a member of Sigma Tau and
Tau Beta Pi Honorary Fraternities, and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He received
the B.S. and M.S. degrees in aerospace engineering
from the Uni versi ty of Colorado in 1967 and 1968
respectively.
11
political reasons, many are shelved because Congress
doesn't have time to get to them. Several thousand
pieces of legislation are introduced annually. If
Congress is to effectively handle that volume of
activity, it must increase its efficiency. The
ILLS. is a step in that direction.
Congress has to pass legislation on a vast variety of matters. One reads frequently of the growing
complexities of business and the resultant difficulties which managers face in making decisions. The
complexities of the problems facing Congress are
greater than those facing any manager, and the results of Congressional decision affect a far larger
number of people. The business manager has turned
to the computer and its informational powers to improve the quality of his information and, hopefully,
the quality of his decisions. It is time for Congress to do the same thing.
into the console and pushing a button. A running
total of the vote as well as each member's vote are
automatically displayed on boards located on the
walls of the House Chamber. Each member has fifteen
minutes to respond to a vote or quorum call by the
Speaker. The voting system also keeps updated vote
histories for each member. The installation of the
Electronic Voting System cost $1,065,000. 5 Chairman
Wayne Hays of the House Administration Committee
figures the system will pay for itself in a year by
cutting ten to twenty minutes off each quorum call
and recorded vote.
Another legislative system is the Bill Status
System. This system stores and disseminates information on all bills before the House. Members may
obtain the information by calling the Bill Status
Office and querying the legislative data base if
they know the bill number, the sponsor, the committee referral, or the subject category.
History of the House Information System
The House of Representatives acquired a computer
in 1967 to assist the Clerk in his administrative
duties. But it wasn't until the beginning of the
Ninety-first Congress that the House took an interest in the use of the computer as an informational
tool. After a series of studies, done by House subcommittees and staffs in cooperation with various
private consulting firms, House Resolution 601 was
passed in November of 1971. This resolution established initial funding of $1.500,000 2 for the House
Information System staff and their activities. The
funding was to cover the remainder of 1971 and the
second session of the Ninety-second Congress. Prior
to the establishment of the H.I.S. staff, the Clerk
was using an IBM 360/50 computer at about ten percent of its capacity, according to a report to Congress from the Stanford Research Institute. 3
The directives to the H.I.S. staff were to evaluate recommendations made in previous studies, to investigate existing House data processing capabilities, and to present a program that could be initiated to provide services utilizing information system technology.4
Current H.I.S. Services
The H.I.S. services now being rendered can be divided into four application areas: (I) administrative systems which provide support for office, clerical, and accounting functions; (2) legislative systems which directly support the legislative process
of the House; (3) committee systems which support
the administrative, investigative, and oversight
functions of various committees; and (4) member systems which support the specific needs of individual
Congressmen.
A third legislative system is the Precedents
Preparation System. This system assists the Parliamentarian in compiling and updating the Precedents of the House as required by law.
The fourth legislative system is the Legislative
Calendar System. With this service the House computer is able to supply any member with the daily
legislative calendar via a special computer line to
the Government Printing Office.
Committee Systems
There are currently two committee systems in operation. One is the Committee Calendar System which
assists in the publication of committee calendars.
nvelve committees are currently using the service.
A second application is the Ad-hoc Committee Request System. Under this application, H.I.S. staff
personnel perform special data processing activities
as requested by various committees.
Three other committee applications are currently
under study. One study is underway with the Committee on Banking and Currency to establish total information system requirements for that committee.
If the study is successful, it should be generally
applicable to other committees.
A second system is under study with the Joint
Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation. Analytical
procedures using mathematical models and simulation
are being studied as means of fulfilling the Committee's analytical information requirements.
A third study is underway to determine a system
for supplying the informational needs of the House
Appropriations Committee.
Administrative Systems
Member Systems
These systems provide support to the Clerk in his
financial and accounting duties including payroll,
member's allowances, and office inventory. In addition, one system provides for the indexing of reports filed in compliance with the 1971 Federal
Election Campaign Act.
Although no member systems are yet operational,
work is underway to establish an automated mail addressing service which will provide an address data
file of 10,000 names for each member of the House.
This service will enable members to selectively mail
to their constituency.
Legislative Systems
Congressmen's Attitudes Toward the H.I.S.
There are currently four applications within the
legislative systems. One is the Electronic Voting
System. This system includes two CDC 1700 computers
and forty-eight consoles, located in the House Chamber, where members can vote by inserting their cards
12
To determine the attitudes of members of the
House of Representatives toward the computer, questionaires were sent to the twenty-four members of
the Texas delegation. This delegation was chosen as
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
a fairly suitable sample of the members of the
House. The delegation contains three committee
chairmen and members of nine different committees.
It includes the member who has served the longest in
the House as well as four members who are serving
their first term. It also contains one female member. Eleven of the twenty-four questionnaires were
returned. The following paragraphs give the results
of the survey.
Increase in Efficiency
Ten of the eleven respondents indicated that the
electronic voting system has reduced the time required for voting. Also, seven indicated that they
and their staffs could accomplish more because of
the computer services; however, two of these seven
thought the increase in efficiency was marginal.
None had reduced the size of their staffs because
of the computer services.
Use of the H.I.S. Services
The most used service was the Bill Status System.
Eight of the respondents reported that they used the
service daily. One reported once a week usage, one
occasional usage, and one rare usage.
The Legislative Calendar System is used less requently with four members using the service daily,
one weekly, one rarely, and four not using the service at all.
Eight members indicated they did not use computer
services and seven indicated their staffs did not
use computer services other than the Bill Status
System and the Legislative Calendar System.
When considering possible future uses, only seven
of the respondents were in favor of the automated
mail addressing service, some indicating that they
now mailed to everyone in their district. Only four
members were in favor of being able to keep a record
of campaign contributions in the computer. Eight of
the eleven respondents said they had informational
needs which they would like to see made available
through a computer service; however, none elaborated
on his specific need. Nine said they would now vote
in favor of a bill to obtain a computer assuming the
House did not already have one.
Informational Needs
Funding for the H.I.S. has only been in effect
for two sessions of Congress, the second session of
the Ninety-second Congress and the first session of
the Ninety-third Congress. Most of the services,
including the Bill Status System, have only been offered since January of 1973. Although the results
of the survey do not indicate overwhelming results
from the use of the H.I.S., the service is still too
new and too limited to produce overshelming results.
The important point to note is that the respondents
of the survey recognized that they had unfulfilled
informational needs which they thought could be
filled by a computer-based information system.
Feasibility
In assessing the feasibility of a computer-based
information system, one must consider technical
feasibility, economic feasibility, and operational
feasibility. The H.I.S. is technically feasible.
The necessary hardware is available, and any software, which cannot be obtained off the shelf, can
be produced given enough time and money.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
The question of economic feasibility is much
harder to answer. The House can appropriate the
necessary funds for an H.I.S.; however, how is the
individual Congressman going to justify the expenditure to his constituency? He will not be able to
justify it on the basis of cost savings. Even if
the H.I.S. does cut some costs, government expenditures are sure to rise. A skillful political opponent will surely be able to find figures to show
the high cost of the H.I.S. and to correlate these
figures with the steady increase of government expenditures. The only possibility of justifying
H.I.S. expenditures will be improved legislation.
However, it takes time for the effect of legislation
to be fully realized, much longer thary the two-year
Congressi onal term. Thus the economic feasibi Ii ty
of the H.I.S. is questionable. Congressmen up for
reelection, facing the resistance of the voters to
government spending, might vote against funds for
the H.I.S. just because they are afraid a vote for
the H.I.S. could contribute toward a lost election.
The H.I.S. appears to be operationally feasible,
based on the results of the survey. The respondents
were aware that they had unfulfilled informational
needs and were generally favorable toward the computer as an informational tool. The majority of
Congressmen will support and use an effective H.I.S.
because they will need it to properly do their jobs.
The Future
The H.I.S. is in its infancy. Considering the
complexities of the informational needs of legislators, it will be a monumental task to build a
total information system for Congress. Some Congressmen, however, already dream of such a system.
Representative John Bradenas of Indiana forsees that
the "Twenty-first Century lawmaker will have at his
desk a keyboard console that will enable him to tap
a vast amount of legal, economic, fiscal, and other
information".6
References
1. "Providing Funds for the Expenses of the Commi ttee on House Administration to Provide for Maintenance and Improvement of Ongoing Computer Services for the House of Representatives and for
the Investigation of Additional Computer Services
for the House of Representatives," House Report
No. 93-129 (to accompany H. Res. 353), April 11,
1973.
2. "Providing Funds for the Expenses of the Committee on !louse Administration to Provide for Maintenance and Improvement of Ongoing Computer Services for the House of Representatives and for
the Investigation of Additional Computer Services
for the House of Representatives," House Report
No. 92-607 (to accompany H. Res. 601), November
4, 1971.
3. Congressional Quarterli Almanac, Vol. XXVII,
1971, pp. 754, 755.
4. Ryan, Frank, "Information Systems Support to the
U.S. House of Representatives," Heport No. 97-712,
June, 1973.
5. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Vol. XXVIII,
1972, p. 672.
6. "Congress Puts the Computer to Work," Nation's
Business, Vol. 66, May, 1973, p. 72.
o
13
T op Level Control of Data Processing: Some Guidelines
Edward L. Hennessy, Jr., Sr. Vice Pres.
Finance and Administration
United Aircraft Corp.
East Hartford, Conn. 06109
"WE NEED TO REALIZE THAT DATA PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY
IS ONL Y THE LA TEST IN A SERIES OF REVOLUTION-MAKING
HIGH TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE IMPACTING OUR CIVILIZATION."
Management by Objective
The subject of this article is the control of the
data processing function.
First, let me establish some background beliefs.
In the corporate world, the overriding characteristic of control is "management by objective". The
manager of a profit center, division or subsidiary
is responsible for achieving the objectives which
have been agreed upon for his operation. He must
integrate market penetration, asset minimization and
profit maximization so as to produce an acceptable
return on assets. There should be no question of
the clarity and precision of that assignment. It is
fair to say, however, that we in the corporate office
monitor his performance and lend assistance.
performance of division operations against their
stated objectives, so that our confidence in achievement of the goals is maintained.
It might be said that the corporate role in control is really directed toward stimulating high
level performance. Doing so means a high emphasis
on analysis. Finding the better route does not come
easy. A lot of effort is required in analyzing
costs, expenses, fixed asset requirements, cash
needs, etc. We don't by any means do it all in the
corporate office. We have competent people throughout the corporation; however, we intend that the
corporate staff guide the operating groups and set
the tone for the quality of analysis which is needed
in the competitive world.
The Role of Data Processing
The key to control is planning. In fact, without
planning there is no such thing as control, and successful planning is at least half the battle. By
planning, I do not mean simply projecting what is
likely to happen, although projections of certain
parameters represent an essential beginning. Perhaps the term "analytical planning" is apt. By this
I mean the accomplishment of sufficient study, dissection and synthesis to discover what it is possible to accomplish. Planning is an everyday thing,
not a tool stored in the closet to be pulled out
once a year; a continuous effort is needed.
For each of our operating entities, our procedure
is to set goals for the key factors:
Sales
Profi ts
Total assets
Return on assets.
The parameters used to check the acceptability of
a set of goals are:
(1) The goals should be favorable compared
with results being achieved by other successful companies.
(2) The goals should represent a challenging
task requiring both good management and
diligent effort for achievement.
(3) Attainment of the goals should be feasible.
(4) Growth of profit should be indicated.
Appropriate Systems for Planning
and Measuring Performance
In addition to monitoring the operations of divisions and subsidiaries, we consider it a corporate
responsibility to be sure that they have appropriate systems themselves to plan and measure their
14
Now I'll describe the data processing function
itself as an important factor within the total corporate picture. Its importance lies not only in the
expense incurred per se in data processing, but in
the fact that today data processing is a significant
element in the performance of nearly all company
functions.
My emphasis will be on control by corporate management, rather than from within the department.
Since my recent experience is with multidivisional
corporations, some of my emphasis will be on the
control of many data processing centers within a
corporation. Thus, the two problems which I would
like to address briefly in the article are:
(1) How to control the activities and expenditures of individual installations while
allowing them to serve their divisions'
needs.
(2) How to coordinate the development activities between divisions to achieve common
system software and application programs,
common equipment where this is feasible
and to otherwise minimize duplication.
Data Processing as Seen from the Corporate Level
I think that it will be instructive if I expand
upon these two problems briefly. At the divisional
level, data processing is seen as a tool for making
the operation of the business more efficient and for
solving problems that are unsolvable by any other
means. The major concern is frequently with the
level of service, with running and maintaining exBased on a talk at a conference on "Senior Management and the Data
Processing Function" held by The Conference Board, New York, N.Y.,
November 1, 1973.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
I
s
istingproduction programs, with producing new computerized systems and with the handling of occasional "one-shot" data processing requests. Budget
is frequently superimposed on the operation as an
additional input, almost as an afterthought.
At the corporate level, on the other hand, the
main concerns are return on assets managed or return
on investment, with the consequent emphasis on cost
control and on maintaining a competitive stance in
the industry. Without suffici~nt controls upon the
data processing area, the divisional and corporate
interests tend to clash. With proper controls
within division and corporate managements, however,
the two sets of goals will complement and reinforce
each other.
The Nature of Top Level Controls
Let's consider what such top level controls might
be. We will be aided considerably in our search if
we realize that data processing technology is just
the latest in a series of revolution-making high
technology areas to impact our civilization. The revolutions in mass production manufacturing, intravel
technology, and in electronics and communication
technology have all brought with them problems of
control. Such controls, when they come, are usually
along the line of confining development to areas for
which there is a market (and, therefore, a return)
and of carefully controlling the development costs,
manufacturing costs and other related costs. Since
data processing is project-oriented, where projects
consist of system development, the analogous control
would be to confine development to projects for
which there is a good return and to control carefully the development and maintenance costs.
It will be worthwhile to consider this analogy.
In producing a new product, an engineering and manufacturing firm would be concerned with criteria such
as the following:
Feasibility -- Is it possible?
Producibility -- Can it be done with present constraints on organization, equipment and finances?
MaintainabiIi ty -- Is it easily serviceable?
Marketabi Ii ty -- I s there a need or desi re
for this product? What is the demand
curve?
Salability -- What is the competition? What
can we sell at what price?
Of these criteria, the first three are clearly
the concern of technicians and engineers, while the
last two are the direct concern of management.
In using these five criteria in the control of
data processing operations, the meanings change
somewhat, but the impact remains the same. The market is now within the corporation; the demand curve
relates need to return on investment and the competition is alternative systems and approaches. Careful consideration of these two areas is critical to
the formulation of a division's data processing plan.
Feedback Control
Another analogy which we will find useful in determining and understanding guidelines for control
of data processing is the analogy to the general
problem of feedback control. This problem, stated
in its simplest terms, is to modify the input to a
system to produce the desired output from the system
by measuring the output and "feeding back" to the
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
input the required information. Thus, in simple
terms, if the output is too low, we increase the input; and if the output is too high, we decrease the
i npu 1.
A data processing operation is far more complicated than this, of course; it has many inputs and
many outputs and many intermediate stages at which
control is needed as well. One extremely simplified
view of such an operation, for example, might include three outputs: a set of new procedures and
capabilities; a budget, which is a bill for these
procedures and capabilities, and a resulting return
on investment. This data processing function would
have five inputs: management priorities, required
return on investment, the stream of requests for
systems development; the present operating procedures; and the current production programs or systems.
Budget would be considered an output, to indicate
that unlike the other inputs discussed, it cannot
be fixed.
One must also analyze which inputs primarily affect which outputs, and, therefore, which inputs
might well be modified if the outputs are not as desired. Thus, for example, if the budget is too high,
the priorities should be reexamined and a higher
rate of return required for systems work.
Marketable and Measurable
The most significant aspects of this analogy,
considered in the light of the first, are:
(1) All of the inputs and outputs of direct
interest to management relate to what we
called "marketabi Ii ty" and" salabi Ii ty" ;
i.e., to the procedures for running the
busi ness.
(2) The outputs must be quantifiable in order
to be used properly to modify the inputs.
In short, in order for top management to control
data processing effectively, it must relate data
processing to the business procedures and business
plans in such a way that the outputs from the department are measurable, not merely in quali tati ve
terms such as good, bad, and not enough, but in
quantitative terms.
Return on Investment
In this regard, I realize that some people are
repelled by the "return on investment" concept when
applied to data processing. This may be because
difficulties in quantification afford a rationale
for avoiding measurement, Sometimes it is hard to
quantify the expected benefits; all the more reason
in such cases to be cautious and to try harder for
quantification of benefits before incurring the
costs. We are surely beyond the day when companies
obtained computers because their neighbors did.
Costs are measured in dollars and so are results.
The latter measure is not always easy for data processing systems, and that presents a challenge.
This same control philosophy is applicable to the
lower supervisory levels of d~t~ processing. Functional supervisors are concerned with relating manhours expended to work accomplished and with relating computer costs to computer utilization -- both
obvious feedback loops. Similarly, departmental
management is concerned with relating predicted
schedules to actual schedules, predicted costs to
actual costs, predicted manpower requirements to actual manpower required and so forth. The detailed
(please turn to page 25)
15
What to do
BEFORE
Dr. Elise G. Jancura, CPA
Associate Dean
James J. Nance College of Business Administration
Cleveland State University
Cleveland, Ohio 44115
and
Your Computer
Blows Up 1:1
Jerolene A. Drefs
The Sherwin-Williams Co.
Cleveland, Ohio 44115
"Frequently the plan originally designed is sound, but has deteriorated after a period of
time when laxity has developed in the day to day administration of the plan."
Dangers to Computer Installations
There were 4,330 bombings across the United
States in one recent l3-month period resulting in
384 injuries, 40 deaths and damages valued at
$21,838,000,000.
In Ohio alone, where The Sherwin-Williams Company
is located, there were 133 bombings, two personal
injuries and one death. l In the underground newspapers, one can find articles with explicit instructions on how to destroy computer centers.
With this in mind, plus the ever-present threat
of damage by fire or smoke, Sherwin-Williams decided
that a plan should be devised to protect several
systems considered vital to the continued operation
of the company should a major disaster occur at
headquarters. Although the company does have computer facilities at other locations, the four computers at headquarters are the most vital and are
indispensable to continued operation.
Determination of Business Survival Information
People from the EDP area and the managers of the
user departments jointly determined which information, procedures and computer systems were an absolute must for the health and vi tali ty of the company.
Once critical systems were identified, attention was
turned to the development of recovery techniques for
use in the event of some major disruption of normal
headquarters operations. A recovery plan was laid
out and data tapes considered critical were sent to
a storage site removed from headquarters along with
microfilm copies of the operating instructions for
these critical systems. Object decks, related table
decks and keypunch instructions for vital programs
were put on tape and sent to the off-site storage
area. Formalized plans for each system were stored
in the off-site location as well as at headquarters.
All information at the off-site location is kept
locked and distribution of the keys is limited.
Four Major Areas of Concern
Recovery or contingency plans must provide for
four major areas of concern.
First, arrangements must be made to make available, when needed, particular hardware-software con1. Wackenhut, George R., "Business is the Target of Bombings and
Bomb Hoaxes," The Office, September 1971, pp. 14·26.
Reprinted by permission from the July/August 1973 issue of The Internal Auditor, copyright 1973 by The Institute of Internal Auditors, Inc.,
5500 Diplomat Circle, Orlando, Florida 32810
16
figurations. Duplicate programs and operating instructions are useless, unless the company can provide the same computer configuration (including supporting software systems) for which they were designed. Since the stresses produced by an emergency
situation are not conducive to very effective performance in changing operating procedures and even
programs to fit a different computer configuration,
arrangements for alternate computers should be made
well in advance with frequent review of both the
"home" and "alternate" systems. Periodic review is
important, for the value of your backup plan could
be severely limi ted should the "backup" computer be
changed without proper notification and without corresponding revisions to the backup plan.
Second, operating instructions for the recovery
procedures must be carefully documented and stored
in a safe area away from the primary installation
site. This should include not only the actual computer procedures, but all the manual procedures such
as data preparation, balancing and others which are
a critical part of successful operation. Equally
important to the documentations is the training of
those individuals who will be involved in the recoveryoperations. Vital time can be lost and expensive errors made when personnel are expected to
handle unfamiliar activities during a period of
stress.
Third, the programs themselves must be copied and
stored where they can be properly secured and made
readily available when needed. Proper maintenance
of the "backup" program library is as important as
its original creation. As a minimum, current copies of the object programs and their related "constant" or table data should be stored. Addi tional
Dr. Elise C. Jancura is Associate Dean of the
James J. Nance College of Business Administration
and an Associate Professor in the Accounting and
the Computer and Information Science Departments
of the State Uni versi ty. She was acti vely i nvol ved
in the establishment of the Cleveland State University Computer Center.
Dr. Jancura holds the
Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University and is
a CPA in Ohio. Prior to joining Cleveland State,
she was a systems engineer with IBM.
Mrs. Jerolene A. Drefs is presently wi th The
Sherwin-Williams Company as an internal auditor
specializing in EDP audits. Previously, Mrs. Drefs
was the comptroller at The S.M. Hexter Co. She is
also an experienced programmer-analyst. Mrs. Drefs
is a graduate of the Cleveland State University
and is a CPA in the state of Ohio.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
(
documentation such as source programs and diagrams
are also highly desirable once the immediate "re_
start" has been accompli shed and the secondary recovery activities -- such as reestablishing normal
documentation in the main installation -- begin.
Fourth, data files which are essential to continued company operation must be copied and stored in
the off-site location. This task, more than any
other, represents an ongoing, continuing effort.
Each time one of these critical files is updated,
the "off-site" backup file must also be updated.
Further, provision must be made for keeping backup
records of the "transactions" which will affect the
latest generation on file (or procedures for recapturing the content of those transactions) as well as
emergency alternate procedures for collecting data
from currently occurring transactions until the main
installation is again functioning normally.
Backup Tape Files
At Sherwin-Williams, magnetic tape is used as the
primary form of data storage. The installation currently handles and controls alit tle over 5500 reels.
Thus t the procedure employed to obtain and handle
backup tape files is the most important continuing
activity in the successful maintenance of an ongoing
and meaningful contingency plan. In order to insure
the greatest accuracy and least disruption possible,
it was decided to make the selection and removal of
tapes to the off-site storage facility for contingency backup, a part of the normal control operations for tape files. [Daily selection of contingency backup, a part of the normal control operations for tape files.] Daily selection of contingency files and scratching of expired files occurs
under program control from a "Tapes Available" file.
In order to understand how the "backup" files are
selected it is necessary to understand the tape
handling procedures in effect. Each reel is identified with an external tape label such as that illustrated in Figure I. File No. refers to the call
letters of a specific system. All tapes in the Retail Sales System would have a file number beginning
with RSLS followed by a numeric or alpha and numeric
designation. The Vol. Serial area is nothing more
THE SHERWIN· WILLIAMS CO.
File
No.
PSC03010
Work
Mo.
0971
Vol.
Ser.
8596
Cal.
Date
Run
No.
than a sequential numbering system for identifying
tape reels. As new reels are purchased, an external label is attached to the reel with the next sequential number on it. At the same time, the initial header label is created. All tapes are stored
in racks in the library by these numbers. The "n"
Vol. of "N" indicates that it may be reel l' of 3 for
that particular file. The Calendar Date indicates
the month, date and year the tape was created. The
Creation Date is the same date as the Calendar Date
only expressed by day and year. The Scratch Date is
the date on which the tape need no longer be saved.
Usage
The information under the heading "Usage" in the
external label gives a bird's-eye view of what computer system created the tape, in what jobs it has
been used and on which tape drives it was mounted.
Now to the information in the lower right-hand
corner. PSCO identifies the system, 3 indicates
system 130 and 183 tells on what tape drive the tape
was created. The four computer systems and all the
tape drives have been numbered for identification
purposes. System 130 is an IBM 360/30, system 120
an IBM 360/40, et cetera. The drive the tape was
created on is identified so that if trouble is experienced reading it, the drive which created the
potentially bad tape can be identified and can also
be used in a "last" attempt to recover the data.
The information in the top left-hand corner under
"Usage" shows that after this tape was created, it
was used in Job PSC9K and was physically mounted on
tape drive 281 of the 130 system. Later it was used
again in a test on tape drive 185 on the 120 system.
(The first digit under Addr corresponds to the middle digit of the system's identification number.)
(please turn to page 24)
TAPES AVAILABLE SHEET
TAPES AVAILASLE AS OF ICHRONOlOGICAl DATE)
IDENTIFICATION
,
8596
PSC03010
72/042
2
3520
BRACA1301
72/054
•
2021
RSLS-Dll01
72/059
1
1
Vol
of
1
rO/14hY
YrjDa y
Scratch
Date
72 042
USAGE
JOB
PSC9K
TST
ADDR.
DATE
3281
2185
CREA TlON
71
Figure 1
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
287
IN ORDER TO BE VALlO fOR SCRATCHING. THE TAPE MUST PHYSICAllY MATCH
BOTH REEL NUMBER AND flU IDENTIFICATION LISTED ON THIS SHEET.
Figure 2
17
Technology as a Social and
Ethical Problem
Dr. Charles Susskind
University of California
Berkeley, Calif. 94720
"The unmatched productivity of American farms is ascribed to the county agents' efforts. There
can be no nobler calling than one that does so much toward fulfilling the greatest need of one's
fellow beings and that holds the promise of banishing hunger from the face of the earth."
Technologist: Benefactor or Monster?
Technologist: benefactor or monster? is the question we may well ask. Along with the many benefits
that technology has showered on those who have had
the good luck to profit from them, it has also
brought monstrous dangers: the possibility of nuclear warfare, overpopulation, the dehumanization of
some people by mass society, the despoliation of the
natural environment we claim to control. Should we
allow technology's practitioner, the technologist,
to force his will on society, or would we be better
advised to stay his hand? Or is that not the problem: is the technologist an insignificant agent acting at the behest of societal forces far mightier
than he?
The truth doubtless lies somewhere in between.
The technologist is neither the master of our fate
nor the helpless pawn of an inexorable historical
process. In fact his role varies from case to case.
The engineer who develops a new system of color
Charles Susskind was born in Prague and educated there and in England.
He is a graduate of
California Institute of Technology with a doctorate from Yale and is currently a faculty member
at the University of California at Berkeley.
He
is also a writer, broadcaster, critic, and historian; as one of his profession's most erudite
spokesmen, he can comment on both the dark and
bright sides of technology more knowledgeably and
authoritatively than outsiders.
18
television can scarcely be blamed if tasteless programs are shown; he has no control over programming.
But the responsible engineer who plans a river dam
to provide a source of hydroelectric power would
consider his design incomplete if it did not also
detail an estimate of the cost of the produced electricity in comparison with that from alternate
sources, the effects of the project on irrigation
and flood control, the recreation opportunities in
the lake created behind the dam, and its topographical and ecological effects.
An Engineer's Responsibilities
The recognition that an engineer's responsibilities extend beyond technical and economic considerations is long established and antedates more recen~
popular concerns with environmental and similar
problems. Writing in the 1929 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (on "Engineer, Professional"),
Alfred Douglas Flinn said:
The engineer is under obligation to consider
the sociological, economical and spiritual effects of engineering and operations and to aid
his fellowmen to adjust wisely their modes of
living, their industrial, commercial, and governmental procedures, and their educational
processes so as to enjoy the greatest possible
benefit from the progress achieved through our
accumulating knowledge of the universe and ourselves as applied by engineering. The engineer's
principal work is to discover and conserve natural resources of materials and forces, including
the human, and to create means for utilizing
these resources with minimal cost and waste and
with maximum useful results.
Just how far does the engineer's responsibility
extend? In the example mentioned previously, the
planning of a river dam, should he be also held responsible for inequities that may arise in the resettlement of inhabitants from the area to be
flooded? Should he concern himself with the scheduling of the distribution of water for irrigation
purposes? Should he make it his business to see
that a part of the new lakeshore is set aside for
public parks? Or are these political questions, beyond his competence and not really amenable to technical solutions? When a public structure -- a highway, a government building, or a state university -is planned, the state may invoke the legal principle
of "eminent domain" to take over private property
for reasonable compensation (or else a single, stubborn property owner could hold up the state, in more
senses than one); but a disgruntled property owner
may still blame the engineer who planned the strucBased on a chapter in the book Understanding Technology by Charles
Susskind, (copyright 1973 by and published by Johns Hopkins Univer·
sity Press, Baltimore, Md. 21218, hardbound, 1973, 163 pp) and reo
printed with permission.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
ture for any personal inconvenience and injustice
that results.
The question of the technologist's responsibility
for the consequences of his works thus appears to be
enormously complicated. The unforgiving critic of
technology puts full responsibility for all ramifications of technical inventions ori their originators.
The apologist sees technology as a means that society is free to use or not, as it chooses; according
to this view, technology opens doors but does not
compel men to enter. Yet that view is clearly disingenuous. It is expecting too much of man not to
enter a door that has been invitingly opened for
him, if only to find out what lies beyond. Moreover,
society might well exercise some control over which
doors to open, of assessing the effects of technological decisions beforehand. But perhaps the engineer should voluntarily restrain himself and act
only in accordance with a strictly conceived code of
ethics, one that would go beyond the well-established code governing the professional conduct of
engineers to something approaching the principles
to which physicians subscribe? Before we come to
such an Engineer's Hippocratic Oath, we shall try to
show that the technologist can be given neither full
credit nor full blame for developments which at
first blush appear to be largely technical in nature;
society at large must answer for both good and bad.
We shall illustrate the point by two cautionary
tales, cases taken from recent history, one benign
in its effects and one malignant.
Agricultural Extension
Agricultural Extension, the network of central
services and county agents that provide leadership
and carry information to farming communities
throughout the USA, is widely given credit for the
high efficiency of American agriculture. Started in
the early 1900s in a predominantly agricultural
land, the services of the county agents (whose work
received federal recognition and support with the
passage of the Smith-Lever Extension Act in 1914)
quickly found a place in rural America. l They
worked in cooperation with the agricultural colleges
that had sprung up everywhere as a resul t of the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act in 1862,
as well as the agricultural experiment stations set
up in most states after the Hatch Act (887) had provided federal subsidies for agricultural research.
Today the Cooperative Extension Service is financed
jointly by the U.S. Department of Agricul ture, by the
states, and by local agencies, and has a professional
staff of over 15,000, with local volunteers numbering more than'l million in over 3000 counties. It
all started with one community demonstration farm in
Terrell, Texas, in 1903.
The man who started the system was a country
teacher and farmer who acquired a technological education largely through his own efforts. Seaman
Ashel Knapp (1833-1911), born of pioneer colonial
stock on an upstate New York farm, was well educated
by the standards of the day.2 He attended Troy
Academy in Vermont and Union College in Schenectady,
N.Y., whose president was the remarkable pragmatist
Eliphalet Nott (1773-1866) an inventor and educational innovator, one of the unsung heroes who
pushed for a more widespread and more practical
higher education in a day when the only college curriculum was the classical. After teaching for 10
years, Knapp injured his knee and on medical advice
went back to the open-air life on a farm. He moved
west, to Iowa, but suffered several setbacks because
farm conditions there were different and no information for new settlers was' available. He laboriously
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
educated himself in scientific farming methods, and
when he regained use of his leg in 1875, he determined to tryout his newly acquired knowledge. He
became an exceptionally successful breeder of pigs.
By paying close attention to circulars that had begun to come from the new U.S. Department of Agriculture, he created a model farm that supplied brood
stock to other farms allover the Middle West. 3 At
the same time he became devoted to the idea of disseminating scientific farming methods with an almost
religious missionary zeal. He helped to start the
Farmer's Journal in 1872, became a frequent contributor, and finally the editor. He advocated setting
up agricultural experiment stations and took part in
the lobbying that led to the Hatch Act. 4 He spoke
tirelessly to granges, breeders' and farmers' associations, and other groups. But he really hit his
stride when he was appointed, in 1880, Professor of
Practical and Experimental Agriculture and superintendent of the college farm at the Iowa State Agricultural College in Ames.
That institution (now the Iowa State University
of Science and Technology) had been founded in 1869
as one of the land grant colleges. Under Knapp's
leadership (he also served as president from 1884 to
1886) it became a center for teaching "a science in
agriculture as distinct from the sciences related to
agriculture." He created a new type of curriculum,
leading to the degree of Bachelor of Scientific Agriculture. He tried to tell everyone about the importance of research, but there he was less successful. At a time of rising land prices farmers could
turn a profit more quickly by real-estate speculation than by improving their farms. The total annual Iowa appropriation for research in agriculture
and horticulture was $1500, and the college administration was subject to every political wind or even
zephyr that blew from the state capital. Finally,
Knapp had enough. In 1886, at the age of 53, he resigned and turned to an entirely new venture: supervising a large reclamation project in Louisiana to
clear tidelands for the cultivation of rice, jute,
and vegetables. For the next 17 years, he was involved in one agricultural venture or another in the
South, traveling tirelessly allover the world, towards the end as a government plant explorer to
study varieties in the Orient.
Working with Beverly Thomas Galloway (1863-1938)
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Knapp next
attempted to set up demonstration farms in several
Gulf states in which the economic advantages of crop
diversification and scientific farming would be made
obvious. He soon found that showing how to do it on
a government model farm was not enough, sincea small
farmer could not identify with an enterprise that
was backed by the seemingly infini te resources of the
federal government. The solution was the community
demonstration farm, a scheme first tried in 1903 on
Walter C. Porter's farm in Terrell, Texas. Eight
Terrell businessmen and farmers were persuaded by
the now 70-year-old Knapp to subscribe to a $450 indemnity fund to protect Porter against possible loss
resulting from experimentation with new crops, ferti lizers, and planti ng methods on 70 acres of hi s 800
acre farm; but he was to keep all profits if he came
out ahead. In fact he came out $700 ahead on the 70
acres and announced that he would work his entire
farm according to the new principles the following
year.
The Idea Spread
The idea soon spread. Farmers throughout the
area clamored for similar treatment. Almost inad-
19
vertently, Knapp had stumbled on the proper formula:
keep the government on the sidelines, as an advisor,
and motivate the farmer to make good in the eyes of
his friends and neighbors by letting him reap full
credit for any improvements resulting from innovation. Then a new challenge arose: an infestation
of the boll weevil, an insect that threatened to
wipe out cotton farming throughout Texas in 19031904. Knapp's demonstration method was promptly
adapted to teaching the various remedies that had
been worked out by government entomologists to fight
the pest and his agents were able to stop the infestation wherever they went.
The agents thus emerged as the kingpins of the
entire demonstration system. Financed at first entirely by local tax support and private contributions (notably $1 million from the General Education
Board funded by John Davison Rockefeller, 18391937), and introduced in northern and western states
by Galloway and by William Jasper Spillman (18631931), the county agents qualified for federal sponsorship with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act in
1914. By 1917, when the USA entered World War I,
there were 1466 agents; their number was soon nearly
tripled, partly by appointments of emergency agents
made in the nationwide effort to feed America and
her allies. 5 After the war, the county agent broadened his horizon beyond farm efficiency to such innovations as better drainage and irrigation, the
control of plant and animal diseases, and advice
giving on how to remodel homesteads and form marketing associations. He helped organize farm boys in
4-H clubs and girls in canning clubs. 6 With the
flood of new government programs that followed the
depression of the 1930s -- control of soil erosion,
deliberate reduction in the output of some farm
products, resettlement, electrification, crop insurance -- th~ county agent also became an interpreter
of the new legislation and a long-range planner. He
met yet another challenge during World War II, when
agricultural production in the USA again rose
sharply despite shortages in manpower and in farm
machinery. Since then his concerns have again
shifted, with increasing mechanization, to new managerial and marketing methods in what has come to be
called "agribusiness", and to social, economic, and
political problems arising from the inability of
some small farms to hold their own in the face of
the growing rationalization of agriculture.
County Agent: Technologist Par Excellence
The county agent thus emerges as the technologist
par excellence, and the man who thought of the
scheme as a great benefactor of mankind. Experts
from allover the world come to study the system
with a view to introducing it in their countries. 7
The unmatched productivity of American farms is ascribed to the county agents' efforts. There can be
no nobler calling than one that does so much toward
fulfilling the greatest need of one's fellow beings
and that holds the promise of banishing hunger from
the face of the earth.
Euthansia
Euthanasia is the practice of painlessly putting
to death persons suffering from an incurable condition or disease. Anyone who has seen an aged relative or friend through a painful, terminal illness
has wanted to stop the agony and to grant the sufferer the release of a painless death at the hands
of a physician acting with the approval of the patient's family. Yet most thoughtful individuals,
20
even when not held back by religious scruples (such
as the prohibition against killing contained in the
biblical Sixth Commandment), are appalled at the
ease with which the practice of euthanasia can be
perverted for criminal ends, as was amply shown by
the Nazis during their short but diabolic rule
the twelve years from 1933 to 1945, during the second half of which they waged a world war whose outstanding feature was the huge number of civilians
killed. 8
Early in the war the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler,
asked his personal physician, Karl Brandt, to start
a euthansia program directed against deformed children, the chronically ill, the incurably insane, and
the aged. These "useless eaters" not only took up
hospital space and medical services (including doctors and nurses) that would soon be at a premium,
but they were also a source of embarrassment to the
Nazi theory of the perfect master race. Patients in
the condemned categories were selected from nursing
homes, hospitals, and asylums by government teams
under the direction of Dr. Herbert Linden and were
moved to collecting centers and finally to euthanasia stations, where they were executed, usually by
intravenous injections of carbolic acid, though
shooting with a revolver was also recommended by the
police officer in charge, Christian Wirth.
Such killings were not efficient and they could
not be kept secret. The relatives, who had of
course not been consulted, became suspicious of the
stereotyped wording of the falsified death notices,
sent from strange locations. The arrival of large
batches of patients and the many cremations could
also not be wholly camouflaged. Over 275,000 aged,
insane, and incurably ill had been done away with
before the program was shifted away from civilian
facilities in late 1941, mainly because several
churchmen had protested openly (some of them from
their pulpits) that the notoriety of the practice
had a demoralizing effect on the population and undermined the concept of authority.
Intervention of Religious Leaders
The fact that the energetic intervention of religious leaders in a domestic euthanasia action carried out against their coreligionists brought the
action to an end shows that not even a highly oppressive, totalitarian government with wartime powers and a subservient press can afford to ignore the
pressure of suitably channeled public opinion. The
pity is that virtually no such opposition found expression when the Nazis placed the action under the
control of party formations, put it out of sight in
concentration camps, and finally shifted it to occupied territories and directed it against populations
of other religions and nationalities in what was to
become the greatest organized massacre in history.9
The party organization put in charge of the euthanasia program was the paramilitary Schutz-Staffel
(defense echelon), or SS for short, and in particular the elite SS Death-Head units (whose members
wore the dread skull-and-crossbones insignia), which
ran the concentration camps and provided the technicians who were to engineer the mass exterminations.
Henceforth, euthanasia victims would not be selected
from among incurables but exclusively from concentration-camp inmates unfit for work. Inmates were
selected for "invalid tnnsports" by a commission
that never saw the prisoners. "Merely paper work",
wrote Dr. Mennecke, one of the commission members,
to his wife from the concentration camp at Buchenwald near Weimar. (Both Mennecke and Brandt were
hanged after the war for their part in the euthan-
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
.J
asia program.) In 1943, a further directive restricted the euthanasia program to insane persons
only. "All other prisoners unfit for work are to be
absolutely excluded from this operation", the new
order stated. "Bedridden prisoners are to be given
suitable work, such as can be done in bed." But by
this time" the "invalid transports" had become relatively unimportant, for the vastly larger program of
exterminating members of inferior races was going at
full blast.
Long-Range Plan of Extermination
With the occupation of the Soviet-h~ld half of
Poland after Hitler's surprise attack on the USSR
in 1941, the Nazis got a chance to put into effect
their long-range plan of exterminating all people
considered racially and biologically inferior (the
so-called Endlosung, or Final Solution) and removing
all incorrigible political opposition. Since millions of persons were involved, the technical problems of secretly assembling and killing them and
getting rid of the bodies were staggering. The
first exterminations -- of the non-Aryan population
of the smaller Polish towns and of Communist party
members and political commissars among Soviet prisoners of war -- were relati ve'ly simple: the victims
were marched out of town, told to dig a long ditch,
and then shot in the back of the head at the edge of
the ditch so that they fell in, layer upon layer,
until the mass grave was full. (The Soviet poet
Evgeny Yevtushenko's famed work, "Babi Yar," refers
to the particularly large execution carried out in
this way in a ravine of that name near Kharkov in
the Ukraine.) But the system was clearly unsuited
to mass exterminations, for reasons succinctly summarized by the French writer Jean-Francois Steiner:
(Beginning of Quotation)
The method of shooting in itself gave rise to
controversy among the [SS] technicians, who were
divided into two schools: the "classics" and the
"moderns". The first were advocates of the regulation firing squad at twelve paces and the coup
de grace given by the squad leader. The second,
who felt that this classic apparatus did not
square with the facts of the new situation, preferred the simple bullet in the back of the neck.
The latter method finally prevailed, because of
its efficiency. It was here that the psychological problems vividly emerged.
With a firing squad you never knew who killed
whom. Here, each executioner had "his" victims.
It was no longer squad number such-and-such that
acted, but rifleman so-and-so. Moreover, this
personalization of the act was accompanied by a
physical proximity, since the executioner stood
less than a yard away from his victim. Of course,
he did not see him from the front, but it was
discovered that necks, like faces, also individualize people. This accumulation of necks -- suppliant, proud, fearful, broad, frail, hairy, or
tanned -- rapidly became intolerable to the executioners, who could not help feeling a certain
sense of guilt. Like blind faces, these necks
came to haunt their dreams. Paradoxically, it
was from the executioners and not from the victims that the difficulties arose. Hence, the
technicians took them seriously.
Thus there arose, no doubt for the first
time in the world, the problem of how to liquidate people by the millions. Today the solution
seems obvious, and no one asks himself the question. In 1941, it was quite otherwise. The few
historical precedents were of no use, whether it
was a question of the extermination of the In-
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
dians by the Spaniards in South America or by the
Americans in the United States, or again of the
Armenians by the Turks at the beginning of this
century. In these three cases, no attempt had
been made at a new technique, no advance beyond
the time-honored hanging and shooting, which, as
we have seen, did not satisfy the technicians.
It was necessary to invent a killing machine.
Witn a methodical spirit that is now well known
to us, the technicicans defined its specifications. It had to be inconspicuous to avoid
arousing anxiety in the victims or curiosity in
the witnesses, and efficient enough to be on a
par with the great plans of the originators of
the Final Solution; it had to reduce handling to
a minimum; and finally, it had to assure a peaceful death for the victims. IO
(End of Quotation)
The killing method that ultimately came to be
used was one that had been tried in a tentative way
during the euthanasia program: gassing by carbon
monoxide. Engine exhaust was piped into the back of
a hermetically sealed van loaded with 15-20 victims.
The technique was clearly inadequate when it came to
really large numbers, such as the 400,000 inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto (whose fate has been so
graphically described in John Hersey's 1950 novel,
The Wall). That problem was solved by backing the
van against a sealed building and piping the exhaust
gases into it. Brought to assembly-line perfection
by a young SS lieutenant named Kurt Franz at the
Treblinka extermination camp near Warsaw, the system
ultimately handled 2600 victims in 13 gas chambers
with a 200-person capacity in 45 minutes, including
the time needed to strip them, cut off the women's
hair for use in the war economy, and removing wedding rings and extracting gold teeth from the
corpses.
The Problem of the Disposing of the Bodies
That still left the problem of disposing of the
bodies. At Treblinka, the first 700,000 were buried
in the usual ditches before the chief of the SS,
Heinrich Himmler, decided after an inspection that
they would have to be disinterred and burned -- a
gigantic task that no one had anticipated at the
start of the euthanasia program. Even with earthmoving machinery and an unlimited labor supply, it
was hard to see how more than 1000 bodies could be
handled per day, a rate at which it would have taken
700 days or nearly 2 years to do the job -- even if
the putrid corpses had not proved so very difficult
to ignite. At that point an SS specialist in cremation was summoned, Herbert Floss, who had perfected
a new technique at various smaller concentration
'camps and was itching to try it out on the really
large scale that Treblinka afforded. He constructed
a giant grill of railroad rails placed on concrete
supports about one meter off the ground, on which
the bodies were piled in layers and burnt in open
air. The giant funeral pyres were an immediate success and the grisly job of excavation and burning
began at once. It did not stop for several months.
The Largest Extermination Camp of All
In the meantime, the largest extermination camp
of all had arisen in southern Poland at Oswiecim,
known in most non-Slav languages as Auschwitz.ll The
commandant was an SS lieutenant colonel named Rudolf
Hoess {not to be confounded with Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, who had flown to enemy Britain in 1941 in
21
an alleged attempt to negotiate a peace treaty).
1I0ess made substantial improvements in killing technique (notably the use of prussic acid in place of
carbon monoxide in the gas chambers) and in the
methods of disposing of the corpses. Even Herbert
Floss's efficient funeral pyres were inadequate for
a plant that was to produce more than 4,000,000 bodies; crematories were needed. Also, for real efficiency, the reception hall (disguised as the dressing room of a public bath), gas chamber, and crematory were combined into a single building.
Further refinements were introduced later, including peepholes, tracks and electric elevators to
convey the bodies, and special metallurgical furnaces in which dental gold was melted down into ingots of standard shape and size. Four plants were
ultimately built at Birkenau near Auschwitz, two
large ones and two slightly smaller. Each·was surmounted by a large chimney. Grouped around the
chimney of each of the two large crematories were
nine furnaces, not unlike the blast furnaces used in
steel mills, fuelled by coal and fanned by electric
blowers. Each furnace had four openings. Three
corpses could be placed simultaneously in each opening. Thus, 108 bodies could be burned by one crematory in a single operation, and about 360 by all
four crematories. It took about half an hour to reduce a body to ashes -- 720 per hour, or 17,280 each
24 hours, for the furnaces were often in operation
day and night. In an emergency, several of the old
open-air pyres could be also pressed into service.
Peak production occurred on 29 June 1944, when over
24,000 people were gassed and burned in one 24-hour
period.
Division of Responsibility
Division of responsibility between the technologist and the society that uses him cannot be reduced
to a formula. In the two examples that we have described above in some detail, the assignment of
credit and blame might appear to be a very simple
matter indeed. Seaman A. Knapp, technologist extraordinary, introduced the county agent system of agricultural extension by which the application of agricultural research to American farm production
caused it to rise to unmatched levels, so that the
USA became the world's breadbasket and saw its methods copied by newly developing lands allover the
globe; he must receive full credit for this splendid
achievement. The technicians of the SS, Wirth,
Franz, Floss, Hoess, and the rest, hold full responsibility for the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis,
which they alone knew about and could have stopped.
Yet the objective historian would not see the
matter in such simple terms. He would point out
that Knapp was not really a technologist; except for
three short college courses -- on electricity, mechanics, and astronomy -- his formal preparation was
entirely in the classics and his brief tenure at a
newly founded prairie college was based mainly on
his reputation as a successful stock breeder and
editor of a farm journal. Moreover, other factors,
independent of the county agent system, probably had
more to do with the success of American agriculture,
such as unrestricted immigration, the Homestead Act
of 1862 (by which the title to 160 acres of unoccupied land is transferred to any person who undertakes to improve it on payment of a nominal fee after five years of residence), the spread of the
railroads, the rationalization of production and of
distribution and a host of other developments quite
unconnected with education and the dissemination of
information. Viewed in this light, the unique contribution of the county agent system lies rather in
22
the social and political realms, through enabling
small farms to survive (which is not necessarily the
best outcome from a purely technical viewpoint) and
their owners to organize into viable production and
marketing associations.
Knowledge by a Great Number of People
The responsibility for not stopping the Nazi
holocaust might also be placed by the objective observer elsewhere than on a small group of technicians. Quite apart from the mass responsibility for
allowing a group of criminals to take over a country's government, one cannot shuttle millions of
people allover a continent and create a complex undertaking for disposing of them and of their possessions without sharing knowledge of it with tens of
thousands of people. Beyond the SS and the army,
there were the salaried workers, foremen, and managers of the industrial plants; the contractors who
supplied materials and elevators, blowers, and furnaces for crematories; the railroad men who assembled and ran the deportation trains; and the welfare
agencies that handled the distribution of the shoes
and clothing from the dead. An SS general, Oswald
Pohl, head of the SS supply and administration headquarters that was responsible for all concentration
and extermination camps, admitted at Nuremberg that
it was not true that only a handful of men in his
organization knew; "in the case of textiles and
valuables", he said, "everyone down to the lowest
clerk knew what went on in concentration camps."12
Furthermore, none of the men named was really a
technologist by training or occupation. Wirth, the
manager of the first euthanasia program, was a policeman, superintendent of Stuttgart's criminal investigation division. Franz, in charge of prisoners
at Treblinka, had been a waiter in a small town in
Bavaria. Floss, the specialist in open-air cremation, was entirely self-educated. Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, had been a professional SS officer since 1934. In fact, except at the very beginning of the Nazi ascendancy, the SS had had difficulties all along in trying to recruit professional men. When the SS got hold of an engineer,
they hung on to him.
Kurt Gerstein, Engineer
For instance, Kurt Gerstein, a mining engineer,
had joined the Nazi party in 1933 but had subsequently been imprisoned and expelled for part-time
religious activities'that were held to be inimical
to the new regime. When he asked for reinstatement
after the war broke out, he was not only readmitted
but given an opportunity to join the SS and assigned
to its sanitation service, over the protests of
party regulars. Moreover, there are strong indications that he deliberately joined because he wanted
to find out more about the rumored euthanasia program -- a resolve that was strengthened when his
own chronically ill sister-in-law fell victim to
it and which led him to embark on the extremely
dangerous journey of active opposition.
Among students of the few exceptions to the monolithic blind obedience characteristic of the Nazi
era, the case of this courageous engineer -- the
only SS officer known to have attempted to interrupt
the extermination program by making its existence
known to the world -- has attracted much attention.
A somewhat idealized portrayal of him appears in
Rolf Hochhuth's play The Deputy. Archives of materials pertaining to Gerstein (who committed suicide
in a Paris prison in July 1945, before his case had
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
le
:l
:l
)r
1-
;-
~e
1-
been fully sorted out from among those of the many
war criminals then held by Allied authorities) have
been established in the Kurt-Gerstein-Haus in Berchum near Hagen in Westphalia. Several book-length
studies about him have been published, the most penetrating of which is Saul Friedlander's Kurt GerStein: The Ambiguity of Good, which explores the
nightmare world of a practicing Christian devoted to
the self-imposed mission of arousing his countrymen
and the world to the horrors of the extermination
program. 13 Because of his expertise with minerals
and chemicals, Gerstein, his worst suspicions about
the euthanasia program quickly confirmed, soon found
himself at its very heart: he was charged with disinfecting the clothing collected at the extermination camps and supplying the gas chambers with prussic acid. Devastated by his first visit to the extermination camps, Gerstein lost no time in blurting
out the whole story to a Swedish diplomat he happened to meet on the train back to the capital, who
duly passed it on to his neutral government, which
in turn communicated the information to the British
Foreign Office. Gerstein also made extensive disclosures to a fellow engineer serving in the air
force, Armin Peters, and later to a Dutch colleague,
the engineer H. J. Ubbink; he attempted to inform
the Vatican legation, which threw him out; and spoke
to many others, mainly Catholic and Protestant leaders and neutral diplomats. Gradually the story
seeped abroad, confirming other accounts that were
reaching the Allies and the Vatican from various
sources. But no disclosures were made until the
last year of the war, and no domestic protest could
be organized. 14 Gerstein's effort remained an "appeal wi thout echo", in Friedlander's words, "and
Gerstein himself, an impotent witness, was caught up
in the wheels of the machine he was trying to halt."
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." It was an excellent program and one that has
stood the American republic in good stead, but that
did not stop them (any more than it did the ancient
Greeks, whose civilization is still held up as the
model of a society built on human values) from enslaving their fellow men, a fact that we find abhorrent and immoral. Not even established religion is
impervious to change. The last century alone has
seen tremendous changes in the outlook of the Roman
Catholic Church, for instance, with such papal encyclicals as Rerum Novarum (1891) of Leo XIII, Quadrigesimo Anno (1931) of Pius XI, and Mater et Magister
(1961) of John XXIII; and Protestant theology has
not exactly stood still, either, in the hands of a
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) or a Paul Johannes Tillich (1886-1965).
Our two cautionary tales, taken from opposite
ends of the moral spectrum, thus show the futility
of trying to apportion credit or blame for the effects of technological operations between society
and those it employs to carry them out. But has not
the technical expert, because of his special knowledge, a duty to do more than to make an objective
presentation of the various solutions to a problem
and to draw up balance sheets of the technical advantages and disadvantages of each? Should he sometimes set aside his scientific objectivity and make
a special plea for one solution or another on the
basis of nontechnical considerations? Will society
be better or worse served if its decision makers
cannot rely on the objectivity of the technical information on which they must base their decisions?15
Pity then the poor engineer, who must pick his
way through a thicket of contradictory and changing
philosophical systems, holding now intuition, now
experience or conscience supreme, and either the
state or religion or some other external authority
as the ultimate arbiter of individual conduct.
Values change, if only because they depend on
knowledge; and conversely the advance of knowledge
depends on values, for example the value of free
dissemination of knowledge and the value of truth.
Yet some critics minimize this interdependence and
hold that to base value judgments on knowledge even knowledge of history, say, or anthropology is dangerous if it leaves out intuition and tradition (to say nothing of divine revelation). Still
others fall back on the moral law embodied in the
categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804):
Act only as if the maxim from which you proceed were
to become, through your will, a universal law. That
seems a perfect prescription for the absolutely good
will of a rational being, and moreover one independent of theological considerations; yet even wellmeaning men do not always act as they ought, but
rather according to inclination.
's
I
~d
A Set of Balance Sheets
What is evidently wanted is a set of balance
sheets in which the relative merits of each solution to a technical problem are analyzed both on
technical grounds such as safety, ease of operation,
cost, reliability, maintainability, complexity, and
esthetics; and on ethical grounds such as moral considerations, effects on the quality of human life,
dignity, and other human values. How to weigh each
of these attributes against the others remains an
unsolved problem. The engineer is quickly out of
his dcpth 16 and can justly claim that even minds
generally assumed to be better sui ted than his to
makinu moral judgments - philosophers, religious
leaders, political and other social scientists - do
not universally agree on ethical criteria for human
action. One envies the framers of the American Declaration of Independence their easy assurance to
"hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are crcated equal, that they are endowed by their
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
Criteria Based on Common Sense
Yet a set of criteria based on common sense cannot be all that difficult to construct. Consider a
tentative program, a list of values that a distinguished American jurist and civil servant, A. A.
Berle, Jr., got off in no more time than it took to
write a magazine article:
1. People are better alive than dead.
2. People are better healthy than sick.
3. People are better off literate than illi terate.
4. People are better off adequately than inadequately housed.
5. People are better off in beautiful than in
ugly cities and towns.
6. People are better off if they have opportunity
for enjoyment - music, literature, drama, and
the arts.
7."Education above the elementary level should be
as nearly universal as possible through secondary schools, and higher education as widely
diffused as practicable.
8. Development of science and the arts should
continue or possibly be expanded.
9. Minimum resources for living should be available to all.
10. Leisure and access to green country should be
a human experience available to everyone. 17
(please turn to page 28)
23
1. Record any tapes on the off-site list that
are not physically at the contingency
site and trace their whereabouts through
the tape log book. (Figure 3 shows the
Tape File History which gives the following information: reel number, work month,
creation date, scratch date, a history of
every job in which the file was used, when
it left the library and when it returned
to the library.)
2. Record any tapes physically off-site that are
not on the off-site list and determine
reasons for this.
3. Record all the programs, table decks, operating instructions and unit record instructions needed to run the critical systems.
Then trace them to the master tapes where
this information is stored to be certain
they are all present. Any exceptions
should be noted and followed up.
4. Read the Contingency Plans and determine if
all the information needed is clear. Remember that should these plans be called
into action, it will be a time of crisis.
Item, as which tape to use (such as present month, last year, prior month), should
be readily ascertainable.
5. Take one or two of the Contingency plan flow
charts and "walk through" the system. That
is, pretend headquarters was destroyed and
only the information at the off-site location is available. Using the flow charts
and the operating instructions, be certain
you have all the programs, tabledecks, input data, master files and instructions
needed to go to another location and start
JANCURA, DREFS - Continued from page 17
Tapes Available Records
Each day, all tape files newly created are recorded on the "Tapes Ava ilable Sheet" (see Figure 2)
by the tape librarian. The information for each
reel is obtained from the external label. In addition to the tape serial number, the file number and
the scratch date are recorded. The "Tapes Available
Li st" is the key to the control of the 5500 tapes in
the library. The list is keypunched daily and the
cards are used to create a "Tapes Available Fi Ie" on
magnetic tape which is sorted in reel number within
file identification number.
The "Tapes Available Fi Ie" is checked daily by a
program which identifies both those files (and thus
tape reels) which are "critical" and those files
which are to be scratched. The critical data is
copied for off-site contingency storage. Only tapes
listed in the daily "scratch list" can be scratched,
thus alleviating many of the problems caused by errors in human judgment when manually determining
scratch dates. An inventory listing of all tapes at
headquarters and those at the off-site storage location is produced.
Periodic Audit Desirable
Because of the importance of the contingency
plans to the company and because one missing tape
could cause an entire system and all of the preliminary planning to be nullified, it is essential that
the contingency plan be current and executable at
all times. For this reason, a periodic review and
audit of the proposed procedures is highly desirable. An audit program of a contingency plan should
contain the following procedures:
-
TAPE FILE HISTORY
"0""'" 70008 IIIE .... 10'70
REEL SERIAL NUMBER & WORK I. D.
1
2
-
~-
3
RETENTION
CYCLE DATE
WORK MO.
OR RUN #
4
~1/71
RS06
EFF.
X, ~
~87
/
/
/
/
/
//
/
/
042
/
7
/
7
7
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
JOB
P
Sc
/
/
/
~
""
7
/
/
/
/
/
/
-
EXPR.
ISSUE AND RECEIPT LOG
/
/
7
7
IN
JOB
X .~
IV V
IV :V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
IVV
V V
V VI
V V!
17 V
V V!
1c
/
FACTO"Y
V V
V V
7 V
V V
OUT
IN
JOB
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
//V
V V
V V
V V
V V
V V
/ V
V V
R[T(NTION
120
IN
V
V
V
V
V V
V V
V V
L V
V V
V V
OUT
V
V
V
V
V V
V V
V V
V V
L V
V V
'1(,
1/ /
7
USAGE
OUT
V V
V /
, ILl NO.
~~
PSC03010
USAGE
Figure 3
24
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
{:
"
II
running the job. Make certain that the
tapes for the proper period are available
-- not some older generation which should
have been scratched. Check that the computer planned for use in an emergency has
all the features that normal operating
programs may be calling for.
6. Inquire as to separation of duties. The tape
librarian working in the headquarters' library should not be the same person that
is transporting and caring for the off-site
tapes.
7. Tapes should be stored in locked cabinets or
preferably in a vault. The keys or combination should be restricted to a few people.
8. Check the physical attributes of off-site area
storage. Are fire extinguishers plentiful
and strategically placed? How secure is
the room itself?
By following this program, an opInIon can be
formed on how reliable the Contingency Plan is. Frequently the plan originally designed is sound, but
has deteriorated after a period of time when laxity
has developed in the day-to-day administration of
the plan.
Continued Vigilance
Programs and documentation are an important asset
of a company. Replacing them is costly, particularly in a time of emergency. Keeping duplicates of
programs on magnetic tape and instructions on microfilm in another location is comparatively inexpensive. Carefully planned file storage and pre-determined emergency procedures in many instances actually make continued operation possible. Continued
vigilance to safeguard the validity and usefulness
of these contingency plans is a small price to pay
for prompt restart of vital information services. [J
.n
HENNESSEY - Continued from page 15
Ie
information required by divisional management on
progress against the system development plan, budget, and required return on investment and the trend
information required by corporate management are
only natural adjuncts to these.
The Steering Committee Interface
The steering committee is becoming increasingly
popular as an interface both between divisional
data processing and divisional management and between divisional data processing and corporate data
processing. This committee, usually formed of the
top divisional personnel in finance, manufacturing,
engineering, administration and data processing,
with a representative from the corporate office, is
responsible for the development of management priorities and for the establishment of procedures for
the reexamination of business procedures, for the
generation of a high quality portfolio of systems
development investments and for auditing the cost
and effectiveness of new system development.
le
1-
lS
1-
:h
Members of the steering committee are responsible
for using their collective best judgment in cases in
which more rigorous cost benefit analysis is difficult to apply. For example, they must estimate the
relative worth to their division or subsidiary of
engineering-manufacturing lead time reduction and
the relative value of customer service and product
support systems. The steering committee, therefore,
controls the inputs to divisional data. processing
and monitors the outputs from that organization,
steering the outputs in the direction set forth in
the division's data processing plan. It is, in effect, one way of exercising divisional control on
the feedback loop to assure effective systems development.
Management Control of Computing
Not all of the questions regarding such controls
have been answered, of course. Historically, management's concern has been primarily with total
budget and, more recently, with the return on investment for systems development and with the data
processing budget as a percentage of total sales
dollars. Clearly, a more sophisticated approach is
needeu. One such approach is to identify all of the
fixeu costs in the data processing operation, such
as machine rental, program maintenance and the like.
The balance of the budget then represents the possible investment in systems development, and it is
this latter figure that should be compared to alternative ways of spending/investing such funds. The
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
industry is currently looking for a better solution
to this aspect of the control problem.
Heublein, Inc.
There are several companies that have taken the
above approach to management control of computing.
The one with which I am most familiar is Heublein,
Inc., which has had central control of computing for
some time now. The controls there include corporate-wide standards on:
Project control/charge-back systems.
Methodology of computer measurement.
Media security and insurance coverage.
Equipment procurement and feasibility
studies.
Contract terms and processing.
Short-range and long-range planning format.
United Aircraft Corporation
United Aircraft Corporation, which has a computing operation of approximately 1700 people and $50
million, is now headed in a direction similar to
that of Heublein. Some divisions, like Hamilton
Standard, already use many of the management controls described above. The others are instituting
similar controls, and the corporation now has a director of data processing and a small corporate
staff to help determine standards and oversee their
application.
These controls, in addition to those applied at
Heublein, cover the formulation of divisional data
processing plans, including hardware, software, machine complement and application programs. The corporate office, considering what standards it wishes
to impose or what common systems it wishes to have
purchased or developed, then makes up a corporate
data processing plan against which progress can be
measured. In addition, a major effort is made to
identify all computer R&D and to isolate the resulting costs. This must be done in order to assess
properly the cost of systems development.
At United Aircraft, we believe that the isolation
of R&D costs, the elimination of wasteful duplication both in systems software development and in applications development, and the rigorous application
of the basic controls -- namely, quantifying the
outputs desired, measuring the outputs against a
data processing plan and using the results to correct the basic data processing inputs -- will give
us good, firm control over our data processing operations.
o
25
e
A Game for People and Computers - Part 2
t
c
1
e
t
Edmund C. Berkeley
Andy Langer
Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington Street
Newtonville, Mass. 02160
c
i
e
h
s
d
1
In the January issue of "Computers and People" we
published a description of a new game, Naymandij,
for people and computers. In this game an array of
random (or pseudo-random) digits contains a "Definite Systematic Modification" made by the player
Nature, and Man has to guess how Nature disturbed
the randomness. Nature must choose an operation
that can be expressed in not more than four English
words.
Table 1
NAYMANDIJ GAME COMPUTER PROGRAM - EDITION 1
COMMANDS IMPLEMENTED
nDm
nD
FT
FR
FC
F
G
nG
nIm
nIR
nIC
I
P
R
nT
nTF
nTP
nTU
nTL
nTO
nTD
nTS
nTH
nTV
W
Set the dimensions of the array to be n rows
by m columns. Initially, 10 by 20.
Change the number of rows to n, without changing the number of columns.
Print a frequency distribution of the entire
array.
Print a frequency distribution for ea~h row.
Print a frequency distribution for each column.
Print all three of the above.
Generate a new array of random digits.
Generate, initializing the random number generator to n.
Input a new value for the element in row n,
column m.
Input new values for row n.
Input new values for column n.
Input a new array.
Punch the array on paper tape.
Read a new array from paper tape.
Print all occurrences of digit n.
Print all occurrences of n and following
digits.
Print all occurrences of n and preceding
digits.
Print all occurrences of n and upper digits.
Print all occurrences of n and lower digits.
Print all occurrences of n and orthogonally
adjacent digits.
Print all occurrences of n and diagonally adjacent digits.
Print all occurrences of n and all surrounding
digits.
Print all occurrences of n and horizontally
adjacent digits.
Print all occurrences of n and vertically adjacent digits.
Print the entire array.
"Rubout" deletes one character a t any time.
"Li ne-feed" deletes a Ii ne of input.
26
We remarked that a programmer in the role of Man
could apply his ingenuity making neat little subprograms that would enable him to quickly analyze
the puzzle without doing much hard work. For example, he should be able to ask the computer program
for a report on the frequency distributions of digits in the puzzle as a whole, or by row, or by column, or by other arrangements.
9
o
Following the writing of this article, we made
such a program, "Naymandij Game, Edition 1". In
Table 1 we show the commands for analyzing a Namandij Puzzle which were implemented in this program.
The command R (read) followed by the command FT
(print a frequency distribution of the entire array)
produces the results shown in Table 2, the frequency
distributions of the 200 digits in each of the six
puzzles.
Table 2
FREQUENCY OF DIGITS 0 TO 9 IN THE SIX PUZZLES
Puzzle
7411
2
3
4
5
6
Digit:
1
0
19
21
26
19
26
15
12
13
11
20
11
16
Total
Frequ2
18
20
29
13
29
19
3
44
17
19
22
19
18
4
5
20
29
24
20
24
23
21
21
22
26
22
26
6
14
17
15
22
15
19
7
8
9
~
20
17
18
18
18
24
20
22
20
21
14
21
16
18
16
27
200
200
200
200
200
200
18
16
Puzzle 741-1
Table 1 shows there are 44 3's in Puzzle 1 instead of some number near an expected 20. This is a
great clue that Nature's systematic operation has
something to do with 3's. The command 7TF (print
all occurrences of 7 and the following digit) reveals Nature's rule:
Make 3 follow 7
which is the solution for puzzle 741-1.
Puzzle 741-2
In the case of Puzzle 2, the command 4T (type
all 4's) reveals a tell-tale line of ten 4's
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
j
stretching from the lower left to the upper right.
So the solution is:
Make line of 4's.
I
Puzzle 741-3
The command 2T (type all 2's) shows that every 2
touches another 2. The solution is:
Make 2's couples.
Puzzle 741-2
1 1 309 8 6 3 5 3 3 006 6 6
4729363 0 1 9 588 3 7 2
4 4 6 2 1 5 6 741 1 4 204 3
2 2 2 5 4 0 5 9 6 8 7 1 4 7 5 8
2 9 0 7 0 9 6 4 5 0 4 9 2 7 9 -5
009750864 4 3 284 7 8
1342424 8 0 7 8 1 4 389
9 1 134 4 6 0 6 9 5 5 4 734
654 3 8 4 9 2 8 736 2 5 5 0
475 7 8 8 9 0 5 805 200 4
3 045
4 328
7 999
8 9 5 8
8 7 7 4
288 6
2 1 1 9
6 592
2 880
695 4
Puzzle 741-4
The command 2T (type all 2's) shows no 2 at all
in the central third of the array. So the solution
is:
g.
Analysis: Type all 4's and look
R
4T
4
Eliminate central 2's.
4
4 •
c-
If Nature changed each 2 to some definite other digit, the evidence appears to be insufficient to decide which digit.
4
4 4 ••
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4 4
Puzzle 741-5
4
The command FR (print a frequency distribution
for each row) shows that the frequency of each of
the digits I, 3, 5, 7, 9 in row 1 is zero. So the
solution is:
4
t·
4
4
4
4 •
Solution: Make line of 4's
Make row 1 even.
Puzzle 741-3
Puzzle 741-6
No command in Edition 1 of the computer program
reveals the solution to puzzle 6. But if we look at
column 16 by itself, we find 9, 9, 8, 6, 5, 5, 4, 3,
3, 1. The digits appear to be randomly selected;
and so a very reasonable guess for the solution is:
Reverse sequence column 16.
We plan to publish a Naymandij Puzzle in each
issue of "Computers and People".
6 9 880 1 4 022 149 154 9 0 8
78643 1 1 9 086 1 1 2 225 2 3 4
785746851 184 176 2 0 2 0 4
9 6 605 6 788 5 8 2 4 224 6 6 2 5
o 6 ~ 959 7 1 3 1 324 338 1 427
9 9 6 0 5 246 3 9 7 1 0 1 3 7 7 070
3 1 0 2 723 958 1 6 2 8 5 6 5 5 8 8
594 2 9 4 5 1 776 9 2 4 094 375
764 3 5 0 2 2 6 6 2 0 5 9 8 284 2 2
5 589 4 4 6 5 7 9 2 709 3 2 1 7 7 8
,s
Analysis: Type all 2's and look
Puzzle 741-1
g
4
4
4
4
4 4
4
i-
a-
4
9 0 1 3 4 5 7 3 5
1 4 0 9 6 3 283
7 3 7 3 0 2 4 3 1
4 7 3 2 4 5 5 5 6
973 7 3 3 3 0 4
6 5 2 3 6 3 984
2 283 006 8 2
1 905 8 1 3 2 5
535 738 733
038 1 273 4 4
834 730 1 888 0
4 3 7 3 735 4 195
4 1 2 6 9 907 3 6 6
538 2 4 9 5 4 007
369 225 9 9 5 8 2
8 5 6 7 3 2 6 3 3 0 3
1 073 7 3 173 6 4
0 9 003 5 4 8 7 3 2
4 0 3 6 4 338 5 8 8
3 4 5 7 3 2 6 192 5
Analysis: Type all 7's and following digit
R
2T
.22 .
2
. 2 .
.. 2
2
2.
222
2
2 2
2
2
2
2
2
2
• 2
• 2 2 .. 2 .
2
2
2
2 2
Solution: Make 2's couples
,ehh-
R
7TF
7 3
•• 7 3 •
Puzzle 741-4
7 3 7 3
Ie
7 3 7 3
7 3
73.
brc
•• 7
7 3 7 3 •.
7 3
7 3 7 3
7 3
7 3
... 7 3 . 7 3 .
7 3 .•
• • 7 3 ••
Solution: Make 3's follow 7's.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
5 808 4 105 1 655 7 4 0 6 3 359
5 2 005 8 3 2 7 1 489 3 6 1 694 6
o 1 209 3 3 0 1 5 3 7 4 703 0 4 5 0
1 2 2 979 7 3 1 8 1 6 7 6 6 7 2 700
6 3 9 6 8 4 0 4 5 3 184 6 3 9 6 4 5 4
832 1 4 8 7 8 3 9 6 3 1 4 4 409 6 5
753 1 6 5 9 179 4 3 9 6 3 5 5 485
8 7 7 4 186 5 0 5 0 6 0 9 986 283
4 5 1 9 193 2 8 172 588 7 3 5 8 5
706 4 255 2 2 3 568 1 1 6 788 9
27
Analysis: Type all 2's and look
R
2T
. 2
2
2
22.
2
2
·2
2
. 2
.22
2
Solution: Eliminate central 2's
Puzzle 741-5
o 2 002 2 4 024 288 2 6 0 2 080
975 4 969 2 6 035 2 5 584 304
5 588 275 5 3 6 8 3 3 789 007 3
7 9 0 0 5 9 59 0 3 3 3 1 8 4 6 2 8 5 6
2 7 2 9 0 3 4 6 5 0 1 803 2 4 0 6 5 2
4 4 7 794 272 1 4 2 303 1 8 237
359 5 800 4 6 3 4 9 0 284 2 287
5 304 7 9 7 9 725 192 1 I 4 8 4 9
5 4 1 6 6 0 0 1 4 695 3 245 286 2
6 272 5 704 4 6 184 7 188 3 7 5
R
Row
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
Digit:
o 1 234 5 6 789
7
2
2
3
4
1
3
1
2
1
0
0
0
1
1
2
0
3
2
2
7
2
1
1
4
4
3
2
3
2
0
2
4
3
2
3
2
1
1
1
2
3
0
1
2
4
3
3
3
3
0
4
4
3
2
0
2
2
3
2
1
2
1
2
2
0
1
0
4
2
0
1
3
1
1
4
1
3
0
4
3
1
4
2
1
1
3
I
1
3
I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life
to the service of humanity. I will give to my
teachers the respect and gratitude which is their
due; I will be loyal to the profession of engineering and just and generous to its members; I
will lead my life and practice my profession in
uprightness and honor; whatever project I shall
undertake, it shall be for the good of mankind
to the utmost of my power; I will keep far aloof
from wrong, from corruption, and from tempting
others to vicious practice; I will exercise my
profession solely for the benefit of humanity
and perform no act for a criminal purpose, even
if solicited, far less suggest it; I will speak
out against evil and unjust practice wheresoever
I encounter it; I will not permit considerations
of religion, nationality, race, party politics,
or social standing to intervene between my duty
and my work; even under threat, I will not use
my professional knowledge contrary to the laws
of humanity; I will endeavor to avoid waste and
the consumption of non-renewable resources. I
make these promises solemnly, freely, and upon
my honor. 18
Solution: Make row 1 even
Puzzle 741-6
399 5 5 5 2 5 9 5 5 4 7 589 293 0
655 178 7 4 4 5 190 199 073 3
4 5 7 2 4 985 6 589 9 1 485 081
2 9 1 884 750 I 9 1 5 2 268 9 6 8
8 972 6 I 1 8 5 6 5 764 556 764
224 174 2 4 2 8 780 I 7 5 096 5
3 7 594 I 4 384 2 162 3 4 8 036
6 9 7 4 2 009 2 6 184 9 4 3 9 4 2 0
9 8 3 4 900 2 075 9 3 8 3 3 7 6 6 3
325 286 3 9 0 5 6 4 393 1 4 698
c
d
u
o
E
t
F
r
I
e
f
p
r
T
b
a
a
t
i
t
g
t
g
t
g
u
s
h
f
w
d
We have seen that much of the responsibility for
the uses of technology lies with society. Blaming
engineers for the shortcomings of technological society makes about as much sense as blaming the failure of a new play on the stagehands. On the contrary, we may come to look to the engineer for moral
guidance. If the engineer subscribes to principles
such as the above, the leaders and representatives
of the rest of society can do no less. Only by the
concerted efforts of all can the abuses of technology be avoided. We may paraphrase Clemenceau and
say, technology is too important to be left to the
engi neers .19
0
Analysis: Type column 16 by itself and look
9
9
8
6
5
5
4
3
3
1
28
a
s
AN ENGINEER'S HIPPOCRATIC OATH
0
3
1
3
1
1
2
4
1
0
Solution: Reverse sequence column 16
d
Few would find fault with these propositions.
They do not constitute a specific program or deal
with such ethical problems as prejudice or dishonesty, but anyone looking for some general guidelines
by which to assess the advisability of a new technological undertaking could do worse for a start than
to consider it against nonquantitative criteria such
as the above. They are certainly more useful in
that regard than the American engineer's Code of
Ethics, which was got up by the several engineering
societies mainly to govern the relations of "professional" engineers (that is, individuals or partnerships that offer professional services in much the
same way as lawyers) with each other and with their
clients. For the engineer himself, something on a
loftier moral plane is needed.
An engineer's Hippocratic Oath can be developed
in analogy with the principles attributed to the
school of Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460-c. 370 B.C.),
the great Greek physician who first separated the
practice of medicine from superstition and philosophy and based in on observation and reason. Like
medicine, engineering is above all concerned with
improving the human condition, and there are other
parallels between the two professions as well, both
in the preparation of their practitioners and in
their practice. An oath based on Hippocratic teachings is administered to graduates of many modern
schools of medicine. An amended version of it is
suggested here for engineering graduates:
Analysis: Make frequency distribution by row and look
FR
SUSSKIND - Continued from page 23
o
Editorial Note: Footnotes 1 to 19 are stated in the book Understanding
Technology on the pages applying to Chapter 7. We regret there is not
space to publish them here.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
C(
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
NAYMANDIJ
NUMBLES
Neil Macdonald
Assistant Editor
Puzzles
NUMBER PUZZLES FOR NIMBLE MINDS
AND COMPUTERS
NUMBER PUZZLES FOR NIMBLE MINDS
AND COMPUTERS
A "Naymandij" puzzle is a problem in which an array
of random (or pseudo-random) digits produced by the
first player, "Nature," has been subjected by Nature to a
"Definite Systematic Operation" - and the problem for
Man is to discover what Nature did.
Certain rules apply to Nature's Definite Systematic
Operations:
a. The operation must be performed on all the digits of
a definite class which can be designated; for example, "all
central 6's".
b. The entire operation has to be expressib Ie in not more
than four English words; for example, "replace 2's by 7's".
A "numble" is an arithmetical problem in which: digits
have been replaced by capital letters; and there are two
messages, one which can be read right away and a second
one in the digit cipher. The problem is to solve for the
digits.
Each capital letter in the arithmetical problem stands for
just one digit 0 to 9. A digit may be represented by more
than one letter. The second message, which is expressed in
numerical digits, is to be translated (using the same key)
into letters so that it may be read; but the spelling uses
puns, or deliberate (but evident) misspellings, 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.
c. The operation must produce a result that displays
some kind of evident, systematic, rational order, and completely removes some kind of randomness.
d. The operation must change at least 6 digits from their
original random value.
e. The value and the position of all digits not in that
definite class must remain unchanged.
The second player, "Man," studies the puzzle so produced, and tries to figure out what Nature did. Can you
figure it out? (Man is not required to express the operation in no more than four words; only Nature is so
required.)
We invite our readers to send us solutions together with
human programs or computer programs which will produce the solutions.
NA YMANDIJ PUZZLE 742
2
2
6
6
2
0
7
8
9
5
3
4
3
7
3
9
7
1
0
9
9
5
9
4
7
9
9
0
9
2
3
8
9 7
3 3
4 7
0
7
6
5
4
6
9
7
5
8
0
5
3
0
5
2
8
4
8
9
9
9
4
5
2
4
7
0
9
9
7
1
3
4
6
5
1
0
8
0
9
9
5
6
0
0
6
0
1
0
8
7
9
1
3
3
3
9
9
3 1
6 9
8
8
3
6
6
5
4
1 7 7
6 5 9
6 7
0 1 3
8 8 9
9 7 4
8 4 2
8 8 9
8 9 4
8 5 3
3
5
0
9
4
9
6
5
3
7
5
6
6
6
9
4
9
3
8
7
5
7
7
4
6
8
7
2
9
7
6
6
9
7
6
9
9
9
8
4
2
3
3
2
3
9
9
7
5
5
3
7 4
2 3
2 1
5
For more information about Naymandij as a puzzle and
as a game for two players (one or both of whom is aided by
a computer), see the two articles in the January and February 1974 issues of Computers and People. For the solutions
to the six Naymandij Puzzles in the January issue, see the
article in this issue.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
NUMBLE 742
YOU
x
M E
A M E
o
YOU
+
ME
M=B
N Y B
L 0
L 0 V E
10823
16936
45410
87523
125
Solution to Numble 741
In Numble 741 in the January issue, the digits 0 through
9 are represented by letters as follows:
A=O
R=5
F= 1
T=6
1=2
B=7
E=3
H=8
S=4
P=9
The message is: The best step; the first step.
ADVERTISING INDEX
Following is the index of advertisements. Each item
contains: product / name and address of the advertiser / name of the agency, if any / page number
where the advertisement appears.
COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE / Computers and People, 815
Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160 / pages 34, 44
THE NOTEBOOK ON COMMON SENSE, ELEMENTARY
AND ADVANCED / published by Berkeley Enterprises,
Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160/
pages 2, 3
29
The Assassination olf the Rieverend Martin Luther King" Jr.,
and Possible Links With the Kennedy Murders
Wayne Chastain, Jr.
- Part One
810 Washington, Apt. 408
Memphis, Tenn. 38105
The Eggs and Sausage Man
An athletic-appearing man walked into Jim's Cafe,
411 S. Main, in downtown Memphis, Tenn., about 4:30
p.m. on April 4, 1968. He ordered eggs and sausage.
His mood and manner evoked the attention of at least
two persons -- the black waitress who took his order,
and the white owner, Lloyd Jowers. The memory of
the customer's face and figure remains firmly etched
in the minds of both Jowers and his waitress, more
than five years after the event.
At 6:01 p.m. the same day, about an hour after
the eggs and sausage man had digested his last morsel, wiped his plate clean with a biscuit, paid his
bill and left the cafe, Jowers heard an exploding
sound in back of his cafe.
The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
A sniper had assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. , as he stood on the balcony of the second floor
of the Lorraine Motel, an establishment that catered
exclusively to blacks, less than a block away from
the cafe.
Wayne Chastain of Memphis, Tenn. , is a veteran
newspaper reporter and southern j ournali st wi th
experience on several metropolitan dailies in
Texas including El Paso, Houston, Dallas and San
Antonio, as well as on the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and a Memphis daily.
He had traveled with
Dr. Ki ng' s entourage on and off for two years
prior to the assassination. He had spent the last
two days of King's life covering his speeches in
Memphi s pri or to the shooti ng. He was on the murder scene wi thin 10 mi nutes after Dr. Ki ng was
shot. He interviewed eyewi tnesses for one of the
fi rst comprehensi ve news accounts to the nation of
Dr. King's death. A native Texan and a graduate
of the University of Texas with a bachelor's degree in history and political science, Mr. Chastain also spent several months in early 1964 investigating and researching the assassination of
President Kennedy, Jack Ruby's link with Lee Harvey Oswald and a group.ofpro-Cuban arms runners,
and other activities related to Kennedy's death.
Months before The Warren Commission's report.
whi ch was publi shed in the fall of 1964. Mr. Chastain -after exhaustive interviews with hundreds
of wi tnesses - had reached the conclusion that
President Kennedy's death was the result of a
plot involving paramilitary professionals financed
by a group of wealthy, right-wing Texans with
strong connections with former high officials wi th
the Central Intelligence Agency as well as lower
echelon CIA personnel still assigned to the bureau. The present installment is an excerpt from
a forthcomi ng book enti tIed: Who Really Ki lled
Dr. King - And The Kennedys? A Disturbing View
of Political Assassinations In America.
30
"The shot sounded as i f it were fired in back of
the cafe," Jowers said. "At the time I thought it
was just a backfire from a truck."
The killer fired a single rifle shot. The bullet
pierced Dr. King's lower right jaw, ripping open a
wide, flap-like area extending from his lower face.
upper neck and upper shoulder. The shell. however,
shattered into fragments, later making it impossible
for ballistic experts to ascertain the exact weapon
from which it was fired. The bullet apparently
traveled in an upward trajectoryl because witnesses
maintained the impact thrust Dr. King's body in an
upward motion, literally lifting him off his heels
and into the air. The official version, however,
disputes the upward trajectory and maintains the
shot was fired from the second story rooming house
above Jim's Cafe, rather than from a site in back
of the cafe.
Chauffeur Witnesses Slaying
Solomon Jones, Dr. King's chauffeur, stood on the
ground floor below the balcony and was looking up in
Dr. King's face as Dr. King leaned down on the balcony and asked Jones if he needed an overcoat. Jones
said he was looking directly in Dr. King's face when
a red splotch flashed across his chin and upper
chest.
"He seemed to float up in the air and come down
on his back," Jones told this writer less than 30
minutes after King was shot. "I heard the shot and
turned around and saw a man with a white sheet on
his face in some bushes over there." Jones pointed
to a clump of bushes to the right of the back door
of Jim's Cafe. Jones said he thought the gunman
threw something from the bushes and then "hunkered
down again" as i f he were going to fire another
shot. (A famous wri ter 2 , however, has related a
slightly different version of Jones' story.) Jones
told this writer on that night that when the man
"hunkered down", that he, Jones. ducked down behind
Dr. King's Cadillac parked directly under the second
story railing. because he thought he might be shot
if the gunman was going to fire again. Seconds
later, when people were rushing onto the Lorraine
parking lot from all directions - including policemen, firemen and plainclothesmen - Jones rose up
from behind the Cadillac and again looked over to
the clump of bushes. Jones told this writer he was
positive he saw the same man he saw a few minutes
before - sans white sheet on his face and sans
weapon -- stand up from the bushes again. He walked
out of the bushes at a slow pace, and casually
joined a group of firemen running toward the Lorraine (a fire station was at the corner of South
Main Street, less than a half block from Jim's
Cafe). Jones said he kept his eye on the man and
suggested to this writer that he was psychologically
paralyzed for a few seconds as the man walked right
onto the Lorraine property with the firemen and got
within 25 feet of him.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
"The guilty plea of James Earl Ray amounts to nothing more than the fact that his attorneys had advised him that he was deemed as guilty under the Tennessee homicide statute as the man who fired
the shot. ... Judge Battle not only attempted to stop Ray before Ray could blurt out details of a
conspiracy in open court, but Battle was aided by Ray's own defense attorney, Percy Foreman."
l-
"Things were happening so fast," Jones said. "I
believe he got within 25 feet of me, but he didn't
have any sort of weapon. There was so much confusion at that point. People were running over to the
motel in every direction it seemed. The man wore a
jacket and I believe a plaid shirt. Suddenly, he
just seemed to vanish in the crowd."
Chauffeur's Story Not Believed
1-
Jones said he broke himself from the frozen stance
and jumped into the Cadi llac (the motor had been running at the time King was shot) and attempted to
drive off the motel property to see if the man had
fled down adjoining streets. But Jones was hemmed
in by incoming police cars and an ambulance. At that
point, Jones said he began concentrating on getting
Dr. King into an ambulance and received permission
from police to drive the Cadillac behind the ambulance to the hospital.
Jones said the police never believed his story.
This writer wrote a byline article that appeared in
the afternoon daily the next day, relating Jones'
story. Neither Jones nor this writer were subpoenaed as witnesses at the trial of James Earl Ray,
although other reporters were.
It
Motel Owner's Wife Dies of Heart Attack
Walter Bailey, a black man who had been employed
20 years by The Holiday Inns of America Inc., owned
the Lorraine Motel. This motel was named after his
wife, who managed the motel during the day when he
was at work. Bailey and his wife had invested their
life savings in the Lorraine Property and had made
the Lorraine a going concern.
Less than 30 minutes after the shooting of Dr.
King, Mrs. Bailey dropped dead of a heart attack.
The attack came after she had learned of Dr.
King's death on the second floor. Before the attack
and seconds after she had been informed of the shooting, an employe told this writer Mrs. Bailey groaned:
"My God, what have I done?"
A very religious woman, Mrs. Bailey had been an
ardent admirer of Dr. King. The employe told this
writer that Mrs. Bailey became as excited as a
"school girl" when her husband told her a few days
before that Dr. King was going to stay at The Lorraine on his next visit to Memphis.
Dr. King's Earlier Visit to Memphis
Or. King had been in Memphis two weeks before to
lend a march of black sanitation workers, who were
on strike against the City of Memphis. The event had
spawned na tional headli nes because young, black
mili tants turned the intended peaceful demonstration
into a massive riot and caused the governor to declare martial law in M~mphis and call out the Na-
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
tional Guard. Time magazine described the event as
the "beginning of the long, hot - and bloody summer of 1968" in the following week's issue.
Dr. King left Memphis after the riot and vowed he
would return to the city and lead a peaceful demonstration. The week before, he had completed plans
to lead the Poor People's March from Mississippi to
Washington, D.C., and now he not only would lead a
peaceful march through the city of Memphis in April,
but that Memphis would probably be the first major
stop on his summer march to Washington.
In order to make the next march a peaceful one,
however, Dr. King realized he had to make certain
concessions to the young, black militants who had
sparked the riot, violence, and destruction, so that
he could contain them.
These black militants had bitterly criticized Dr.
King for staying at the posh Holiday Inn - Rivermont, a symbol of white affluence in Memphis, a dazzling edifice that towered 15 stories above the
bluffs of The Mississippi River near the Memphis &
Arkansas Bridge. King had also used the hotel as
his press headquarters.
Thus, one of the concessions Dr. King made to the
militants was to move out of the hotel and into a
black motel. When Mrs. Bailey learned this fact
from her husband, she quickly prepared her best
suite on the first floor, according to the employee.
Fraudulent Advance Security
Then, on April 2, a day before King was supposed
to arrive in Memphis, Mrs. Bailey received a visit
by a man she presumed to be black, but whom an employee later warned her was a white man pretending
to be black. He identified himself as an advance
security man for Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The employee sensed the visitor
was a "white man imitating a black". Mrs. Bailey
later laughed off the employee's suspicions, poohpoohing the idea that a white man would imitate a
Negro.
The employee described the visitor as about six
feet tall, wi th a "physique like a football player".
He had strong facial features and "penetrating black
eyes", and "looked more Indian than he did Negro",
the employee said.
The visitor - whether he be black, white or Indian - was later a mystery to members of Dr. King's
entourage. They acknowledged that a white member of
the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division traveled with King and kept adjoining rooms, but that he
did not fit the description of Mrs. Bailey's visi tor.
Nor were there any black members of SCLC that fitted
the description - either in the Atlanta or Chicago
offices. Memphis SCLC leaders such as Rev. Billy
Kyles and Rev. James Lawson said they knew of no
31
local black SCLC officials who acted as advance security for Dr. King's arrival, or could fit the description given by the employee.
Jowers, however, said he is not afraid. "If they
were going to do anything to me, they would have
done ita long time ago".
The purported black visitor asked Mrs. Bailey to
show him Dr. King's suite. When he saw it was on the
first floor, he said: "No, no, Mrs. Bailey. This
simply won't do. Dr. King always likes to stay on
the second floor overlooking a swimming pool."
Jowers said the eggs and sausage
peared -- and smelled -- clean. He
alcoholic fumes. He appeared "dead
sical state that set him apart from
customers.
Mrs. Bailey quickly reversed the arrangements.
She cancelled an earlier reservation she received
for an upstairs suite overlooking the swimming pool.
She prepared it for Dr. King's arrival.
"He did not seem to be on dope either," Jowers
said. "I have seen too many of these hop-heads.
can tell by looking at their eyes, and their arms if
they are uncovered. I became curious as to why he
was down in this part of town. He was husky and
handsome enough that he would not have to come to
this part of town if he were looking for a whore or
an easy lay."
Jim's Cafe
On the day Dr. King was killed, an observer could
peer out the back door of Jim's Cafe and almost see
the balcony of The Lorraine where Dr. King was
standing when the fatal shot was fired. If endowed
with a good baseball pitcher's arm, he could step
out the back door, walk several feet to the right,
wind up, and let go with a ball that could strike
anyone standing on the balcony. From inside the
cafe, the view of the balcony was partially obscured
by a clump of bushes, and trees with broken limbs
hanging down. The same observer, outside the back
of the cafe, could walk several feet to the left (or
north) and could not see the balcony. The motel
balcony from the back door of the cafe is less than
a city block away.
The Lorraine Motel is on Mulberry Street, which
runs parallel wi th Main Street. On the day Dr.
King was killed, the lot in back of Jim's Cafe was
thick with brush overgrowth. One week after King
was killed, however, the bushes, the thick brush and
limbs from the trees were mysteriously cut, on orders from someone inside The City of Memphis government's parks division. The result was an unobstructed view of the balcony from a bathroom window
upstairs over Jim's Cafe. The window is left -- or
north -- of the Cafe's back door. This is the room
from which the Memphis police, the FBI and the
Shelby County Attorney-General's office would later
contend that the fatal shot was fired -- a trajectory that would be in a downward direction toward the
spot where King stood.
The Mysterious Man
What was the significance of the "eggs and sausage" man's vi si t to Jim's Cafe?
The man -- clad in a dark sweater, expensivelooking white dress shirt but no tie -- aroused the
curiosity of Jowers and his waitress.
customer apdid not reek of
sober" -- a phymost of Jowers'
Main Street's South End
The South end of Memphis' Main Street is an area
of blight. It marks the periphery of the city's
massive black ghetto. The businesses on this end of
Main Street are largely operated by whites in a long
row of two story buildings.
Many of the buildings contain vacancies. Many
doors and display windows are boarded up. Planks
have replaced glass in many of the display window
openings. "For Lease" signs are plastered on many
of the deserted sites. The second stories are used
as stock rooms, and warehouses in many of these
buildings. Other second story sites are rented out
as living quarters to poor whites. On streets running parallel with Main Street, as well as perpendicular to it, there are black businesses and many
decaying residences now occupied mostly by black
fami li es.
South Main parallels the Mississippi River. The
waves of "Old Man River" splash against the levee
less than five streets away, separated by the Illinois Central Railroad tracks. Jim's Cafe is less
than a quarter of a mile to the Memphis & Arkansas
Bridge, a juncture that connects with Interstate 55
headed north to St. Louis about 300 miles away, and
Interstate 40 which runs west to Little Rock less
than 150 miles away.
Above Jim's Cafe, there is a rooming house occupied exclusively by poor whites. Although Jowers
scrupulously avoids using the word "flophouse", this
is how many of his neighboring businessmen characterize the rooming establishment. (Technically,
Jowers is correct, because a flophouse denotes a
large barracks-like space where all tenants sleep on
cots, and an interior devoid of rooms and parti tions.)
'4
"He just wasn't our regular run of customer,"
Jowers said. "His physique reminded me of a football player or college athlete, but his voice suggested that he was older and more mature."
The waitress described him as "very handsome"
with dark eyes and dark wavy hair. She said he reminded her of an Indian because of his "high cheekbones" and because of his taciturn mood.
"He was quiet, did not smi Ie, short on words, and
seemed to grunt whenever I said anything to him,"
she said.
To this
man -- not
killed Dr.
not reveal
32
very day, the waitress believes this
James Earl Ray -- fired the shot that
King. For this reason, this writer will
her name, nor that of the motel employee.
The particular rooming house above Jowers' Cafe
included on the day in question "winos", redeemed
alcoholics "trying to shake the habi t", and working
whites, poor, but resentful because they had to live
with boozers who kept them up all night fighting and
drinking.
"Another reason we remember the man who ordered
eggs and sausage was because not many of our customers order those two items at that time of day," Jowers said. "AI so, the man did not order ei ther a
beer or a set-up and did not have a bottle -- that
struck us as very unusual also. He came in our
place just to eat, apparently."
Aside from the physical attraction the customer
exuded, the waitress remembers him for another
reason.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
A Disgruntled Customer
n
n
"The man kept going over to the wall where the
telephone was located but he never picked up the
phone," the wai tress said. "He looked at the wall
and appeared to be angry about something. There was
a telephone book nearby but he didn't bother using
it. I thought he might have forgotten a telephone
number or somethingl"
The waitress recalls asking him if he needed the
phone book to look up a number. She remembers him
"grunting", which she assumed to be a negative response, but does not remember what he actually said.
She said she could not tell if he had any kind of accent or not, because he would "just always mumble
when I said something to him".
The man ate his order there.
coffee. He left about 5 p.m.
He drank a cup of
Then, at 6:01 p.m., Jowers said he recalls hearing the shot that supposedly killed King. "It
sounded as if it came from the back of the cafe
rather than upstairs in the rooming house, where the
police said the killer fired it," Jowers said. "At
the time, I thought it was a backfire of an automobile over on Mulberry Street (approximately in front
of the balcony of The Lorraine)."
James Earl Ray
The official FBI and police investigation today
contends the fatal shot that killed King came from a
bathroom window upstairs in the rooming house by
James Earl Ray, 41, then an escaped convict from the
Missouri State Prison. Ray today is serving a 99year sentence for the murder of Dr. King after he
pleaded guilty in Criminal District Court in Memphis
in exchange for the 99-year sentence. It is always
relevant to point out, however, Ray's guilty plea
cannot be logically interpreted necessarily as the
confession of a man who actually fired the shot that
killed King. Coupled with the fact that Ray stated
in open court words to the effect that there had indeed been a conspiracy, Ray's guilty plea amounts to
nothing more than the fact that his attorneys had
advised him that he was deemed as guilty under the
Tennessee homicide statute as the man who fired the
shot. This is the so-called "felony murder" rule namely, anyone who participates in the commission of
a felony that results in a homicide is as guilty in
the eyes of the law as the man who actually caused
the homicide. Because the felony committed here was
murder itself, it would almost be superfluous to say
that one who conspires with another to commit murder
is as guilty as the man who actually carries out the
execution of the crime.
Conspiracy?
It is relevant to point out that in the February
1969 hearing in which Ray pleaded guilty, he appeared
eager to clarify the question as to whether there
was a conspiracy behind Dr. King's death. 3 The late
W. Preston Battle, the Memphis judge who presided
over the Ray hearing, had neither the legal nor intellectual curiosity of U.S. Judge John Sirica, who
heard the Watergate case in Washington, D.C. Judge
Battle~ not only attempted to stop Ray before Ray
could blurt out details of a conspiracy in open
courL, but Battle was aided by Ray's own defense attorney, Percy Foreman of Houston. 5 Foreman appeared
more anxious to shut his client up than the prosecution 011 the subject of conspiracy. It was Foreman's
own remarks which had prompted Ray to stand up and
ohj ee I 10 the" no conspi racy theory", but Foreman
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February. 1974
immediately entered objections to his own client's
testimony by insisting on two points: one, the prosecution presented no evidence of conspiracy; and
two, any evidence of conspiracy would have nothing
to do with that particular trial nor with having
any effect on his client's guilty plea and the subsequent sentence. Battle quickly upheld Foreman's
objections.
Today Ray is appealing his guilty plea. Asking
for a new trial, based upon Percy Foreman's improper
and "unethical" representation, Ray's appeal has
gone through the state courts and has been rejected.
He is now appealing through the federal courts. He
is represented by Robert Livingston, a Memphis attorney; and Bernard Fensterwald, a Washington, D.C.
attorney who is also representing James McCord in
the Watergate case. Fensterwald is also executive
director of the privately financed Committee To Investigate Assassinations. 6
As most readers know, Ray was arrested at the
London International Airport by Scotland Yard agents
after he had eluded the FBI in the U.S., fled to
Canada, later flew to England, then to Portugal for
several days. His arrest at the London Airport came
when he had returned to England and was prepared to
fly to Brussels on a forged passport.
Ray became the chief suspect when Memphis Police
Inspector N.E. Zachary found a bundle near the foot
of the stairwell leading to the rooming house over
Jim's Cafe. The bundle contained the rifle which
the FBI would later say was the murder weapon because of shells found with it that were of the same
caliber as the bull~t that shattered in King's body.
Wrapped in a bedspread which contained fibers from
the trunk of Ray's car, the bundle also contained a
radio with Ray's Missouri State Prison serial number on it; a suitcase with clothing belonging to a
man smaller than Ray as well as clothing belonging
to Ray; and binoculars with Ray's fingerprints on
them. Tracing them to a Memphis store where the
binoculars had been purchased the day before, police
also obtained a statement from a clerk that identified Ray as the purchaser.
Cafe Investigation
Back at the cafe after King was killed, Jowers
had said he thought the blasting sound to the rear
of his cafe and toward Mulberry Street was the backfire of a truck. Minutes after the sound, police
swarmed over the area, taking positions in front of
the cafe. They told Jowers no one could leave the
cafe. (About 5:30 p.m., after the eggs and sausage
man left, the cafe had filled with workers who had
just gotten off duty at a nearby paper company. It
was payday and many of them came to cash pay checks
and drink beer.)
"The police were rushing around like chickens
with their heads cut off," Jowers said. "They did
not seem to know where the shot was fired. I later
learned it was almost an hour before they went upstairs to the rooming house to question anyone up
there. Before that, and minutes after the shooting,
they were inside my cafe. Some of the officers went
back to the kitchen and out the back door."
A police captain, Jowers said, questioned him at
length about the customers he had during the day and
if he had any suspicious looking customers. Jowers
quickly recalled the "eggs and sausage man".
Jowers said: "When I told them about his movements, the captain called over some plainclothesmen
33
to question me. They could have been FBI men because they did not look familiar and I know at least
by face most of the Memphis detectives."
then almost step on him running from the bushes.
Carter was jailed shortly aft~rwards for public
drunkeness. Ray's defense attorneys deemed Carter's story significant because: 1) he was white;
2) he had never seen or talked to Jones before
the slaying; and 3) he was on record as telling
his story to police on the night of the slaying
before police had constructed the upstairs bathroom as the scene of the crime.
Harold Weisberg, The Frame-Up, Distributed by E.
P. Dutton & Co., P-I06, 107.
John Seigenthaler, A Search For Justice, (Aurora
Publishers), PP-187-188! P199.
Author Seigenthaler, editor of The Nashville Tennessean, one
of the most respected metropolitan dailies in the
Mid-South, severely takes Judge Battle to task for
not putting Rayon the witness stand and eliciting details about the conspiracy Ray suggested
that led to Dr. King's death. As Judge Sirico
did in the Watergate case, Judge Battle had the
authority to do this because Ray at that point
could not plead self-incrimination as he had already pleaded guilty.
Frame-Up, P-I03. Weisberg points out the curious
fact that only Foreman said there "was no conspiracy" in open court. The prosecutors only
said there was "no evidence of conspiracy" in
King's death.
As the reader will learn later on, Fensterwald
obtained a rap sheet and other data on a man that
the Committee has tentatively identified as the
"eggs and sausage man". More will be said in a
subsequent article about this tentative suspect,·
under the code-name of "Jack Armstrong".
0
The captain and the plainclothesmen seemed very
interested in the "eggs and sausage man". They also
questioned the waitress, and examined the table
where he sat, and the wall near the telephone, Jowers pointed out.
3.
The plainclothesmen left. The police captain
told Jowers: "If that 'eggs and sausage man' comes
back, you get on the phone and call us immediately.
He is probably our man."
4.
(In the next installment - "The Eggs and Sausage Man Returns")
Footnotes
1. Jim Bishop, The Days of Martin Luther King Jr.
(G.P. Putnam & Sons), P-61. Bishop accepts a
conspiracy theory behind King's murder but paradoxically accepts some key assumptions of the official "non-conspiracy" theory - namely that the
shot was fired from a second story bathroom window over Jim's Cafe. Thus, he must accept the
downward trajectory conclusion of Dr. Jerry Francisco, Memphis medical examiner who performed the
autopsy on King's body. Francisco ignored eyewitness testimony that Dr. King was hunched over
the balcony railing, looking down to the ground
floor when the shot was fired. Francisco's pure
medical findings cannot be faulted - namely, the
bullet entered King's lower right jaw, severed
the neck from the spinal cord with fragments coming to rest at the back of his neckline. Note, in
a leaning position, Dr. King's lower jaw would be
on a lower plane than the rear of his neckline.
Viewed within this frame of reference, Dr. Francisco's medical findings would be consistent with
an upward trajectory. A brilliant forensic pathologist, Dr. Francisco has been bitterly criticized by Memphis defense attorneys for anticipating what the prosecution wants to ~rove in a
given case, and then extrapolating legal conclusions from his medical findings to corroborate
the prosecutor's theory. His findings were bitterly disputed in two other widely-publicized
Memphis murders. One involved a wealthy Memphis
merchant convicted largely on Dr. Francisco's
medical testimony. The conviction was reversed
on appeal. Dr. Robert Hausmann, a noted American
forensic pathologist, and assistant medical examiner of New York City, gave expert medical testimony for the defense, rebutting all of Dr. Francisco's findings. An appellate judge said Dr.
Hausmann's rebuttal testimony was sufficient to
have justified a directed verdict in the defendant's favor.
2. Gerold Frank, An American Death (Doubleday &Co.),
P-283. Frank relates Jones' story in one paragraph from second hand sources, indicating he
never interviewed Jones. Frank also cites
another witness, Harold (Cornbread) Carter, who
corroborates Jones' story about a man in the
bushes. Again, Frank only relates Carter's story
by citing official reports, indicating he never
talked personally with Carter. This writer was
unfortunate in that he did not get to talk to
Carter o~ the night of the slaying, but I reached
him several weeks later. He related substantially the same story, but indicated he had been
subjected to police pressure. Carter's story was
essentially this: he had been in the bushes
drinking wine and had fallen asleep. The shot
woke him up. He saw a man in an adjoining hedge
jump up, and throw something over his head and
34
5.
6.
DID YOU ENJOY THIS ISSUE
of
COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE
Would you like to send it at no cost to some friends of yours,
with a message?
We'll join you half-way - you send us his name and address
(with zip) and the message, and we will send the issue and
your message to him TOGETHER WITH a gentle "soft-sell"
invitation to subscribe to Computers and People.
We have set aside a hundred copies of this issue for this purpose. So long as they last, we can carry out your request.
Just fill in the following and send it to us:
• - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (may be copied on any piece of paper) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To:
(
Computers and People
815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160
) I request that you send a copy of the _ _ _ _ _ _ issue of
Computers and People to
(use additional paper if desirable)
1. Name ____________________
My message _ _ _ _ __
Address __________________
2. Name ____________________
My message _ _ _ _ __
Address, __________________
3. Name, _____________________
My message _ _ _ _ __
Address. ___________________
My name and address (and zip) are attached. I am a subscriber to
Computers and People.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK
Computing and Data Processing Newsletter
Table of Contents
Ghetto Life Through Computer Simulation
APPLICATIONS
UW Hospitals Using Computer Interviews to
Aid Suicide Prevention
Scofflaws Don't Get Far in Montreal
Earth Resources Production Processing
System Developed by Philco-Ford
Minicomputer Matches Colors of Fabrics
35
35
36
37
COMPUTER RELATED SERVICES
England's Kidney Matching Service Tope
the 1,000 Mark
Third Party Escrow Service
37
38
36
MISCELLANEOUS
r,
EDUCATION NEWS
"Computer Blackboard" Assists in
Teaching Finance
37
APPLICATIONS
UW HOSPITALS USING COMPUTER INTERVIEWS
TO AID SUICIDE PREVENTION
University News and Publications Service
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bascom Hall
Madison, Wisc. 53706
The Wisconsin Department of Health and Social
Services reported 447 suicides in Wisconsin every
year from 1966 to 1970. Psychiatry Prof. John H.
Greist says, "The actual rate is probably twice
that. It's impossible to tell how many deaths attributed to other things are really suicides. There
is a real need for suicide prediction."
People who have tendencies toward suicides can be
helped -- if they are identified in time. The Suicide Risk Prediction Program at the University of
Wisconsin (UW) Hospitals now uses a computer to determine potentially suicidal people. Questions appear on a screen and the patient types in answers.
The interview takes from 45 minutes to three hours.
The computer makes a prediction on the likelihood of
suicide in two and one-half minutes.
A program developer, Prof. Greist says that many
people actually prefer discussing personal problems
with the computer. "If, for example, a person is
talking about influenza symptoms, he usually prefers
talking with a doctor. But when talking about problems that may be socially deviant, many prefer the
computer. It's a nonjudgmental interviewer that
doesn't raise its eyebrows at anything."
And the computer makes fewer mistakes than a doctor. "In a study done to determine how accurate the
computer is in determining potential suicides, we
found that the computer was right 70 per cent of the
time, and the clinicians, only 40 per cent," Dr.
Greist said.
Uesides being available day or night, the computer is more economical than a clinician. Between
o a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays a computer interview
costs $3, and only $1.50 other times. The patients,
who voluntarily agree to the computer interview, are
seen by the staff if the computer determines they
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
Dynamic Consumer Market Predicted for
Microelectronic Calculators
38
are high suicide risks. The program was developed
by Prof. Greist in conjunction with UW industrial
engineering Prof. David H. Gustafson.
SCOFFLAWS DON'T GET FAR IN MONTREAL
Peter R. Sigmund
Sperry Univac
P.O. Box 500
Blue Bell, Pa. 19422
Motorists take traffic tickets seriously in
Montreal.
They have no choice.
A computer coordinates the collection of fines
for motor vehicle violations with the persistency of
a bloodhound, levying increasingly severe penalties
if the offender doesn't pay. As the last straw, it
even issues "warrants for commi tment" of dyed-i n-thewool scofflaws who disregard its mailed notices.
The computerized system, called SYCOM (System of
the Municipal Court) is so reliable that the city
recovers about 95 per cent of fines for moving or
parking violations. SYCOM handles about 750,000 .
parking and 250,000 moving violations each year in
the City of Montreal, whose population is about
1,300,000. The central computer is a UNIVAC 1106
from Sperry Rand Corporation's Sperry Univac Division.
Here's how the system works: Police officers return information on motor vehicle violations each
day at their own stations. The data is checked and
entered into the computer's FASTRAND II memory. The
1106 then sends a notice to the motorist with the
date of the violation, the registration, year, and
make of his car, and the time limit for paying the
fine.
If the fine for a moving violation isn't paid,
the penalty is increased and the computer issues a
summons to appear before th~ Municipal Court. If the
motorist remains recalcitrant, he is "judged by default," and the 1106 inssues a "Notice of Judgment"
with a stiffer fine. Finally, the computer may issue a warrant to take the offender into custody.
SYCOM uses about 15 per cent of the computer's
capacity. The 1106 also handles the city and urban
community data processing needs for some 27 department s.
35
EARTH RESOURCES PRODUCTION PROCESSING SYSTEM
DEVELOPED BY PHILCO-FORD CORPORATION
Northern California Public Relations Dept.
Aerospace and Communications Operations
Phildo-Ford Corporation
3939 Fabian Way
Palo Alto, Calif. 94303
Incredible amounts of earth resources information, with uses ranging from better map making to
monitoring crop disease to controlling pollution,
are being generated by the Skylab spacecraft and
by related "underflights" of five highly instrumented NASA aircraft.
In technical terms, it's estimated that roughly
337-billion computer "bytes" of earth resources data
will have been accumulated between the first Skylab
launch in June and final splashdown of the current
Skylab spacecraft.
If this much information were relayed to earth
via systems used for Apollo moon missions, transmission alone would take nearly two years. For this
reason, astronauts and pilots hand-carry the earth
resources information back to Mission Control Center, at Johnson Space Center, Texas, recorded on 28and 14-track computer tapes.
To process so much data and make it usable by
scientists, Philco-Ford Corporation -- prime contractor to NASA for engineering and operations support at the Mission Control Center -- developed the
Earth Resources Production Processing System.
According to Robert T. Benware, director of Phil
Philco-Ford's Houston Operation, the processor is
ususual in many ways. "This is the first time mInIcomputers have been used to handle such a tremendous
volume of data," he said. "The key to successfully
using small computers to do such a big job was the
development of a unique interface controller and new
software concepts that keep error rate low. By doing
this, we were able to save more than half-a-million
dollars over the cost of a large system."
The Production Processor performs its task in
several steps. The data from 28-track Skylab tapes
is first transferred to 14-track tapes of the type
used by "underflight" aircraft. A Preprocessing
Subsystem then converts all 14-track tapes to 9track, computer-compatible tape, and summaries of
preliminary findings are furnished to principal scientific investigators. From these, investigators
can select specific areas for which they want complete data provided.
Next comes the data processing phase, where
sensor information requested by scientists is put
in usable form. Readings are converted to standard
engineering units, data is sorted and tabulated, and
various geometric and radiometric corrections are
made. The information is analyzed, correlated and
edited, then sent back to the scientists.
Some tapes are also prepared for image processing. A Production Film-Converter Subsystem accepts
both raw and corrected data from 9-track tapes and
plots it on a microfilm printer, producing detailed
images of the geographic areas scanned by Skylab and
aircraft sensors. Approximately a million bits of
data are required to produce one 4-by-4-inch microfilm image.
Philco-Ford modified standard, off-the-shelf microfilm equipment for this task instead of designing
new, highly specialized hardware. The modifications
permit processing of information from several different types of sensors by making only minor changes
in software parameters.
MINICOMPUTER MATCHES COLORS OF FABRICS
Edgar E. Geithner
Data General Corp.
Southboro, Mass. 01772
Precise color control plays a crucial role in a
textile company's production and sales. A 1,000
pound batch of yarn that is one shade off the desired color must either be redyed or sold at a reduced price.
Avondale Milles, Sylacauga, Ala., one of the
world's largest textile dyeing operations, is using
a Nova 1200 computer, made by Data General Corporation, to control a system that has cut off-shade
problems by 40 per cent, and has raised production
10 per cent by increasing efficiency. The computer
is the central processor of a direct digital control
system made for dyehouses by Information Laboratories, Inc., of Charlotte, N.C. Their process control
systems also are used in the petrochemical industry.
The key computer-controlled processing areas at
Avondale Mills are the drug room, where dyes are
mixed, and the individual dye machines. In the drug
room, the Nova 1200 chooses the proper combination
of 12 chemicals, selects the correct mixing tank,
and notifies the operator when the mixing is complete.
- This partial image, provided by NASA and originally in color,
came from data generated by the spectral scanner aboard Skylab.
It covers a portion of Northern California near the City of Eureka; at left is the Pacific Ocean. These non-photographic pictures are useful in mapping, agriculture, forestry, geology, hydrology and oceanology.
36
Once yarn is loaded into one of Avondale's kiers,
or dyeing vats, an operator in the central control
room types instructions to the computer, indicating
which machine is ready for operation, and which dye
cycle should be used for that machine. The computer
then takes over, first injecting the dye, then monitoring and adjusting the pressure and temperature
within a vat. This maintains conditions that allow
a specific dye to react best wi~h a particular fiber.
Seventy-eight of Avondale's 100 keirs are under
computer control. Before the system was installed,
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
an operator had to watch each dyeing machine constantly, and try to maintain proper conditions by
opening and closing valves at the proper time. Avondale managers said the computer-controlled dyeing
operation allows them to produce a product of unexcelled quality; and the operators now are working at
other jobs where their skills are better used.
EDUCATION NEWS
"COMPUTER BLACKBOARD" ASSISTS
IN TEACHING FINANCE AT NU
Ben Harrison
Northwestern University News
2530 Ridge A venue
Evanston, III. 60201
Computer-controlled television monitoring sets
and terminals are being used in the classroom at
Northwestern's Graduate School of Management to help
teach finance and economics by providing instant
printout solutions to complex management problems.
Funded by a $31,300 grant from the Exxon Foundation, the "Exxon-Northwestern on-line computer
blackboard" uses portable computer terminals and
television monitors in the classroom. Eugene M.
Lerner, professor of finance, and William J. Breen,
associate professor of finance, prepared the grant
proposal to Exxon Foundation for this experiment in
teaching techniques.
For example, said Breen, the "computer blackboard" provides examples of real business situations
to answer "what if?" type of questions. "In one
course currently offered, the computer is programmed
to provide a macro-model of the U.S. economy," Breen
said. "Then various 'what if?' type questions are
fed into it to see resulting changes. An illustrative question is: 'what happens to income and interest rates if the Federal Reserve raises bank reserve s? '"
Other computer programs have been prepared on
leasing programs, linear program models in finance
(use of mathematical techniques to solve financial
questions) and corporate reports to include income
statements, balance sheets, and cash-flow statements
for 1,000 companies for the last 20 years.
.'
"Cases which professors use on the 'computer
blackboard' are designed to assist in the teaching
of finance, not to make programmers of students,"
Breen said. He said that students may spend as much
time as necessary to evaluate answers from the "computer blackboard". Students are provided with flow
charts of the program, well-documented program listings, and sample printouts, as well as copies of the
TV output generated during the classroom experience.
The "computer blackboard" system consists of
eight closed-circuit television monitoring sets and
two computer terminals which may be moved from
classroom to classroom.
GHETTO LIFE THROUGH COMPUTER SIMULATION
News Bureau
Division of Public Information
Oklahoma State University
Stil/walDr, Okla. 74074
lIistory students at Oklahoma State University are
getting a feel for the frustrations and pressures of
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
ghetto life without ever leaving the campus. Through
computer simulation, the students assume roles as
ghetto residents. Using data stored in an IBM System/360 Model 65, they can simulate up to 10 years
of ghetto life.
"Many of our students grew up in rural communities and believe people in the ghetto fail to get
ahead because they're lazy and avoid education and
employment opportunities," said history Prof. Charles M. Dollar. "Those atti tudes usually change
quickly when students discover everyday ghetto obstacles during the computer simulation sessions."
Working at typewriter terminals tied to the computer, students decide how much time to allocate to
education, work, recreation and neighborhood improvement. A player in the "ghetto game" earns reward points as he improves his condition. The points
can be earned for completing high school and college
or for moving through various job levels into the
professional ranks.
The number of simulated hours a student may invest
varies according to the role he plays, Dr. Dollar
said. For example, a divorced mother can invest only
half the hours available to an unmarried woman with
no children.
Those who decide to further their education may
encounter other frustrations. There may be no room
for them in trade schools or colleges. Some may be
able to go to school only part time because they
support families. Dollar said players sometimes
discover their limited educations qualify them only
for unskilled employment.
The computer has been programmed to randomly assign other chance factors that further frustrate
students. Such setbacks as illness, pay reductions
and even the possibility of becoming a robbery vic~
tim are considered. When these penalties are assessed, a student's score is reduced to slow his
progress.
William V. Accola, formerly of the OSU Computer
Center staff, helped Dollar write the computer simulation program. Financial support for this project
and other computer-assisted learning efforts in history and the social sciences came from the OSU Research Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the Gulf Oil Foundation.
COMPUTER-RELATED SERVICES
ENGLAND'S KIDNEY MATCHING SERVICE
TOPS THE 1,000 MARK
Brooks Roberst & John Aeberhard
Carl Byoir & Associate3, Inc.
800 Second A venue
New York, N. Y. 10017
In Bristol, England, a computer-based kidney
matching service has topped the 1,000 mark. The service is operated for the National Tissue Typing reference laboratory by the South Western Regional Hospital Board.
The National Organ Matching and Distribution Service went into operation under the auspices of the
Department of Health on February 1, 1972, embracing
26 donor centers across the UK as well as three coordinating centers in Europe. It is involved in
twice as many kidney transplants in proportion to
population as are being done in the United States,
37
and handles at least 90 per cent of all UK kidney
transplants.
The service centralizes tissue-typing information
on all patients awaiting kidney transplants at the
participating centers and compares it with similar
data on the donor. There is a severe shortage of
donor kidneys, and the time between known availability and the transplant operation can be no more than
16 hours; ideally it is less than 10. Therefore,
the service operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a
year, with an on-call duty officer, computer operator and tissue-typing serologist.
Because of the complexities of the matching process and the importance of speed, the service is
feasible only with computer help. The key to the
matching process lies in identifying antigens which,
if present in the transplant and not in the host,
would provoke the formation of antibodies in the
host's blood, causing rejection of the kidney. These
antigents are identified by blood sera known to contain specific antibodies. More than 100 blood sera
are used nationally for reference purposes. The work
of identifying them requires extensive computer support, involving large matrix comparisons. The South
Western Regional Hospital Board's computer center
provides this support on a bureau basis, as well as
running the matching programs immediately when a
donor kidney becomes available.
On the average this happens once or twice a day
but as many as eight matchings have been undertaken
in a 24-hour period. From the time the telephone
rings in the computer center announcing an available
donor to the time the duty operator calls the National Tissue Typing laboratory with the results of
the computer run only 10 to 15 minutes elapse, with
the record standing at four minutes.
The information provided by the computer lists
the 10 best matches near the donor center, also nationally within the UK and finally on a European
basis when necessary. It notes the quality of the
match, the degree of urgency of need on the part of
the waiting patient, the blood group and particular
antibodies that have been identified. On the basis
of this information the National Tissue Typing laboratory makes the choice of recipient and then
everything swings into action to get the kidney to
the right place in time.
MISCELLANEOUS
DYNAMIC CONSUMER MARKET PREDICTED
FOR MICROELECTRONIC CALCULATORS
Jack Hefley
Microelectronic Product Division
Rockwell International Corp.
3430 Miraloma A venue
Anaheim, Calif. 92803
"The true consumer market for microelectronic
calculators is just beginning to emerge, and its
potential is in the billions of dollars worldwide."
This assessment was made by Harold L. Edge, vice
president and general manager of the Microelectronic
Product Division, in a review of the calculator industry. The division is a major manufacturer of
consumer calculators for mass merchandisers and
other electronic equipment companies and produces a
wide range of industrial products.
Edge said results experienced by the industry in
1973 pointed to a rapidly growing consumer interest
in microelectronic calculators. "The growth of the
market is dramatically evident in calculators sold
through retail stores," he said. "Just two years
ago, there was virtually no market in this segment."
The hand-held,
microelectronic
calculators with
a memory capability, shown at the
left, were leaders in calculator
sales this past
Christmas season.
The market for
"consumer" calculators didn't even
exist before 1969,
but now is valued
at half a billion
dollars a year
worldwide.
THIRD PARTY ESCROW SERVICE
International Computer Programs, Inc.
2506 Willowbrook Parkway
Indianapolis, Ind. 46205
A new and certainly different software service
has been initiated by ICP. Entitled the Third
Party Escrow Service, it w~s created to solve the
problem of a software buyer whose vendor does not
provide the source code.
The solution of this problem arises by means of
a three-way agreement between the buyer, his vendor
and ICP. The international information service
pledges to maintain all source decks, documentation,
etc., in a bank vault under fully insured conditions
for the life of the contract. In this way, should
the vendor be in a position of inability to support
the package for one reason or another, his source
program remains available to the buyer.
It was due to interested inquiries about such a
service, from many subscribers to the ICP Quarterly,
t1w t the Thi rd Party Escrow Servi ce became a rea Ii ty.
38
The greatest retail impact in 1973 was in the
following three categories of calculators: (1) the
so-called "low end" models, capable only of adding,
subtracting, multiplying and dividing; (2) the basic
models, which have the above capabilities and also
offer full-floating decimal positioning, percent
key, repeat operations, constant operations and memory; and, (3) the specialty calculators, which include "slide rule," scientific. finance and conversion models.
"The advent of the low end calculator is the natural consequence of trying to cash in on the mass
consumer market," said Edge. "It's interesting to
note that although these low end calculators have
the largest potential market in their own right,
they are also expected to promote increased sales
for more sophisticated calculators. Experience has
shown that low end calculators serve as the natural
customer steppingstone to machines with greater
capability."
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
NEW CONTRACTS
FOR
TO
Burroughs Corporation,
Detroit, Mich.
GTE Information Systems Inc.,
subsidiary of General Telephone
& Electronics Corp., Stamford,
Conn.
Societe de Banque Suisse
(Swiss Bank Corporation),
Basel, Geneva, and Zurich
Bache & Co. Inc., New York,
N.Y.
Pertec Corp. (ASE) ,
El Segundo, Calif.
Wyle Laboratories,
El Segundo, Calif.
Singer Business Machines
Div., The Singer Co., San
Leandro, Calif.
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA)
Calspan Corporation,
Buffalo, N.Y.
Western Electric Co.
Information International,
Inc., Los Angeles, Calif.
U.S. Navy
Computer Sciences Corp.
(CSC) , El Segundo, Calif.
Honeywell, Inc.,
Wellesley llills, Mass.
Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) , Nevada Operations
Office, Las Vegas, Nevada
Seattle-First National Bank,
Seattle, Wash.
Terminal Uata Corporation,
Van Nuys, Calif.
National Cash Register Co.,
Dayton, Ohio
Burroughs Corporation,
Detroit, Mich.
Reynolds and Reynolds Co.,
Dayton, Ohio
GTE Sylvania Inc., subsidiary
of General Telephone & Electronics Corp., Stamford,
Conn.
Massachusetts Dept. of Public
Works, Waltham, Mass.
Ampex Corporation,
Marina del Hey, Calif.
Xerox Corporation, El
Segundo, Calif.
CSP Inc., Burlington, Mass.
U. S. "Government
Digital Equipment Corp.,
Maynard, Mass.
Gallaudet College, Washington,
D.C.
Data 100 Corp., Minneapolis,
Minn.
Department of Interior, U.S.
Geological Survey
Data 100 Corp., Minneapolis,
Minn.
State of California, Business
and Transportation Agency,
Sacramento, Calif.
Measurex Corporation,
Cupertino, Calif.
Greenwood Mills, Greenwood,
S.C.
The Singer Co., Business
Machines Div., San Leandro,
Calif.
Ohrbach's, New York, N.Y.
Univac Uiv., Sperry Rand
Corp., Blue Bell, Pa.
Litton Educational Publishing Inc., div. of Litton
Industries, New York, N.Y.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
Six medium-scale B3700 computers, 200 System and Communications Processors, and
1,000 on-line terminal units
High-speed global data communications system to handle world-wide securities and
commodi ties traffic wi th a "customized"
network covering 131 Bache offices and 52
stock and commodi ty exchanges in 11 countries
Cathode-ray tube (CRT) terminals over a
three-year period to be marketed for use
with Singer's "System Ten"
"Instrument Support Services"; includes
design and modification of special purpose
data acquisition display and control systems; programming and operating on-line
computers; providing complex instrument
calibration, maintenance, and documentation services
Tasks associated with Safeguard anti-ballistic-missile system; a subcontract from
Western Electric for the U.S. Army
A GRAPHIX I technical manual republication
system (a stand-alone information recycling
facili ty); it reads printed pages of existing technical manuals into computer form;
corrected/updated information is republished
into human-readable form using International's COMp 80 microform photocomposition unit
Computer facilities management; supportsAEC
and its contractors at Nevada Operations and
other Federal Government agencies
Purchase of Honeywell Model 6080 central
processor to replace one of two models
currently on lease; system will handle
general banking applications
Microfilm equipment
$20+- million
1,000 adding machines which print figures
in special typeface that can be read by
electronic optical readers
Installation and maintenance of closed-circuit television traffic monitoring equipment in Grea ter Boston area; equipment wi 11
be part of surveillance and control system
to improve traffic flow and safety conditions on three interstate highways
TMA model tape drives for use in the offline model of new Xerox 1200 computer
printing system
Three Digital Signal Processing Systems
built around CSP-30 computer; will be
used for speech research applications
Major expansion of DECsystem-lO, to permit students from adjoining elementary
and secondary schools for the deaf to
participate in special computer-supported
instruction programs
Up to 20 Model 78 remote batch terminals
on an as-needed basis, with option of increasing aggregate order to a total of 30
terminals; rental income may be in excess
of $1.7 million during 3-year period if
all options are fully exercised
25 computer terminals consisting of 19
Model 71 and 6 Model 78 remote batch terminals; systems will produce $700,000 in
rental income during 2-year contract period
"A Computer Control System providing digital computer control of a polyester double
knit finishing operation
MUTS* electronic point-of-sale systems for
12 stores in the New York and Los Angeles
areas; systems include Model 902 electronic
terminals with Model 705 tag readers and
Sin er S stem Ten o com uters
A Univac 90 70 Computer System to speed
up textbook production and distribution
service to high schools, colleges, special schools, and business firm libraries
$1.2 million
$12 mi Ilion
$11 million
(approximate)
$8+ million
$6.2 million
$4 million
$3+ million
$2 million
$2.4 million
$1.1 million
$1+ million
$500,000+$225,000
39
NEW INSTALLATIONS
Burroughs B 6700 dual system
Burroughs B 6700 system
Digital Equipment DECsystem-IO
Honeywell Model 316 system
Honeywell Model 2020 system
Honeywell 6030 system
Honeywell dual Model 6040 system
IBM System 370 Model 168
NCR Century 50
NCR Century 101 system
NCR Century 251 system
NCR Century 300 system
Univac 1106 system
Univac 1108 system
Univac 1110 system
Univac 9480 system
40
The Dime Savings Bank of New York,
N.Y.
Lomas and Nettleton Company,
Houston, Texas
On-line banking service to tellers in eight offices located around the New York Metropoli tan area
Data communications between computer center and
company's seven regional service centers
(system valued at $1.9 million)
Ramada Inns, Inc., Phoenix,
Managing all data for nationwide reservation service,
Ariz.
and handling major accounting and payroll tasks
(system valued at more than $1.7 million)
Controlling movement of pallets holding food
Van Den Berghs & Jurgens Ltd.,
Purfleet, Essex, England
products in an II-level warehouse; system will
handle 70 pallet inputs an hour and 85 pallet
outputs per 24 hour day
(part of $1.7 million system)
E. T. Barwick Mills Ltd.,
Providing inventory recording and order processBolton, Lancashire, England
ing, and accounting routines
(system valued at more than $120,000)
Banking and cash-flow management, fund accounting,
Treasury Department, State of
Oregon, Salem, Ore.
investment accounting, budgetary administration
and safekeeping functions
(system valued at $160,000)
University of Bologna,
Administrative tasks, statistical research on uniBologna, Italy
versity population, automation of student library,
and for "business games" in cooperation with university's Management Studies Institute
BancOhio Corporation, Ohio National
All data processing for the corporation and afBank, Columbus, Ohio
filiated banks; 6060 will be installed later
(s stem valued at 3.1 million)
Calspan Corporation, Buffalo, N.Y.
Expansion of computer technology into new commercial and scientific markets
(system valued at $4 million)
Williams Energy Company, Tulsa,
Computerizing customer and dealer billing procedOkla.
ures; encoders will be located in Williams' district sales offices around the nation; each will
communicate with a computer located in one of
firm's regional accounting offices
Jacome's, Tucson, Ariz.
Use in a complete electronic sales-recording and
credit-authorization system, including 50 NCR
280 pointOof-sale terminals and two NCR 723 data
collectors
National College of Business,
Teaching of computer programming; also for student
Rapid City, S.D.
scheduling and general accounting
Kansas State Bank and Trust Co.,
Expanding processing capabilities and conversion
Wichita, Kansas
of Central Information File (CIF) to on-line
operations
Louis Cron Ltd., Basle, Switzerland
Serving as nucleus of extensive on-line network
linking firm with its affiliated companies; system
replaces a smaller computer
Bassin Parisien Savings Bank Center, Nucleus of new on-line Central Information File
Gaillon, France
System serving nine savings banks with 83 branches
Midi II Savings Bank (Caisse
Nucleus of new on-line Central Information File
D'Epargne et Prevoyance) Toulon,
System serving a total of 24 savings banks with
France
100 branches
Bassani-Ticino Group, Milan,
Center of information system to serve all organizaItaly
tional units of the Group; applications include
production control and personnel administration for
Varese facility, and also provide data processing
services for other users wi thin Bassani-Ticino Group
(system valued at $1.16 million)
Department of Finance, State of
Present and projected requirements of the Bureau
Ohio, Columbus, Ohio
of Motor Vehicles and State Highway Patrol
(system valued at $4.2 million)
Gulf Research & Development Co.,
Seismic data processing and production research;
Gulf Pittsburgh Research Center,
two systems were installed in Gulf's Houston
Pi ttsburgh, Pa.
facili ty
(3 systems)
(system valued at approximately $6 million)
British Petroleum.(BP) Trading
Centralizing data processing activities now being
Ltd., London, England
performed at several company locations in the U.K.
(system valued at approximately $7 million)
Fiat, Turin, Italy
Administrative, statistical and engineering applications
(system valued at approximately $11.2 million)
Hand S Bakery, Baltimore, Md.
Route accounting, bake estimates, inventory control, general accounting and payroll processing
Target Trust Group, United Kingdom
Processing all new policy applications, distribution vouchers and warrants and will maintain files
for on-line access
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
-
MONTHLY COMPUTER CENSUS
Neil Macdonald
Survey Editor
COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE
-
The following is a summary made by COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE of reports
and estimates of the number of general purpose digital computers
manufactured and installed, or to be manufactured and on order. These
figures are mailed to individual computer manufacturers quarterly 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. A few manufacturers refuse to give out,
confirm, or comment on any figures.
Part 1 of the Monthly Computer Census contains reports for United
States manufacturers, A to H, and is published in January, April, July,
and October. Part 2 contains reports for United States manufacturers,
I to Z, and is published in February, May, August, and November.
Part 3 contains reports for manufacturers outside of the United States
and is published in March, June, September, and December.
Our census seeks to include all digital computers manufactured anywhere. We invite all manufacturers to submit information that would
help make these figures as accurate and complete as possible.
The following abbreviations apply:
(A) -- authoritative figures, derived essentially from information
sent by the manufacturer directly to COMPUTERS AND
PEOPLE
figure is combined in a total
acknowledgment is given to DP Focus, Marlboro, Mass., for
their help in estimating many of these figures
figure estimated by COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE
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
figures derived all or in part from information released
indirectly by the manufacturer, or from reports by other
sources likely to be informed
sale only, and sale (not rental) price is stated
no longer in production
information not obtained at press time and/or not released
by manufacturer
C
(D)
E
(N)
(R)
(S)
X
SUMMARY AS OF JANUARY 15, 1974
NAME OF
NAME OF
MANUFACTURER
COMPUTER
Part 2. United States Manufacturers I-Z
IBM
305
Whi te Plains, N.Y.
650
(N) (D) (Jan. 1974)
1130
1401
l40l-G
l40l-H
1410
1440
1460
1620 I, II
1800
7010
7030
704
7040
7044
705
7020,
7074
7080
7090
7094-1
7094-II
System/3 Model 6
Sys tem/ 3 Model 10
System/3 Model 15
System/7
360/20
360/22
360/25
360/30
360/40
360/44
360/50
360/65
360/67
360/75
360/85
360/90
360/9l
360/190
360/195
370/115
370/125
370/135
370/145
370/155
370/158
370/165
370/168
370/195
Interdata
Model 1
Oceanport, N.J.
Model 3
(II) (Oct. 1973)
Model 4
Model 5
Model 7/16
Model 7/32
Model 15
Model 16
Model 18
Model 50/55
Model 70
Model 74
Model 80
Model 85
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
DATE OF
FIRST
INSTALLATION
AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF MONTIILY RENTAL
$ (000)
NUMBER OF INSTALLATIONS
Outside
In
In
U.S.A.
World
U.S.A.
12/57
10/67
2/66
9/60
5/64
6/67
11/61
4/63
10/63
9/60
1/66
10/63
5/61
12/55
6/63
6/63
11/55
3/60
3/60
8/61
11/59
9/62
4/64
3/71
1/70
3.6
4.8
1.5
5.4
2.3
1.3
17.0
4.1
10.0
4.1
5.1
26.0
160.0
32.0
25.0
36.5
38.0
27.0
35.0
60.0
63.5
75.0
83.0
1.0
1.1
40
50
2580
2210
420
180
156
1690
194
285
416
67
4
12
35
28
18
10
44
13
4
10
6
8
8
11/71
12/65
9/71
1/68
5/65
4/65
7/66
8/65
11/65
10/65
2/66
12/69
11/67
0.35 and up
2.7
4.6
5.1
10.3
19.3
ll.8
29.1
57.2
133.8
66.9
150.3
16
7161
1000
1112
5487
2454
109
1136
604
65
50
4/71
4/73
5/72
9/71
2/71
-/73
5/71
-/73
6/73
12/70
5/67
8/68
11/70
-/74
-/74
1/69
5/71
6/71
5/72
10/71
2/73
10/72
6/73
II
15
18
1227
1836
450
140
ll6
ll74
63
186
148
17
1
1
27
3
3
26
2
2
4
4
55
68
3807
4046
870
320
272
2864
257
471
564
84
5
13
62
41
21
13
70
15
6
14
10
6075
300
759
2535
1524
57
445
144
6
17
1
16
13236
1300
1871
8022
3978
166
1581
748
71
67
12
1363
39
662
562
99
12
55
15
9
48
13
5
1
13
232.0
8.2-13.8
14.4
23.3
48.0
49.5-85.0
98.7
93.0-170.0
190.0-270.0
3.7
13.1
8.5
X
20.0
X
X
NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS
1780
1287
1
13
2
4
1
3
2
2/,4
75
27/,
115
20
319
200
389
90
24
6
7
10
ll6
8
3
64
7
9
85
582
49
18
70
40
1
2
75
466
41
15
1
X
32
X
X
X
X
ll5
107
126
30
41
NAME OF
MANUFACTURER
Microdntn Corp.
Irvine, Calif.
(A) (SeEt. 19732
NCR
Dayton, Ohio
(N) (R) (Jan. 1974)
Phil co
Willow Grove, Pa.
(N) (Jan. 1969)
Raytheon Data Systems Co.
Norwood, Mass.
(A) (July 1973)
Standard Computer Corp.
Los Angeles, Calif.
(R) (June 1972)
Systems Engineering Laboratories
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
(A) (Jan. 1974)
Texas Instruments Inc.
Houston, Tex.
(A) (June 1973)
UNIVAC Div. of Sperry Rand
Blue Bell, Pa.
(A) (Aug. 1973)
UNIVAC - Series 70
Blue Bell, Pa.
(A) (Feb. 1973)
Varian Data Machines
Newport Beach, Calif.
(A) (}'ar. 1973)
Xerox Data Systems
E1 Segundo, Calif.
(N) (R) (Jan. 1974)
42
NAME OF
CO}1PUTER
DATE OF
FIRST
INSTALLATION
}licro 400/10
12/70
}licro 800
12/68
Micro 1600
12/71
304
1/60
310
5/61
315
5/62
315 RMC
9/65
390
5/61
500
10/65
251
1/73
Century 50
2/71
Century 100
9/68
Century 101
12/72
Century 200
6/69
Century 300
2/72
1000
6/63
200-210,211
10/58
2000-212
1/63
250
12/60
440
3/64
520
10/65
703
10/67
704
3/70
706
5/69
IC 4000
12/68
IC 6000-6000/E
5/67
IC 7000
8/70
IC-9000
5/71
SYSTEMS 810A/810B
6-66/9-68
SYSTEMS 71/72
8-72/9-71
SYSTEMS 85/86
7-72/6-70
960
6/70
960A
11/71
980
5/68
980A
8/72
9200
6/67
9300/9380
9/67
9400/9480
5/69
9700
418 III
6/63
494
1106
1108
9/65
1110
I & II
3/51 & 11/57
File Computers
8/56
LARC
5/60
1107, UIII, 490/1/2,
418II, 1004/5,
1050, SS80/90
301
2/61
501
6/59
601
11/62
3301
7/64
Spectra 70/15, 25
9/65
Spectra 70/35
1/67
Spectra 70/45
11/65
Spectra 70/46
11/68
Spectra 70/55
11/66
Spectra 70/60
11/70
Spectra 70/61
4/70
70/2
5/71
70/3
9/71
70/6
9/71
70/7
12/71
EMR 6020
4/65
EMR 6040
7/65
EMR 6050
2/66
EMR 6070
10/66
EMR 6130
8/67
E~R 6135
EMR 6145
EMR 6140
620
11/65
620i
6/67
R-620i
4/69
520/DC, 520i
12/69;10/68
620/f
11/70
620/L, 620/L-OOC
4/71;9/72
620/f-100
6/72
620/L-100
5/72
Varian 73
11/72
XDS-92
4/65
XDS-910
8/62
XDS-920
9/62
XDS-930
6/64
XDS-940
4/66
XDS-9300
11/64
XDS-530
8/73
Sigma 2
12/66
Sigma 3
12/69
Sigma 5
8/67
Sigma 6
6/70
Sigma 7
12/66
Sigma 8
2/72
Sigma 9
10/71
AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
$(000) ,
0.1-0.5
0.2-3.0
0.2-3.0
X
X
7.0
9.0
0.7
1.0
20.5
1.6
2.6
3.7
7.0
21.0
X
X
X
X
X
X
12.5
7.2
19.0
9.0
16.0
17.0
400.0
1.8/2.6
0.9/1.0
6.0/10.0
X
0.2-2.7
X
0.3-2.7
1.5
3.4
7.0
11.0
68.0
X
X
135.0
X
7.0
14.0-18.0
14.0-35.0
17.0-35.0
4.3
9.2
22.5
33.5
34.0
32.0
42.0
16.0
25.0
25.0
35.0
5.4
6.6
9.0
15.0
5.0
2.6
7.2
NIDIBER OF INSTALLATIONS
In
Outside
In
U.S.A.
U.S.A.
World
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
139
2927
914
5
8
255
55
160
1100
5
582
1175
52
576
7
16
16
12
115
20
26
179
300
75
9
3
4
1
388
21
58
0
810
95
2
0
200
35
325
1750
0
784
3
335
8
20
135
1
33
100
17
0
0
0
0
31
6
4
27
212
400
92
9
3
4
1
419
27
62
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
0
40
1
2
1
X
X
1360
795
212
3
40
62
61
163
11
23
13
2
616
675
228
11
77
46
143
92
17
1976
1470
440
14
117
108
204
255
28
2063
143
17
0
74
18
95
265
30
10
18
7
63
7
24
7
15
6
15
7
34
36
1442
3505
X
1
0
2
8
13
5
16
6
17
15
47
41
0
43
170
120
159
33
25-30
4
10
12
14
3
4
75
1300
80
500
207
740
100
200
40
47
180
132
173
36
29-34
163
21
32
3
31
5
9
36
1
14
199
22
46
X
X
0
X
X
X
1.5
2.0
2.9
3.4
14.0
8.5
7.6
1.8
2.0
6.0
12.0
12.0
18.0
35.0
139
3737
1009
7
8
455
90
485
2850
5
582
1959
55
911
15
NIDIDER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS
o·
0
0
0
4
8
0
X
X
150
X
101
43
235
39
38
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
------
-----------~
-------~-.-~---------~---.-----.-----.--.~------------------
CAL,ENDAROF C'OMING EVENTS
Feb. 19·22, 1974: 3rd Annual National Communications Week
Convention, Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. / contact:
David C. Brotemarkle, Communications Systems Management
Assoc., 1102 West St., Suite 1003, Wilmington, DE 19801
May 13-17, 1974: International Instruments, Electronic and Automation Exhibition, Olympia, London, England / contact: Industrial Exhibitions Ltd., Commonwealth House, New Oxford St.,
London WC1 A 1 PB, England
Feb. 22, 1974: Minicomputer Instructional Systems Conference, St.
Louis, Mo. / contact: Ralph E. Lee, Computer Center, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO 65401
May 14-17, 1974: 6th Annual APL International Users Conference,
Sheraton Hotel, Anaheim, Calif. / contact: John R. Clark,
Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Rd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Feb. 26-28, 1974: Computer Conference (COMPCON), Jack Tar
Hotel, San Francisco, Calif. / contact: Jack Kuehler, IBM Corp.,
P 35, Bldg. 025, Monterey & Cottle Rds., San Jose, CA 95114
May 20-24, 1974: Computer Week IV: DPMA, ASM, ACM, TIMS,
SCYL, Statler Hilton Hotel, Buffalo, N.Y. / contact: William P.
Hanley, Erie County Department of Health, Buffalo, NY 14202
Mar. 4-8, 1974: Numerical Control Conference and Exhibition, Milan, Italy / contact: CEU~UCI MU's Exhibition Centre, Via
Monte Rosa 21, 20149 Milano, Italy
June 11-13, 1974: 1st Annual Automotive Electronics Conference
and Exposition, Cobo Hall, Detroit, Mich. / contact: Robert D.
Rankin, Rankin Exposition Management, 5544 E. La Palma
Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807
Mar. 7, 1974: Computer Law Association meeting, Washington,
D.C. / contact: Robert P. Bigelow, 28 State St., Room 2200,
Boston, MA 02109
Mar. 25-29, 1974: IEEE International Convention (lNTERCON),
Coliseum & Statler Hilton Hotel, New York, N.Y. / contact:
J. H. Schumacher, IEEE, 345 E. 47th St.~New York, NY 10017
Mar. 27-29, 1974: Data Processing Symposium, Univ. of Calif.,
Los Angeles, Calif. I contact: Tom Mincer, Continuing Education in Engineering and Mathematics, Univ. Ext., UCLA, P.O.
Box 24902, Los Angeles, CA 90024
April 3, 1974: Minicomputers - Trends and Applications, Nat'l
Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Md. / contact: Harry Hayman, 738 Whitaker Ter., Silver Spring, MD 20901
April 8-11, 1974: Computer Aided Design, Int'l Conference & Exhibition, Univ. of Southampton, Southampton, England I contact: Inst. of Civil Engrs., Great George St., Westminster, London SW1, England
April 9-11, 1974: Optical Computing Symposium, Zurich, Switzerland I contact: Samuel Horvitz, Box 274, Waterford, CT 06385
April 21·24, 1974: International Circuits & Systems Symposium,
Sir Francis Drake Hotel, San Francisco, Calif. / contact: L. O.
Chua, Dept. of EE, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, CA 94720
April 21·24, 1974: 1974 Annual Assoc. for Systems Management
Conf., Dallas Convention Center, Dallas, Tex. / contact: R. B.
McCaffrey, ASM, 24587 Bagley Rd., Cleveland, OH 44138
May 2-3, 1974: 10th Annual National Information Retrieval Colloquium, Holiday Inn, Philadelphia, Penna. / contact: NIRC,
P.O. Box 15847, Philadelphia, PA 19103
May 5-8, 1974: Offshore Technology Conference, Astrohall, Houston, Tex. / contact: Offshore Tech. Conf., 6200 N. Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75206
May 6-10, 1974: 1974 National Computer Conference & Exposition, McCormick Place, Chicago, III. / contact: Dr. Stephen S.
Yau, Computer Sciences Dept., Northwestern University, Evanston, I L 60201
May 7-10, 1974: 12th Annual Assoc. for Educational Data Systems
Convention, New York Hilton Hotel, New York, N. Y. / contact:
Thomas A. Corr, Nassau Community College, Stewart Ave.,
Garden City, NY 11530
May 13-17, 1974: European Computing Congress (EUROCOMP),
Brunei Univ., Uxbridge, Middlesex, England / contact: Online,
Brunei Univ., Uxbridge, Middlesex, England
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for February, 1974
June 23-26, 1974: 1974 Annual International Conference & BusiExposition, Auditorium & Convention Hall, Minneapolis, Minn. /
contact: Data Processing Management Assoc., 505 Busse Highway, Park Ridge, I L 60068
June 24-26, 1974: Design Automation Workshop, Brown Palace
Hotel, Denver, Colo. / contact: ACM, 1133 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036
June 24-26, 1974: 5th Conference on Computers in the Undergraduate Curricula, Washington State Univ., Pullman, Wash. / contact: Dr. Ottis W. Rechard, Computer Science Dept., Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA 99163
July 9-11, 1974: Summer Computer Simulation Conference, Hyatt
Regency Hotel, Houston, Tex. / contact: M. E. McCoy, Martin
Marietta Data Systems, Mail MP-198, P.O. Box 5837, Orlando,
FL 32805
July 15-19, 1974: 1974 Conference on Frontiers in Education,
City University, London, England / contact: Conf. Dept., Institution of Electrical Engineers, Savoy Place, London, England
WC2R OBL
July 23-26, 1974: Circuit Theory & Design, lEE, London, England
I contact: lEE, Savoy PI., London WC2R OBL, England
July 23-26, 1974: International Computer Exposition for Latin
America, Maria Isabel-Sheraton Hotel, Mexico City, Mexico /
contact: Seymour A. Robbins, National Expositions Co., Inc.,
14 W. 40th St., New York, NY 10018
Aug. 5-10, 1974: IFIP Congress 74, St. Erik's Fairgrounds, Stockholm, Sweden / contact: U.S. Committee for IFIP Congress 74,
Box 426, New Canaan, CT 06840
Aug. 5-10, 1974: Medinfo 74, St. Erik's Fairgrounds, Stockholm,
Sweden / contact: Frank E. Heart, Bolt Beranek and Newman,
Inc., 50 Moulton St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Aug. 21-23, 1974: Engineering in the Ocean Environment International Conf., Nova Scotian Hotel, Halifax, Nova Scotia / contact:
O. K. Gashus, EE Dept., Nova Scotia Tech. Coli., POB 100, Halifax, N.S., Canada
Sept., 1974: 2nd Symposium IFAC/IFIP/IFORS, Cote d'Azur,
France / contact: AFCET, Secretariat des Congres, Universite
Paris IX, Dauphine 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France
Sept. 9-12, 1974: INFO 74, Coliseum, New York, N.Y. / contact:
Clapp & Poliak, Inc., 245 Park Ave., New York, NY 10017
43
"
WILL YOU HELP?
Please give us their names and addresses on the
form below or add another sheet of paper. Trim out the
card with scissors and drop it in the mail. We'll gladly
pay the postage to learn of possible new friends. And many
thanks for your help! As a token of our appreciation we'll
send you our **** Reprint.
Yes, you. It may come as a surprise that you'd be asked
... but as a reader of Computers and People (formerly
Computers and Automation) you are in a unique position
to help us.
P.S. If you like you may mail your list separately to:
R. A. Sykes, Circulation Mgr.
Computers and People
815 Washington Street
Newtonville, MA 02160
NAMES ... people, institutions, companies who should
be interested in 1) the computer industry and/or 2) seeking truth in information are 'very much needed to join you
as readers of Computers and People.
Will you tell us who they are? And perhaps even more,
will you let us use your name in writing to them? But
with or without your name (we'll only use it if you grant n)
;0
permission) we need to know those you think might be
interested in also reading Computers and People.
* *' * *'
cut here and tuck in flap
TO: R. A. Sykes, Circulation Mgr.
Computers and People
I
I
I
reprint from
CDrnl?n!ila~~!n
:
I suggest you send information on Computers and People "
to ••• (attach list if you like)
"
-
-
-
M
Lt)
~
M
M
-- - ---
«
ci z·
..J
(J
Z
t-
t-
u:
:E 0CO
a:
w
a:
I
State
I
I
ZIP
0 YES
I
I
I
0 NO
Please give us your name and address on the form belo,w ,so we can
* * ** Reprint. Just cross out the subSCription request
- unless you also want to enter your new or renewal order.
"
I
J
Fold here - do not cut
G)
YES,
• c
:1:
start my subscription to
COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE
according to the instructions checked below.
One Year (including the Computer Directory and Buyers'
Guide -
."C
13 issues) U.S. only.
0
$23.50
One Year (excluding the Computer Directory and Buyers'
Guide -
U
12 issues) U.S. only.
0
$11.50
Z
a..
Name:
c.ri
II>
W
....10
(/)
Cl)
....
(/)
"C
Cl)
«
.~
c
:::>
...
0
Cl)
OJ
.c
::::I
....
Cl
c
0
OJ
"C
a.
~
10
10
t;
E
I
CO
"I
Address
I send you your
·.z:.~
...Oen
en
~
I
I
May we use your name?
."C
:E
I~
(2) Name
City
:
ZIP
It;
I
I
:2
."C
·;
«
12
State
---- -
en
en
I
City
II
I
I
:
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
ii I
~
I
] I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
~I
I
I
Address
OJ
I
"
(1) Name
eI
B:
\
"
:
I
I
lI
cut here
,
r--------------------------,
I
I
Science and the Advanced Society, by C. P. Snow, Ministry
of Technology, London, England (April 1966)
The Information Revolution and the Bill of Rights, by
Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, M.I.T. (May 1971)
Employment, Education, and the Industrial System, by
Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith, Harvard Univ. (Aug. 1965)
Computers and the Consumer, by Ralph Nader,
Washington, D.C. (Oct. 1970)
\
....
..J
~
:E
>
..J
a..
w
a:
en
en
w
Z
Cii
:J
CO
W
..J
0-
W
0
a::
en
>-
en
0
II>
w
1.1
en
Cl)
J
C
-l
Q.
~
w
E
10
....II>
Cl)
Cl
10
....II>
0
Q.
0
Z
C)
<{
I-
(/)
0
a..
P.O. No.:
E
0
+-'
::J
D Bill
0
«
0
CO
W "'0
0- e::
ctl
.....
Cl)
VI
10...
.....
en
c:
Cl
Z
«
t...
(])
+-'
::J
Q.
en E
0
CC U
W
l-
::>
t
~
~ -E
0
0-
U
...
0
OJ
ctl
~
J
I
CO
Signature:
'.j:i
~
;;{
a..
Cl)
0
w
Zip: _____
State:
Country if not U.S.:
e::
z
~
~
City:
w
l-
w
--~----
Address:
a::
a::
a..
w
Title:
Organization:
Cl)
0
.....
en
~
N
0
«
~
c:
.c
en
!E"
$:
0
.....
CO
LO
~
CO
'S;
c:
:s:
Cl)
Z
p'ayment enclosed
me
D
D
::::I
Renewal
Cl
New subscription
0
OJ
a.10
To SPEED rhe processing of your order, please ch('c~ rhe one ~est
descripror in each of rhe (Wo carcgories below, (ThIs tnformallon
t;
will be used for srarisrical purposes only,)
I
JOB FUNCTION
BUSINESS TYPE
1-Technical Management; (computer
Ol-Computer Manufacturer
installation management, program
02-Aerospace I Aircraft
management, or engineering mgmt.l
Manufacturer
2-Computer
Center Personnel;
03-0ther Manufacturing
(methods & procedure analysts,
04-Raw Materials Processing;
and operators)
(chemical, primary metal,
3-Programming Personnel; (systems,
petroleum, food, etc.!
application & research programmers)
OS-Mining and Construction
4-Professional: (systems analysts,
OS-Computing & Consulting
mathematicians, operations
07-Finance. Insurance, Pub!',
researchers, and professors)
and Service Organizations
5-General Management Executives;
OS-Transportation Companies
(corporate officers, owners, and
partners)
09-Public Utilities
6-Ellgineering Personnel; (systems
.
IO-Research
engineers, research & development engineers)
II-Wholesale, Retail, Sales.
7-Research Personnel
and Marketing Firms
12-Educational; (College,
B-Students
University, or School)
9-Library Subscription
13-Government and Military
IO-Subscription in Company Name
Only
14-Libraries
«
~
Cl)
z:.
;
1.1
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 : 2009:03:25 01:51:03-07:00 Create Date : 2009:03:25 01:51:03-07:00 Metadata Date : 2009:03:25 01:51:03-07:00 Format : application/pdf Document ID : uuid:312e99a5-8ef0-449d-9cc0-3f2a509ea26e Instance ID : uuid:31aa22ae-4809-4201-a6d6-66b8b45fd72e Page Layout : SinglePage Page Mode : UseNone Page Count : 44EXIF Metadata provided by EXIF.tools