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SCIENCE & TECHNOtO~

April, 1974

computers

Vo l. 23, No.4

and people

formerly Computers and Automation

EARLY SPRING

IN THIS ISSUE: Step-Wide Management Controls
- William E. McMillen
Behavioral Factors in Information Systems - CharlesJ. Testa
Managing Modern Complexity, Part 1
- Dr. Stafford Beer
Magpoints: Two New Symbols for Space Age Mathematics
- Myron J. Brown and Ms. Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Computing Facilities at Stanford University
- Prof. Gene F. Franklin

The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Part 3
- Wayne Chastain

P 7 50l

?

IF YOU COULD PREVENT
JUST ONE IMPORTANT MISTAKE
BEFORE IT HAPPENED· • •
HOW MUCH

WOULD THAT BE WORTH TO YOU - $100? - $1000?

more?

Our considered estimate is that 10 to 20% or more of the cost of operation of most businesses is the cost of mistakes.

WOULDN'T YOU AGREE

THAT SENSE, COMMON AND UNCOMMON,
OUGHT TO BE THE KEY TO PREVENTING MISTAKES?

We examine systematically the prevention of mistakes in
'\

The Notebook on COMMON SENSEI ELEMENTARY AND ADVANCED \))
',,;

"

'I.-. ,

PURPOSES:

Topic:
THE SYSTEMATIC
PREVENTION OF MISTAKES

Topic:
SYSTEMATIC EXAMINATION
OF GENERAL CONCEPTS

Already Published

Already Published

Preventing Mistakes from:

The Concept of:
Expert
Rationalizing
Feedback
Model
Black Box
Evolution
Niche

Failure to Understand
Forgetting
Unforeseen Hazards
Placidity
Camouflage and Deception
To Come

Preventing Mistakes from:

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.
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.
SCIENCE 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.
OPPORTUNITY is important If you enter or renew your subscription to both Computers
and People and The Notebook on Common Sense at
the same time, direct to us, - you may take off $2.00
per year from the total cost.

2

To Come

Bias
Interpretation
Distraction
Gullibility
Failure to Observe
Failure to Inspect
Prejudice . . . .

Strategy
U nd ersta nd ing
Teachable Moment
Indeterminacy
System
Operational Definition ....

AND MANY MORE TOPICS . . . .
.- - - - - - - - - . - .••.. (may be copied on any piece of paper) . • . . . • . . . . . . . . ' .....••

':

To: Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
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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:

,

1. Right Answers - A Short Guide to Obtaining Them
2. The Empty Column
, 3. The Golden Trumpets of Yap Yap

( ) I enclose $

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5. The Barrels and the Elephant
6. The Argument of the Beard

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----

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974,

-~.

NOW PUBLISHED ...- -

"RIDE THE EAST WIND:

I

Parables of Yesterday and Today"
by Edmund C. Berkeley, editor,
anthologist, and author

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....... 'V-'

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Partial Table of Contents
Part 1. The Condition of Man
Pandora and the Mysterious Box / H. A. Guerber
The Garden of Paradise* / Hans Christian Andersen
*to which the King's son was transported by the East Wind

,
.I.'

'r~
(,

The
The
The
The

History of the Doasyoulikes / Charles Kingsley
Locksmith and the Stranger / Edmund C. Berkeley (B)
Elephant and the Donkey / James Reston
Fire Squirrels / B

The
The
The
The

Cuckoo and the Eagle / Ivan A. Kriloff
Lion in Love / Aesop
Crow and the Mussel/Aesop, B
Two Raccoons and the Button / B

Part 2. On Flattery and Persuasion

Part 3. On Perseverance and Resourcefulness

THE TWO RACCOONS AND THE BUTTON

The Crow and the Pitcher / Aesop
Rob"ert Bruce and the Spider / Sir Walter Scott
Hannibal Mouse and the Other End of the World / B
The Fly, the Spider, and the Hornet / B

George Raccoon: Oh, darn, there's a button off my shirt.
Martha Raccoon: My dear, see if there isn't another shirt in
your drawer that you can wear.
George: (searching) No, there isn't. That's the only clean white
shirt; all the others are gray. And I have to wear a white shirt today; there's a meeting this morning with Mr. Wolf and Mr. Fox we have a problem with the Bears, you know.
Martha: I'm sure there is another white shirt. (She comes and
searches the drawer.) Well, there isn't one, you're right. Do you
have the button?
George: Yes, here it is. Oh, Martha, are you going to sew it
on for me right now? You're amazing, you're wonderful!
Martha: Give me the button. (She swiftly sews the button on
the white shirt, while he waits patiently.) There's your shirt.
George: Oh, thank you - you're my dear Martha. You're the
best and nicest help a Raccoon could ask for. I just don't know
what I'd do without you.
Martha: (smiling) I know what you'd do, you big Raccoon you'd sew it on yourself, just as you used to before you married
me - and you'd save all that flattery.
George: (giving her a Raccoon hug) Not flattery, my dear persuasion!

Part 4. Behavior - Moral and Otherwise
A Small Wharf of Stones / Benjamin Franklin
The Three Bricklayers / B
The Fisherman, the Farmer, and the Peddler / B
Part 5. The Problem of Truth
On Being a Reasonable Creature / Benjamin Franklin
The Empty Column / William J. Wiswesser
The Six B lind Men of Nepal / B
The Sighting of a Whale / B
The Stars and the Young Rabbit / B
The Ocean of Truth / Sir Isaac Newton
Part 6. On Common Sense
:"

The Lark and her Young Ones / Aesop
" The Bear and the Young Dog / B
The Bear and the Young Calf / B
The Wasps and the Honey Pot / Sir Roger l'Estrange
The Six-Day War and the Gulf of Dong / B
Missile Alarm from Grunelandt / B
The National Security of Adularia / B
Doomsday in St. Pierre, Martinique / B
Part 7. Problem Solving
The Wolf and" the Dog of Sherwood / Aesop, B
The Three Earthworms / B
The Hippopotamus and the Bricks / B
The Cricket that Made Music / Jean de La Fontaine, B
The Fox of Mt. Etna and the Grapes / B
The Mice of Cambridge in Council/Aesop, B
Brer Badger's Old Motor Car that Wouldn't Go / B
The Evening Star and the Princess / B

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

Persuade him with kindly gifts and gentle words.
- Homer, 850 B. C
Persuasion's only shrine is eloquent speech.
- Aristophanes, 405 B.C
. - - - - - - - - - - - - (may be copied on any piece of paper) - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - "
: To:
Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
815 Washington St., Dept. R21, Newtonville, MA 02160·
• (

)

Please send me _ _ _ copy(ies) of Ride the East Wind:
Parables of Yesterday and Today (now published) by
Edmund C. Berkeley, Author and Anthologist. I enclose $7.25 (Publication price + Postage and Handling)
per copy.
Total enclosed _ _ (Prepayment is necessary)
RETURNABLE IN 10 DAYS FOR FULL REFUND
IF NOT SATISFACTORY
My name and address are attached.

3

Vol. 23, No.4
April,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

Management of Computer Systems
8 Step-Wide Management Controls
[A]
by William E. McMillen, Director, Management Information
Services, Questor Corp., Toledo, Ohio
The methods for accomplishing "successful completion or
orderly restructuring or timely abandonment" of projects
- these are "step-wide management controls". What do
these objectives imply, and how carry them out?

Design of Computer Systems
[A]
10 Computing Facilities at Stanford University: Their
Development and Direction
by Prof. Gene F. Franklin, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
How one can go from a rather wasteful collection of different
computing facilities into a streamlined single facility that does
more for less money: "cheaper by the dozen".

13 Behavioral Factors in Information Systems
[A]
by Asst. Prof. Charles J. Testa, College of Business and Public
Administration, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, Md.
A survey of what influences perception, cognition, creativity,
rationality, patience, and other factors, when dealing with
computerized information systems for management.

33 Digital Processes - A New International Journal on the
"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

[F]

Theory and Design of Digital Systems
by Heinz Georgi, Managing Director, Delta Publishing Co.,
Ltd., Vevey, Switzerland

Computers and Society
[A]
18 Managing Modern Complexity - Part 1
by Dr. Stafford Beer, Visiting Professor of Cybernetics,
Business School of Manchester University, Manchester,
Great Britain
History did not design our society to deal with the complexity
which confronts it; there are major threats to the continuance
of our society, in crisis after crisis ahead of us. The dangers
need to be studied, understood, and dealt with, using the
principles that govern complex systems.

23 Magpoints - Two New Symbols for Space Age Mathematics
[A]
by Myron J. Brown, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Ms. Betsy AnckerJohnson, Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology,
National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C.
A well-thought-out proposal for better symbols for designating exponents in arithmetical numbers - in an era when
giant and pigmy numbers abound.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for Apri I, 1974

.I.

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.

Computers and Society (continued)
7 Articles for Computers and People
by Robert P. Teutsch, Software Project Manager, Hughes
Aircraft Co., Los Angeles, Calif., and the Editor

Front Cover Picture
[F]

The Powers and Uses of a Computer
6 Attitudes Towards a Computer
[E]
by Edmund C. Berkeley, Editor, Computers and People
The use one makes of a computer is conditioned by the way
one thinks about it; it can fill the role of ally instead of
slave.

Early Spring, by Peter Skarstedt,
was produced as part of his work in
a course in computer art taught by
Grace C. Hertlein, Asst. Professor.
Peter is a student in the Department of Computer Science, California State University, Chico.

The Profession of Information Engineer and the Pursuit of Truth
28 The Assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,
[A]
and Possible Links with the Kennedy Murders - Part 3
by Wayne Chastain, Jr., Reporter, Memphis, Tenn.
The report of a diligent study into the details and circumstances of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, and related events, and the
considerable evidence of a conspiracy.

From The Boston Globe of March 20, 1974
James Earl Ray, convicted killer of the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr., says he did not act alone but was part of a conspiracy to kill
the black civil rights leader, according to a National Enquirer article.
"There was definitely a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King," he
is quoted as saying. "1 was not alone in it. I can prove I wasn't in
the room when the shot was fired."

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

34

43
43
40
38
39

Across the Editor's Desk Computing and Data
Processing Newsletter
Advertising Index
Calendar of Coming Events
Monthly Computer Census
New Contracts
New Installations

Key

Computers, Games, and Puzzles
26 Games and Puzzles for Nimble Minds - and Computers
by Edmund C. Berkeley, Editor
COMPM EANO - Does this "found" series of digits have
meaning? If so, what?
NAYMANDIJ - Finding a systematic pattern among
random digits.
NUMBLES - Deciphering unknown digits in order to
obta in a message.
SIXWORDO - Converting into sentences of not more
than six words.
WUNSI LLABO - Converting into words of one syllable.
PICTORIAL REASONING TEST - Observing and
reasoning.

Departments

[C]

[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 COMPUTER DIRECTORY.

5

EDITORIAL

ATTITUDES TOWARDS A COMPUTER

It is a great pity to have to read once again in the introduction of a recent book (see the quotation on the
facing page) remarks as stupid, as narrow, and as wrong
as the following excerpts from its introduction:
- The computer is nothing more than an electronic
piece of equipment that can be manipulated by
man to achieve his goals.
- When people (programmers) give it the wrong instructions, it has no way of knowing this. . ..
- ... to train this slave to function correctly, one must
develop an understanding of the computer and
how it works.

First, the computer is far more than just "a piece of
electronic equipment". It has capacities far greater than
the usual "piece of electronic equipment". The computer,
when programmed correctly and completely, is like a jet
airplane for the human mind. It makes possible what was
before impossible - in the same way as a jet airplane makes
possible transportation that was previously impossible.
The programmed computer can perform accurately,
completely, reliably, and swiftly a great many functions of
thinking: calculating, reasoning, problem-solving, learning,
self-improving, and so on. It can do many of these operations far better and far faster than any human mind. C.
P. Snow, the English scientist and scholar, said on one occasion that the computer is by far the most revolutionary
machine ever made by man.
Second, a computer can be programmed to apply many
tests to whatever it is asked by an operator or a programmer to do. Even the telephone number dialing system to use the example which Kushner and Zucker use - can
on many occasions report back "the number which you
have dialed is not in working order; please check again the
number you wish to dial".
In fact, a simple device could be attached to any telephone which would: (1) allow the dialer to dial only any
one of a specified set of numbers, and (2) would require
certain unlocking actions if other numbers were to be
dialed. But since the telephone company profits from unreported wrong numbers dialed, there is no economic incentive for the telephone company to develop such a device for the protection of its subscribers.

6

In regard to protection for programmers, see for example the article "DWIM ('Do What I Mean'), the Programmer's Assistant" by Warren Titelman, published in the April
1972 issue of Computers and Automation. This describes
how a computer can be programmed to help a programmer
overcome a great many of his natural mistakes.

It simply is not true that "When people ... give the
computer the wrong instructions, it has no way of knowing this. . .."
Finally, it is nonsense to say "to train this slave to
function correctly, one must develop an understanding of
the computer and how it works". In the first place, the
computer is not "a slave" but "an ally"; and to think of
the computer as "a slave" instead of "an ally" is an invitation to snobbishness, arrogance, hubris, and errors, which
interfere with doing a good job.
Also, it is not true that one has to understand a computer in order to make it function correctly. It is not
necessary to understand the telephone in order to make
the telephone function correctly. It is not necessary to
understand a motor car in order to make a motor car
function correctly. All I need for such devices is the minute portion of understanding which enables me to use or
program the device. Here is where modern efficiency arrives. I need just enough understanding of the black box
which is a telephone or a motor car or a computer which
enables me to put in certain inputs that bring me certain
desired outputs. Compared with all that there is to be
understood about the inside of the black box, the amount
of understanding I need is minute, almost microscopic.
The attitude expressed in such remarks as these should
really disappear from the field of computers and data processing. This attitude is obsolete.

~c:.~
Edmund C. Berkeley
Editor

)

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

computers
and people

FORUM.

THE PURPOSE OF FORUM

• To give you, our readers, an opportunity to discuss ideas
that seem to you important.
• To express criticisms or comments on what you find published in our magazine.
• To help computer people and other people discuss significant
problems related to computers, data processing, and their
applications and implications, including information engineering, professional behavior, and the pursuit of truth in
input, output, and processing.
Your participation is cordially invited.

Articles for Computers and People
1. From Robert P. Teutsch
Software Project Manager
Hughes Aircraft Co.
P.O. Box 90515
Los Angeles, Calif. 90009

I have from time to time read Computers and People
and have appreciated the articles that have been
presented. Since my line of work is deeply involved
with computers and their associated software, I feel
that my associates and I may have something to offer.
I would appreciate it if you would send me your
author'sguide that pertains to the specific requirements for submitting an article for publication.
2. From the Editor

We desire to publish in Computers and People
articles related to computers and data processing,
and their design, applications, uses, systems, and
implications, both near at hand implications for the
machine user and his customers and broad implications for society. The level we try to maintain is
intermediate (between elementary and difficult). We
like articles that are factual, useful, understandable, and interesting to many different kinds of
people. We desire to print news, letters to the
editor, discussions, arguments. disagreements, con-

troversies, announcements, etc., anything, if it is
likely to be of significant interest to people engaged in computers and data processing and/or if it
is of importance to the profession of information
engineering and the pursuit of truth (especially
suppressed truth).
We follow the rule: never underestimate a man's
intelligence -- never overestimate his information.
Consequently, any term which may be new to the
reader should be defined when it is first used, with
about 5 to 20 words, to make sure that the reader
can follow the article and does not have to guess.
We believe that our readers are people who are seriously interested in many subjects, but who may not
have any specific background that the author maY-hope that they have -- and so the author has to orient and help his readers. He should use examples,
details, comparisons, analogies, etc., whenever they
may help readers to understand a difficult point.
He should give data supporting his argument and evidence for his assertions. An article may certainly
be controversial if the subject is discussed
reasonably.
Some of the questions that an article might answer are these: What is this article about? What
does the article show or prove? What was the problem? What is an example of the problem? How were
computers used to solve the problem? How long was
(please turn to page 33)

Quotation from the introduction of a recent book on data processing The computer has been blamed for many mishaps,
such as a failure to deduct enough income tax or a deduction of too much income tax, a one-dollar check
that is issued as a million dollars, an incorrect monthly
statement from a charge account, or snafus within a
registration system. Actually, it is not the computer
that is the culprit, but the humans who are responsible
for the direction, control, and operation of the computer. To understand why these errors occur, people
must get to know the computer better.

The computer has a similar relationship to humans.
When people (programmers) give it the wrong instructions, it has no way of knowing this; therefore, like an
obedient slave, it carries out the incorrect orders. When
the wrong telephone number (input) was dialed, it connected you with the correct party based on the information that it received, although it was not the party
you wanted. Similarly, when incorrect data (information) is fed into a computer, the results (output), although technically correct, may be invalid.

The computer is nothing more than an electronic
piece of equipment that can be manipulated by man to
achieve his goals. Like the telephone, it is an electrical
instrument that stands ready to serve. Without the
proper commands, it is useless. The telephone can be
used to call your next-door neighbor by dialing the correct telephone number. If, however, even one digit of
the number is dialed incorrectly, your goal will not be
achieved. You may get results - speak to someone but your aim has not been realized. In this instance,
who is wrong - the human or the machine? Surely,
the blame must be put on the human.

To help to eliminate as many errors as possible and
to train this slave to function correctly, one must develop an understanding of the computer and how it
works.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

The functions of a computer can be broken down
into three major areas: input, processing, and output. ...
- From RPG: Language and Techniques,
p. 1, by Marvin Kushner and Cynthia
Zucker, published by John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., New York, 1974, 482 pp.

7

STEP-WIDE mAnAGEmEnT conTROlS
William E. McMillen, Director
Management Information Services
Questor Corporation
1801 Spielbusch Ave.
Toledo, Ohio 43691

"The planning of a project is . . . similar to the 'explosion' of a production schedule
into material and manpower requirements -

that is, the determination of what parts

must be assembled or manufactured, how many man-hours will be required at each
step of the process and what kinds of equipment and skills will be required."

Most of us have been involved in or observed numbers of projects both large and small which have resulted in systems that produce results not really
relevant to the need, or in solutions for which
there are no suitable problems; and we have seen
projects which die somewhere between initiation and
completion for any number of reasons. We have also
seen projects which were initiated, executed, and
completed on schedule and within the budget, and,
what's more, produced results which solved the real
problem or satisfied the real need.
Failure to Produce Results

If we analyze the differences between these successes and failures, the probability is that the
difference can be attributed to methods of planning,
follow-up, and control of the project itself, with
the greatest likelihood that the problem is in
follow-up and adherence to rather well-defined and
well-known project control techniques. In many
cases, however, the failure to produce results,
which both meet schedule and budget and satisfy a
need, can be directly attributed to changes in requirements on the part of the system user.

Resource Allocation

We'll start with a look at resource allocation
and priority setting, for these two subjects frequently lead to or contribute to delays and failures.
By "resource allocation" I mean the determination of
how available manpower and equipment will be allocated to the various projects. This becomes particularly important in the normal case where demands
exceed available resources and where we must plan
for unknown contingencies such as hardware failure,
personnel turnover or emergency requirements for
project resources.
I'd like to use the term "single service" for
those systems functions which serve a single company,
division, or other organization which is entirely
under the direction of a single chief operating executive, and "multi-service" if the function services more than one such entity; for instance, a
centralized corporate group serving several divisions or subsidiaries which are independent profit
and loss centers and operate on a decentralized
management basis.
Single Service Environment

These changes may be real requirements brought
on by a change in the operation to be served by the
system, or, as is true in many cases, they may be
due to change either in management personnel or in
the thinking of user management. Regardless ~f the
reason it is still quite possible to restructure,
redirect or kill the project in a timely and orderly
fashion when these conditions occur. The methods
for accomplishing successful completion, orderly restructuring or timely abandonment of projects make
up the subject we've labeled "Step-Wise Management
Controls," and I'd like to discuss these with an
emphasis on planning and control from the viewpoint
of upper management.
Based on a talk at a conference sponsored by The Conference Board,
New York, N.Y., November 26-27,1973.

8

In the single service environment, an operating
philosophy must be established which will govern
commitment of available resources to several shortrange projects, with the possibility of adding longterm projects using outside sources or commi tting
resources to a few long-term projects and using outside sources for adding required short-term work.
To attempt to satisfy all requirements as they
arise, using the internal staff will cause one of
two undesirable situations -- either the staff and
equipment resources must be padded to absorb these
unknown requi rements or proj ect delays and overruns
will be created as a result of shifting priorities
and schedules. But this is the real world, and we
might as well plan for the inevitable. This means
we must be willing to pay the price unless we are

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

mature enough to recognize that some work simply
won't get done.
Once this basic operating philosophy is established, then priorities must be assigned, based on
rate of return on investment, competitive pressures
in the marketplace, political expedience or whatever
criteria seem appropriate. It is important that the
top executive officer either set the priority or approve it and then communicate that priority to all
parties and establish credibility in the assignment
so that no one can change the priority without formal approval. This may appear to have such strict
procedures inherent in it that it will be difficult
to adjust to rapid changes in requirements caused by
changes in the business. But I am a firm believer
that in the long run there will be greater productivity and greater benefits gained if these procedures are enforced. Without such enforcement,
the systems function may be flexible, but it cannot
be productive.
Once the avai lable resources are assigned to projects on the basis of this priority ranking, new systems requirements should be handled just as any new
facilities, via appropriations approval procedures.
The established schedules would be changed only when
a new requirement pre-empts an existing priority.
All other requirements would be satisfied by using
outside sources if there is economic justification.
Multi-Service Environment

In the case of multi-service environments such
as centralized corporate facilities serving more
than one division or subsidiary, resources should be
allocated for the future budgeting period on some
equitable basis determined by the top executive officer. Once this has been done, each division can
handle its priorities and requirements as though it
were a single service user. Again, it is very important that priori ties be communicated and enforced.
Project Management

Now let's turn to the subject of project management -- the second ha 1£ of Step-Wi se Management
Controls.
Project planning and control techniques have been
quite successful in other industries -- construction, manufacturing, aerospace, etc. -- but less
than successful in many data processing applications, presumably because data processing projects
are "unstructured" or, at least, vary widely in form
and content and, therefore, don't yield readily to
any given standard control procedure.
A closer inspection, however, disproves this
theory. The basic structure of systems projects is
the same regardless of the application. The procedural steps for development of a system can be
standardized into specific "uni t proj ects" in much
the same fashion as a product is assembled from
parts into components into subassemblies and, finally, into a finished product. The planning of a
project is, therefore, similar to the "explosion"
of a production schedule into material and manpower
requirements -- that is, the determination of what
parts must be assembled or manufactured, how many
man-hours will be required at each step of the process and what kinds of equipment and ski lIs wi 11 be
required.
A Methodology: "PRIDE"

In this planning process the number of subassemblies to be developed or, in our case, the number

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

of uni t projects to be completed is somewhat arbitrary; it may consist of many small subprojects or
of a few larger such units. In our company we have
adopted a methodology developed by M. Bryce and Associates, Inc., labeled "PRIDE". This is the registered trademark of a very sophisticated project
planning and control methodology, and most of my
remarks will be based on concepts used in PRIDE.
In our "process flow" for a systems proj ec tare
nine major components or unit projects which correspond to nine stages in a manufacturing process.
Although each of these unit projects may consist of
many activities, the completion of a unit project
itself provides the checkpoint for management audit
and control.
Once the total project is planned and scheduled
by defining the elements of work which make up each
of the nine unit projects, the execution of the
project then corresponds to the assembly or manufacture of a product, and all normal provisions for
cost control, quality assurance, delivery schedules
and fitness of the end product to satisfy its intended purpose must prevail.
Unit Projects

I will not attempt here to go into detail in describing these nine unit projects, since their labels are somewhat descriptive and also because they
are, to a degree, arbitrary in composition. The important point is that they provide distinct bench
marks and control points for management review and
decision-making. The nine are:
1. Systems study and evaluation: this phase includes the analysis of the existing system or
definition of the problem, an evaluation of
needs, development of a system or problemsolving approach and preparation of an economic feasibility report, project schedule, and
proposa 1.
2. General system design.
3. Subsystem design.
4. Administrative and computer procedure design:
this phase includes both administrative or
clerical procedure design and computer or program procedure design.
5. Program development.
6. Computer procedure test.
7. System test.
8. System operation.
9. System audit.
Each of these nine unit projects is managed independently but is time-dependent in that no one
unit project can be started until the preceding one
is completed. Since each of the nine must be completely documented, reviewed by systems and user
management and approved before it is classified as
complete, any tendency for the total project to
stray from original objectives can be detected very
early in the process. This also enables the detection of changed requirements early in the process,
so that the project objectives can be changed if
this is required.
Time Estimating

An important feature of the methodology is that
time estimating and target dates are treated realistically. In the first phase, a firm estimate of re(please turn to page 17)

9

"AII this activity illustrates the second economic law in operation in computing in higher
education.

. .. 'If you know exactly what computing you want, you can get it wholesale:"

Computing Facilities at Stanford University:
Their Development and Direction
Prof. Gene F. Franklin
Stanford University
Stanford, Calif. 94305

"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed. "

The relevance of this text to those who have been
involved in the computer decisions in higher education over the last decade, will be readily apparent.
I propose here to describe briefly the background
and then the outline of recent significant decisions
affecting computing at Stanford, and to express what
I take to be the generalizations which may be learned
from this particular experience.
Background of Service Computing

Two years ago Stanford had three computer organizations and five computer facilities. Now here I am
talking about general purpose service machines which
supported the administrative, instruction and research programs of the University in distinction
from the special purpose facilities such as the
large computer installation at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory directed by Professor McCarthy of
the Department of Computer Science where studies of
computers, per se, were (and still are) being conducted. But in this service area we had five major
facili ties.
For example, Stanford University owns and operates a 600-bed hospital in conjunction with our Medical School. For patient billing, general accounts,
and other administrative functions the hospital had
a Data Processing Department reporting to the Financial Officer. The machine was an IBM 360/40, soon
replaced by a 370/135 operati ng under IBM's D.O. S.
with a special monitor called Shared Hospital Accounting System, or SHAS. This facility did negligible system programming, but had a sizea~le applications programming and data control sectIon. They
ran census up-dates, andposted chargeable items from
the various hospital services daily, for example.
The machine was tuned to this special function.
University Administration Facility

In an analogous fashion, the University Office of
Business and Finance had cOlnputer support via a
Reprinted with permission from Facts and Futures: What's Happening
Now in Computing for Higher Education, Proceedings of the Fall 1973
EDUCOM Conference (EDUCOM, Princeton, New Jersey) 1974.

10

370/145, also a D.O.S. shop and running many COBOL
programs in support of finance and accounting, student services, such as registration and student aid
and loans, the Development Office and Al umni Affairs,
Sponsored Projects, and Academic Planning; and also,
incidentally, ran a sizeable billing service for the
physicians on the faculty of the Medical School who
operated the Stanford University Medical Clinics.
Again, this was a facility tuned to a group of user
requirements. Somewhat unusual in this context was
the fact that a significant advanced development in
computer support for University Administration was
being conducted by this group with partial support
from the Ford Foundation . . . .
Stanford Computation Center

Meanwhile, in the area of academic computing in
support of research and instruction, there was an
organization known as the Stanford Computation Center (SCC) which reported to the Provost, our chief
academic officer, and which operated three facilities. Most specialized of these was the ACME facility, a 360/50 installed with substantial support
from the U.S. government through N.LI1., as a research tool on computer support for Medical research.
The philosophy of design, implemented by uio Wiederhold and his staff about five years ago, was a single language, terminal oriented facility aimed to be
so easy to use and so broad in support that the physician-researcher would do most of his own programming and always maintain control over his own data
files. The facility had extensive provision for
data collection and plotting including centralized
A/D conversion facilities and common graphics support for a variety of devices including drum plotters and CRT displays. The machine configuration
was rather specialized, having a minimum of high
speed memory, but 2 million bytes of low speed core.
The language processor, PL/ACME, was are-entrant
core resident varient of PL/l, running under IBM's
standard OS-MVT. The processor, being locally designed, was locally maintained and enhanced by a
small systems staff.
SLAC Operated for AEC

Also managed by SCC was the computer facility bf
the high energy linear accelerator, SLAC, operated

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

by Stanford for the AEC as a national research facility. The computer was a 360/91 operating mainly
FORTRAN in a number crunching mode for a relatively
few sophisticated users. They operated an extensive
tape library for user data, and also had a substantial systems staff to maintain their charter to be
at the forefront of the art of scientific computing
support. The SLAC facility had brought up the text
editor and remote job entry system, WYLBUR, originally written at Stanford.
General Academic Facility

The last of our five computer facilities of two
years ago was called the CAMPUS facility and did the
computing for anyone who did not qualify for the
other four. If you asked a random student or staff
member where to find the "Comp Center", you would be
directed to Pine Hall. There you 1V0uld find a 360/67
operating under OS-MFT being dynamically switched
from real to virtual and back to real storage under
system modifications designed at Stanford 6 years
ago when IBM's announced time-sharing system failed
to be efficient enough for us to be able to afford
it. This system served about 5,000 users and ran
about 10,000 jobs per week. The charter of the CAMPUS facility was to provide the greatest variety of
services with maximum flexibility and fast turn
around, while also aiming to be reliable and cost
effective. A special service, HISPEED, was introduced primarily for short jobs you would expect from
student projects and homework. Although the timesharing system was available, pricing policy and machine effectiveness were such that the majority of
jobs were submitted via the card readers. The facility had a large staff of systems programmers dedicated to system maintenance, and enhancement, and a
large user services staff who provided a wide range
of courses and consulting to help the customers make
the best use of the system.
Pressures Determine Direction

This is a brief picture of service computing at
Stanford 2 years ago. Five facilities at the hospital, University Administration, Medical School, SLAC
and General Academic, each tuned to a particular
user community with really only one having a widely
diverse user group. This was the position; what was
the direction of motion? For surely computing is a
dynamic field and to predict the path we need the
derivative. Some of the forces influencing this derivative were technological and programmatic, some
were financial, and some were managerial. Let us go
back and look at the facilities and see some of the
pressures they were under.
Let us go back to the hospital; the standard DOS
shop doing patient billing. In the first place, the
Hospital Data Processing noticed that many hospital
patients were also clinic patients, and moved to design a unified patient accounting system to handle
all bills and records. On the other hand, many of
the physicians in the school were developing systems
on the ACME computer, and casting about for a vehicle
to support them in production as opposed to research
and development mode. The Hospital Data Processing
Department felt these should be part of the centralized services and viewed with dismay the initiation
of independent systems in Pathology (they got a
Sigma 3) and Pharmacology (they got two PDP-II's).
Also of concern was the obvious trend towards online Hospi tal Information Systems (II. I. S.) and although it was far from clear what kind of system
Stanford would introduce, it was at least evident
that a 370/135 operating under the financial officer

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

was a most unlikely place for it to happen in a university hospital. In any event, Stanford University
Hospital Data Processing Department began to acquire
on-line experience with the IBM program product CICS
for on-line access to census data, and to think
about an on-line admissions system. The hospital
projected the need for a 370/145 within two years,
and, if a centralized II.LS. was to be introduced,
conversion from DOS to an OS environment.
Many of these same pressures were in operation at
ACME, of course. The pathology and drug interaction
programs were developed on the ACME system and yet
the '50 was not a suitable facility for production
both because of its design and inherent unreliability and also because of the charter of the ACME research project. The final irresistible force was
the fact that NIH informed the principal investigator that further support of ACME in the form then in
effect would be impossible.
Medical Community Findings

Thus it came about that the medical community -hospital and school -- began an intensive study of
computing needs and opportunities in the Medical
Center. They proposed a central facility to serve
all the centers and in which patient care data could
be made available to physicians interested in primary care, those interested in research questions,
and those interested in the smooth administration of
the hospital. Administratively, these proposals
were accorded a receptive hearing by Dr. Clayton
Rich, the new Dean of the Medical School and VicePresident for Medical Affairs of the University.
However, there were some substantial difficulties
with the funding of such a center. As perceived at
the time, the computer service priorities would be:
Heliabil i ty
On-line interactive computing, including PL/ACME
Extensive file management and data base support
services
Provision for entering and interacting with laboratory and other time oriented data, both in
research and patient care functions.
SLAC Facility Expands Duties

Things were also moving at SLAC. The AEC had begun a major computer procurement cycle some time before and, with several false starts, it happened
that SLAC was to receive two 370/168's in the fall
of 1973 to augment the 91. In the procurement negotiations, SLAC had taken the position that computing
is central to effective physics and that the required facility was to collect data directly from
the experiment, spool it immediately into digital
form, and allow interaction between the experimenter
and his data in sufficiently short time to allow the
experiment to be modified while in progress based on
selected data analysis. The implications of this
policy were that SLAC ordered a dual system for reliability since the computer had to be up when the
accelerator was up, and otherwise wrote a set of
priori ties entirely like those of the Medical School.
Also, the SLAC facility was moving out of the exclusive business of physics i at th(~ reqlwst of the Director, various administrativ(~ funetions, including
payroll and inven tory con trol, W(~rt' lI1ov('d to tlw /91.
~lany features of a production IIlO(lt~ \\(~re to h(~ imposed on /91 operation.
Impact of Project INFO Developments

At Encina Hall, where the university administration 145 was, the impact being felt was that of the

11

Project INFO developments. The On-line Administrative System for Information Service (OASIS) was being introduced for Student Services and Alumni Records. Although designed as a general purpose system
for support of university administration in a simple
environ~ent, it was apparent that continued systems
development for such an on-line data base management
facility would be expensive, would have to be supported in-house, and pointed to the same priorities
of reliability, production schedules, data base management services, and on-line computing described
earlier.
CAMPUS Facility Facing Similar Issues

Finally, at the CAMPUS facility, many of the same
issues presented themselves. Here the driving force
was an on-line information retrieval system called
SPIRES developed with support from NSF. Using SPIRES
services, another project in library automation
(BALLOTS) had been initiated and was being developed
on the 360/67. At about this time, ... the BALLOTS
system was taken as the production system of the
university library. This meant going to a situation
where the Library Catalog Department will be down if
the computer is down. The priority is reliability.
Also, BALLOTS is an on-line system using the MARC
file generated by the Library of Congress as a major
data base with other files being generated of books
on order, books catalogued, books in a particular
collection.
Facilities Seen Converging

It thus appeared that directions of motion at all
five facilities were converging. The more conservative management support centers in the ho?pital and
university administration saw on-line interactive
computing as a major feature of their future. Meanwhile, our research and instruction facilities were
not only being expected to be more reliable, more
stable in their primary roles, but they were also
being pushed into administrative functions themselves. SLAC was doing the payroll, ACME was running production patient care data base systems, and
the hospital was experimenting with on-line admissions and looking toward a comprehensive Hospital
Information System.
At this point, two factors came into play. First,
we had new top management in the University with a
Provost who was a computer scientist, and Vice-presidents of Business and Finance and of Medicine who
were open to different ways of doing things. Also,
as I mentioned earlier, the best proposals from the
Medical Center ad hoc committee on computer problems
had serious funding uncertainties. The second factor, after receptive management, then, was Grosch's
Law, or Cheaper by the Dozen. Twice the investment
gets four times the power.
Facilities Merge

In April of 1973 there was established the Stanford Center for Inforr.lation Processing (SCIP) under
the directorship of Charles Dickens, with a charter
to manage all five service facilities, and to achieve
such economies of scale, both in manpower and hardware, as would be consistent with continued support
of University programs. At the same time, the University Policy Committee structure had been broadened to include more explicitly university administration Computing Policy and I10spital Data Processing services. We have thus regularized several ad
hoc groups of uncertain authority.

12

SCIP, in its few months of existence, has done
several things. A central location for CPU file
hardware has been established near the University
Library with a university commitment to provide
space for all staff and SCIP management nearby
within two years. Consolidation in a shorter time
is sadly too expensive and I only hope the expense
on an organization spread about in several locations
is not too high, This is my personal greatest concern at this time on the decision recently made.
Building on the studies already done in the Medical
Center, SCIP has installed a 370/158, co-located
with the 370/145 and released the /50 and, soon, the
/135 from the Medical Center. Being co-located with
the /145, certain sharing of peripherals is already
underway. For the first time, system operations for
all five facilities are under one management and the
priorities of operations are being uniformly set.
Systems Programming Staff Integrated

In a second major reorganization of Stanford computing, the systems programming staff are now integrated into a single organization, using the experience on the /158 and the resources of the dual /168
installation. This group, under Ed Williams, is
undertaking a single program of development for
operating system, interactive services, data base
management, and real-time services for all SCIP facilities. An immediate impact of this policy is that
some enhancements that would have been undertaken on
the /67 and on the /145 will, of necessity, be deferred, but we feel the longer range payoff will
more than compensate for the immediate discomfort.
This group is studying the conversion of the Hospital SIlAS, the CAMPUS BALLOTS, and the University
OASIS systems to a consistent environment. Their
time scale is to accomplish this by the end of calendar 1974.
Other Computer Centers

Of course, there was before, and there is now,
more to computing at Stanford than those services
which are the responsibility of SCIP. I referred
earlier to the research computer of Professor McCarthy and there are many other CPU's on the campus.
Also, in special cases, there are basically service
machines. The Graduate School of Business has an
HP 2000 providing computing in B-P BASIC for their
students. The machine is run with one operator and
a faculty director and left running unattended
nights and weekends. It is very cost effective.
Also in the Electronics Laboratories there is an XDS
Sigma 5 which supports dedicated high speed realtime services for radioscience and patient monitoring proj ects, among others. Finally, and especially,
there are many mini machines of the POP-8, 11 and
HP 2100 class on campus in laboratories and other
unique environments where SCIP services are either
unavailable, or uneconomical. During my tenure as
Associate Provost for Computing, I have approved acquisitions of about three and a half million dollars
worth of computing outside the SCIP "franchise". All
this activity illustrates the second economic law in
operation in computing in higher education. I first
read it applied to computing in a paper by Professor
Cox of Washington University. It goes, "If you know
exactly what computing you want, you can get it wholesale". Wholesale computing today in medium speed
data acquisition and manipulation comes in small
packages. In large data base storage and retrieval,
centralized facilities now seem to be indicated for
all facets of University computing services. The
trick is for us all to get our computing by the
D
dozen, wholesale.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

,.

Behavioral Factors In Information Sytems
Charles J. Testa, Assistant Professor
College of Business & Public Administration
University of Maryland
College Park, Md. 20742

'The decade of the 1970's should witness the development of sophisticated man/machine
planning systems.

The development of these systems, however, must await a better

understanding of human problem-solving behavior."

The need for better understanding of human behavior in information systems is becoming increasingly
apparenL A recent report [11 by the Association for
Computing Machinery (ACM) curriculum committee on
computer education in management offered recommendations for graduate professional programs in information systems and stated, "If the program turns out
practitioners who ignore or only pay lip service to
the people problems, it will not have realized its
aims ... ,,1
Traditionally, information specialists have concentrated their efforts on hardware/software problems. As a result, sophisticated information systems
were often developed, but people experienced difficulty 'in interacting with these complex systems.
Since information systems are used, operated, and
maintained by people, the design of effective information systems will only result if man's behavioral
capabilities are taken into consideration. In this
article, man's perceptual and cognitive capabilities
will be examined as important determinants of the
design of information systems.
The Process of Perception
and Perceptual Style

Perception is a selective process which tends to
give structure to the complicated situations encountered in experience [2J. In order to fully understand the process of perception recent investigators [3J have emphasized the need to e'xamine the
total psychological organization of the individual.
Witkin and his associates [4J have conducted numerous studies to determine if an individual actively contributes to the progress and outcome of
the act of perceiving. They concluded that a person's manner of perceiving does not easily change

and represents an ingrained feature of his psychological being -- his perceptual style. Individuals
can be classified on a field dependent-field independent continuum contingent upon their ability to
extract a figure from an embedding context. In perceiving a situation humans distinguish between prominent elements referred to as the "figure" and suppressed background referred to as the "ground".
Field independent people are better able to separate
"figure" from "ground" and as a consequence, attempt
to overcome social and other environmental factors
affecting perception. On the other hand, field dependent people passively conform to the influence of
the embedding context.
A Test for Measuring Perceptual Style

The embedded figures test (EFT) developed by Witkin examines the manner in which a part is perceived
within a larger field. It requires an individual to
locate a simple figure which is perceptually obscured in a larger complex figure. The test utilized eight simple figures and twelve complex figures
as shown in Figure 1. Also included are the simple
and complex figures used for a practice trial before
actual testing. To further obscure the simple figures, complex figures are colored using a design described in Figure 1. The score for the test is the
average time taken to locate each figure. This test
score provides a measure of perceptual style.
By demonstrating that perception cannot be understood without reference to personal factors, Witkin
et a1. have provided a basis for a comprehensive
theory of human psychological functioning. The authors claim that an individual's performance in the
perceptual test (EFT) represents the nature of his
personality functioning in other areas of life.
The Process of Cognition and Cognitive Style

Charles J. Testa is an assistant professor in the
Information System Management Department at the
University of Maryland, College Park, Md. He received a B.S. from Lafayette College in 1964, a
M.S. in business administration from U.C.L.A. in
1966, and a Ph.D. in biotechnology from U.C.L.A.
in 1969.
After serving as a member of the technical staff at BELLCOM for one year, hejoined the
faculty atthe University of Marylan~where he has
worked on curriculum and course development in information systems management.
lie is a member of
the Human Factors Society and the Association for
Computing Machinery.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

Information enters short term memory through the
sense organs by the process of perception or from
long term memory by the process of cognition. Cognition refers to the processes of thinking, reasoning,
remembering, and conceptualizinu us(~d to elaborate,
combine, and explore wha t has Iw(!n p(~rcd ved [2J,
IIumans can consciously process only a small portion
of sensory inputs because of their limi t(~d spnn of
memory. As a result, cognitive activity is also
limited to a small number of items (between five and
nine) at anyone time. If more items are present,
humans respond by grouping, sequencing, or neglecting items.

13

The organization of received sensory data into information is based upon an individual's perceptual
habits or the degree of conceptualization used to
organize what has been perceived. Perception is
strongly influenced by cognition or "what you know
is what you see". Individuals demonstrate a consistent mode of perceiving and organizing sensory data
which has been termed their cognitive style. Cognitive development is a process of increasing differentiation which is part of and indistinguishable
from personality growth as a whole [5J.

dition, they indicated a tendency towards introversion. Hence, creative people tend to be open to experiences, alert to future possibilities, and independent in thought and action. Since they observed
in a highly differentiated manner, and focus perception and judgment upon concepts and ideas rather
than upon the environment, it can be hypothesized
that creative people are field independent.

Personality Classification

In a seminal paper on man-computer symbiosis,
Licklider [8J described the expected development of
a cooperative interaction between men and computers.
He viewed this symbiosis as occurring somewhere on a
continuum between mechanically extended man and artificial intelligence. A maj or obj ective of his argument was to have man and computer closely interact
in the problem solving or decision-making sequence.
In this manner man's slow, parallel, and associative
thinking would combine with the computer's fast, sequential logic capability to improve performance.
Human factors handbooks list various capabilities
which make humans essential in the problem-solving
environment. These include the ability to: project
missing information from experience; perceive pattern in a situation; develop hypotheses about causeeffect relationships; make probability estimates of
conditions; optimize on uncertain criteria and objectives; and generalize from one context of events
to another. Thus, man is uniquely suited to set
goals, formulate hypotheses, develop models, define
criteria, and evaluate results. On the other hand,
computers can be used to convert hypotheses into
models for testing, perform simulations, and display
results. The integration of these capabilities
should lead to better system performance.

A classification scheme developed by Jung and described by Campbell [6J characterizes personality as
consisting of four major psychological functions.
Two of the functions pertain to perception (sensation and intuition) and two to judgment (thinking
and feeling). Every individual tends to develop one
style of perceiving and one style of judging while
the alternate styles remain in an inferior state of
differentiation or unconscious. Thus, the most differentiated or superior functions characterize behavior. An individual's adoption of sensation as a
manner of perceiving indicates a heavy reliance upon
sensory processes while the intuition type cannot
identify the factors on which he bases perception.
For the sensation type reality is derived from facts
which can be collected and verified by the senses
and imagination has little effect on his experiences.
On the other hand, the intuition type considers future possibilities and his perception of reality is
often via the unconscious, i.e. he is not aware of
what aspects of a situation his perceptual processes
have selected.
When an individual relies mainly on cognitive
processes and bases judgments on systematic, rational, and logical reasoning he can be classified
as a thinking type who represses emotion and feeling
in discriminating between true and false. A feeling
type on the other hand, is characterized by reliance
upon emotional processes and judgments based on subjective standards. This latter type is more discerning in attaching value to objects or things.
Since the functions for perception and judgment
are assumed to be independent, psychological types
can be classified using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBII) into one of the following categories:
sensation-thinking (ST); intuition-thinking (NT);
sensation-feeling (SF); intuition-feeling (NF). It
would be rare indeed to find individuals who were
exact types. However, this fact does not detract
from the utility of this classification scheme as an
aid in characterizing personality. For example,
each category is characterized by a dominant personality trait as shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1
Personality Traits of Psychological Types

Personality Trait
ST
NT
SF
NF

practical
ingenious
sociable
insightful

Studies conducted by MacKinnon [7J have demonstrated that a high percentage of creative people
are characterized by a preference for perception
(intui tion), according to scores on the MBTI. In ad-

14

A Symbiotic Relationship
Between Man and Computer

Advancement of this symbiotic concept has been
limited by a lack of knowledge about personal styles
of decision making or problem solving. To examine
personal differences in human problem-solving style
Sackman and Gold [9J conducted a factor analytic
study in which they investigated fifty-three variables related to computer programming. Some of the
main factors identified were the following: problem
solving speed; exploitation of the computer system;
exploration of alternatives; conceptualization ability; and problem strategy. Thus, the psychological
variables of cognitive style, decision style, and
personality were clearly expressed in the factors
which influence programmer performance. These results indicate that individual differences could be
better understood if cognitive capabilities could be
determined.
In recent years the concept of man-computer interaction has almost been synonymous with online,
time-sharing computer systems. For purposes of the
discussion which follows, an online system is defined
as one with direct access to the central processing
unit of the computer. This capability permits managers to query the system for "immediate" responses
to questions.
A current topic of investigation is the use of
online systems to support human problem solving or
decision making. To perform this support function
the system must aid the individual's conceptual development. The online mode of operation facilitates
extensive exploration of problems and testing of hypotheses" Thus, it assists the creative and intuitive abilities of users which are essential in solving ill-structured problems. In essence the online
mode can adapt to the problem solving style of the
individual.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

[>
P

2

2

A-2

A-1
A

P-1
B

~

B-1

A-3

C

~

~

c~ 1

C-2

0

cfJ
E

0-1

E-2

E-1

F

F-1

G-1

H-1

G
Figure 1 - Simple and Complex Figures Used in the Embedded-Figures Test
The simple figures are designated by a letter; the complex figures are designated by a letter and a number, the
letter corresponding to that of the simple figure which it contains. Figures P and P-1 are the practice figures.
The specific colors used in each complex figure are represented by numbers; and wherever necessary the area
covered by a given color is indicated by wavy lines radiating from the number. Figure A-2 remained uncolored.
The colors to which the numbers refer are as follows: 1 red, 2 blue, 3 orange, 4 yellow, 5 brown, 6 dark green.

H
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

15

An examination of these time-sharing systems,
however, reveals a pervasive failure to consider
human behavioral capabilities. For example, the frequent occurrence of response delays in time-sharing
systems can be disruptive to problem solving. Miller
[IOJ estimated that delays of approximately 15 seconds cause deteriorated performance in problem-solving si tuations. As stated by Miller, "If delays of
more than fifteen seconds will occur, the system had
better be designed to free the user from physical
and mental captivity, so that he can turn to other
activities and get his answer when it is convenient
to him to do so ... ,,2 In fact, for complex problemsolving activities which are dependent upon shortterm memory capability with its rapid decay rate and
small capacity, response times of less than 2 seconds are recommended.
Management Information Systems

Management information systems (MIS) are designed
to provide information to assist managers in the decision making process. Since decisions differ at
various levels in the organization a classification
scheme for managerial activity would be helpful in
determining specific information requirements. A
taxonomy developed by Anthony [IIJ describes three
categories of activity. The first category is strategic planning: "Strategic planning is the process
of deciding on objectives of the organization, on
changes in these obj ec ti ves, on the resources used
to attain these objectives, and on the policies that
are to govern the acquisition, use, and disposition
of these resources . . . . ,,3 The determination of policies and long range objectives for the organization
is highly dependent upon the creative and intuitive
ability of the manager. The second category is management control: " ... the process by which managers
assure that resources are obtained and used effectively and efficiently in the accomplishment of the
organizations's objectives ... ,,4 At this level the
administrative, persuasive, and evaluative capabilities of the manager are most important. Anthony's
third category is called operational control: "the
process of assuring that specific tasks are carried
out effecti vely and efficiently ••• ,,5 At thi slowest
level the manager need only be able to follow instructions and display a certain degree of persistence.
From these definitions one can conclude that the
three activities are sufficiently diverse so as to
require different forms of information. This is
further illustrated in Table 2 where the characteristics of information in each activity are compared.
TABLE 2
Information Characteristics at Three Levels of Management

Level

Characteristics

Strategic Planning

External predictive data
Accuracy not critical
Custom-tailored
Internal historical data
Fai rly accurate
Financial
Internal logistic data
High degree of accuracy
Nonfinancial

Management Control
Operational Control

Another useful classification scheme for managerial activity is the one developed by Simon [12J
which distinguishes between programmed and nonprogrammed decisions. "Decisions are programmed to the

16

extent that they are repetitive and routine, to the
extent that a definite procedure has been worked out
for handling them so that they don't have to be
treated de novo each time they occur. Decisions are
nonprogrammed to the extent that they are novel, unstructured, and consequential. There is no cut-anddried method for handling the problem because it
hasn't arisen before, or because its precise nature
and structure are elusive or complex, or because it
is so important that it deserves a custom-tailored
treatment ••• ,,6
The problems encountered by the
president and vice president of an organization are
typically ill-structured (nonprogrammed) and depend
upon judgment, intuition, and creativity for solution. On the other hand, the problems of lower
level managers are normally well-structured (programmed) and can be solved by following standard
operating procedures. Once again the form of information required depends upon the classification,
i.e., whether or not the problem is programmable.
Decision situations which can be classified as programmable can often be handled by an existing operations research type model. The model allows an empirical or experimental determination to be made of
the best operating condition. Nonprogrammable situations, however, often require the development of
models which may be nonquantitative in nature. As a
result, these models tend to be more useful for the
insights gained by the manager rather than for actual model output. The relationship between these
two decision types and Anthony's levels of management is depicted in Table 3. Anthony and Simon have
described two alternative, yet compatible views of
managerial activity in organizations which in combination provide a useful framework within which to
examine problems in the design of MIS.
TABLE 3
Degree of Structure in Decisions
at Three Levels of Management

Level

Degree of Structure

Strategic Planning
Management Control
Operational Control

Low
Medium
IIigh

Implications for Future MIS Design

Research in the design of information systems requires an appreciation of the future development of
technology, the economic factors involved, and the
future attitudes of managers toward various system
alternatives. It cari be argued that the grandiose
plans developed for MIS have accomplished,verylittle
to date. This is not to imply that they are unnecessary, but rather that small action steps towards
specific goals should also be taken. Some of the
immediate goals should include research on: the perceptual and cognitive styles of managers and alternative modes of information presentation.
The first goal seems particularly important since
every corporation has different psychological types
each of whom require different kinds of information.
Past design of MIS has been oriented almost e.xclusively to individuals who could be classified as
sensation-thinking.
It can be noted from Anthony's classification
that top management is primarily concerned with
planning functions while middle and lower managers
primarily attend to control functions. Since the
procedures for control systems can be precisely
specified, design problems are trivial compared to

COMPUTERS and PES>PLE for April, 1974

•

r./

rs

3

those for planning systems. As a result, the decade
of the 1960's witnessed the development of many control oriented applications, i.e. payroll, inventory,
etc. but experienced very little in the way of planning systems for top management. The decade of the
1970's should witness the development of sophisticated man/machine planning systems. The development
of these systems, however, must await a better understanding of human prOblem-solving behavior. Only
then can models or computer aids be developed to assist in certain aspects of human decision making.
Another major assumption of current MIS design is
that the best mode of information presentation is
computer printout. Once again the direct and wellstructured stimuli presented by this form of information fit the needs of a sensation-oriented person.
The utilization of more personalistic approaches to
information presentation will be warranted, however,
if the needs of feeling and intuition types are
taken into consideration. For these types, role
playing and group discussions may be more useful
than traditional methods of presentation.
In bot~ instances the impact of alternative information systems design can only be determined if
more is known about the perceptual and cognitive
. capabilities of managers.
Footnotes

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

ACM [lJ, p. 381.
Miller [1OJ, p. 125.
Anthony [llJ, p. 24.
Anthony [llJ, p. 27.
Anthony [llJ, p. 69.
Simon L12J, pp. 5-6.

n

e

[lJ Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Curriculum Committee on Computer Education Management. Curriculum recommendations for graduate
professional programs in information systems.
Communications of the ACM, 15, 5 (May 1972),
363-398.
Morris, W. T. Management for Action. Reston,
Va.: Reston Publishing Company, 1972.
Bruner, J. S., and D. Krech. Perception and
Personality. Durham, N. C.: Duke Univ. Press,
1950.
[4J Witkin, H. H., R. Dyk, H. F. Faterson, D. R.
Goodenough, and S. A. Karp. Psychological Differentiation. New York: Wiley and Sons, 1962 ..
[5J Bruner, J. S., J. J. Goodenow, and G. A. Austin.
A Study of Thinking. New York: Wiley & Sons,
1956.
[6J Campbell, J. (ed). The Portable Jung. New
York: The Viking Press, 1971.
[7J Mackinnon, D. W. "The Nature and Nurture of
Creative Talent." American Psychologist, 1962,
17, 484-495.
[8J Licklider, J. C. R. "Man-Computer Symbiosis,"
IEEE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, Vol. 2, No.1, March, 1960, 4-11.
[9J Sackman, H., and M. M. Gold. "Time-Sharing
versus Batch Processing: An Experimental Inquiry Into Human Problem Solving." Systems
Development Corporation, SP-3110, 1968.
[1OJ Miller, R. B. "Response Time in Man-Computer
Transactions." AFIPS Conference Proceedings,
Fall, 1968, 267-277.
[llJ Anthony, R. Planning and Control Systems: A
Fram~work for Analysis.
Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univ., 1965.
[12J Simon, H. A. The Shape of Automation: For Men
and Management. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.

o
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

quirements to complete the second phase is established along with an order of magnitude estimate for
the total project. Upon completion of the second
phase, a firm estimate is established for the third
phase, and the order of magnitude estimate for the
total project is revised. This process continues
throughout. At first glance these frequent revisions to the overall project estimate might appear
unacceptable to the system user. But, interestingly
enough, we have found that in general operating managers prefer this realistic approach to scheduling
over the "ballpark" estimating usually done wi th
little or no provision to assure that the estimate
is the best possible.
One of the most frustrating and challenging responsibilities of the MIS manager is to make sure
that systems are adequately documented, the basic
design, program detail, operating instructions, file
descriptions, and even the project itself must be
described in sufficient detail to allow reconstruction of the system at any pOint in the future.
Again, the PRIDE methodology provides that systems
and user management must approve each phase of the
project and its documentation before the next phase
can begin. As a result, programs are documented before the actual computer instructions are written;
manual procedures are written before a system test
can be conducted, and the data base or data files
are completely described before subsystems are designed.
Time Saved

References

s,

McMI LLEN - Continued from page 9

A seemingly negative aspect of this approach to
project management is that all the documentation,
estimating, and reporting of actual time in order to
revise the estimates take valuable time away from
the actual task at hand, which is to produce results.
Our experience has shown, however, that the additional time spent in planning and documenting is
more than recovered during programming and testing
stages and, even more important, that the increased
assurance that the results satisfy the needs makes
this additional effort almost imperative.
A more serious, seemingly negative aspect is that
user management must, in many cases for the first
time, take the-time to analyze user needs, review
the project as it develops, and commit themselves to
the project's objectives. Our approach has enabled
us to convince the functional manager that he cannot afford to devote all his efforts to running the
business today, while some systems analyst is developing the system that will determine how he runs the
business tomorrow.
My subject has been priority-setting, resource
allocation, and project management as it pertains to
system development. But in the final analysis, the
successful control of projects depends on management
dedication -- the same dedication given to a successful start-up of a new production facility or
introduction of a new product. With this dedication
and a common-sense approach to planning and control,
we can assure a much higher success rate. We feel
the approach outline here will:
• Provide a better method of reaching and revising agreements.
• Minimize the degree to which management is
taken by surprise.
• Optimize performance in a changing environment.
• Cause things to happen.
o
17

Managing Modern Complexity -Dr. Stafford Beer
Visiting Professor of Cybernetics
Business School of Manchester University
Manchester, Great Britain

From the Editor

Paul Armer, director, Computation Center,' Stanford
73
University, Calif.
Osmo A. Wiio, professor of organization theory and
85
personnel management, Helsinki University, Finland
George Kozmetsky, dean, College of Business Admin89
istration and Graduate School of Business, University
of Texas
Thomas F. Green, director, Educational Policy Re107
search Center, Syracuse University, N.Y.

Every now and then your editor comes across something that is interesting, important, and apparently far
away from the main stream in the field of computers
and data processing.
This is the case for the following 130 page paperbound book available from the Superintendent of
Documents, Washington, D.C. (for 60 cents) and which
is entitled: The Management of Information and Knowledge: a Compilation of Papers prepared for the Eleventh
Meeting, 1970, of the Panel on Science and Technology
of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U. S.
House of Representatives.
The Table of Contents is:
Page

vii

Introduction
Keynote remarks:
McGeorge Bundy, President, Ford Foundation,
New York
Earl Warren, Chief Justice, retired
Daniel Bell, the moderator

9
13

Papers:
Herman Kahn, director, Hudson Institute, Croton, N.Y. 17
Stafford Beer, development director, International
41
Publishing Corp., and visiting professor of cybernetics, Manchester University, Great Britain
Daniel J. Boorstin, Director, National Museum of
63
History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution

1. THREAT SYSTEMS

The business of forecasting is fraught with many
traps; it often seems ascientific. But the perspicuous detection of inexorable trends can be a matter
of good science. There is a reality to observe and
to measure, a real i ty in which a dead man is a corpse
and not a statistic. There is a reality, too, with
which to experiment; a reality that does not come in
parcels labelled for the attention of appropriate
officials. The very stuff of this reality is complexity. The elements of our society ever more
richly interact: the more this happens, the more
participation is invoked, the more the streams of
data flow ... the more complex does society become.
Handling complexity seems to be the major problem
of the age, in the way that handling material subReprinted from The Management of Information and Know/edge (a compilation of papers prepared for the eleventh meeting, 1970, of the Panel
on Science and Technology), published by the Committee on Science and
Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives.

18

Summary comments:
Fernando Garcia-Roel, rector, Instituto Tecnologico
121
y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, N. L. Mexico
loan D. Stancescu, professor, Bucharest Technical
123
University, and Counsellor, National Council of
Scientific Research, Rumania
L. Harvey Poe, Jr., partner, law firm of Howard &
127
Poe, Washington, D.C.

Former Chief Justice Earl Warren, as reported in this
book, says nothing of significance, as can be predicted
because of his relation to the field of computers and data
processing, about which he admits he knows nothing.
But Stafford Beer's paper is so interesting and so important, even three years after he gave it, that it is worth reprinting currently in Computers and People.
I believe that any reader of Computers and People who
buys this book will find his money well spent.

stance offered challenge to our forefathers. Computers are the tools we have to use, and their effective use must be directed by a science competent to
handle the organization of large, complex, probabilistic systems. This is the science of cybernetics,
the science of communications and control.
Large Interactive Systems

The central thesis of cybernetics might be expressed thus: that there are natural laws governing
the behaviour of large interactive systems - in the
flesh, in the metal, in the social and economic fabric. These laws have to do with self-regulation and
self-organization. They constitute the "management
principle" by which systems grow and are stable,
learn and adjust, adapt and evolve. These seemingly
diverse systems are one, in cybernetic eyes, because
they manifest viable behaviour - which is to say behaviour conducive to survival.
In my opinion, the most important fact which a
quarter of a century's worth of cybernetics has re-

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

,

,

Part I
"OUR CUL TURE DOES NOT TAKE KINDL Y TO THE NOTION
THA T IT NURTURES THE SEEDS OF ITS OWN DESTRUCTION."

vealed is that this behaviour is governed by the dynamic structure of the system, rather than by special events occurring within it or by the particular
values taken up by even its maj or variables. "Structure" means the way in which the parts of a whole
are inter-related; and here it includes both the
feedback loops by which systems regulate themselves
and also the conditional probability mechanisms by
which systems learn and organize themselves. "Dynamic" relates to the speeds at which communication
is effected within the system, and especially to the
relative lags with which messages are promulgated,
overtake each other, and combine to form new patterns. Dynamic structure generates outcomes.
Therefore I say that what will h~ppen to mankind
in its battle with complexity will be determined
neither by particular innovation nor by isolated
achi~vement at some unkriown future date.
lIence the
attempted prediction of such things is not to the
point. Outcomes are latent in the dynamic structure
of the systems we have or may adopt: they will inexorably emerge.
Gross Instability

..

,?
).

At present, the most obtrusive outcome of the
system we have is a gross instability of institutional relationships and of the economy. This cannot
last. The society we have known will either collapse, or it will be overthrown. In either case a
new kind of society will emerge, with new modes of
control; and the risk is that it will be a society
which no one actually chose, and which we probably
will not like. I shall argue that we must use our
science to detect the latent outcomes which will one
day characterize the future of mankind. And let us
so engineer our systems that their latent outcomes
suit our social purpose. It is true that the outcomes cannot be fully determined, because there is
noise (or shall we call it free will?) in the system. But a systemic design taking due account of
cybernetic laws may be expected to produce behaviour which is predictable in terms of the overriding
social need for stability.
Thanks to the growth of complexity, which is very
much a function of the growth in data-handling capacity and of the information explosion, society has
outgrown the dynamic regulating capacity of its own
hallowed structure. lIistory did not design that
structure to cope with such complexity, and a cybernetically grotesque machinery is a result. It is

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

from this standpoint that I ask you to look again at
the environmental crises from which our view of the
future must necessarily start.
Societary Crises

The thermonuclear threat is a computable threat,
and one which computably grows - although we act as
if we were inured to it. The various pollution
threats - by pesticides, by noise, by sewage, by
carcinogenic urban air - were and remain systemically predictable. None of these things happened by
chance, by accident, or by the wrath of God. We have
run ourselves into these problems by failing to calculate the predictable consequences of the systems
civilization has IJnderwritten. The same seems to me
to be true, thOllUh less obviously so, of the various
forms of societary crisis which run alongside the
environmental crises. Problems of race, problems of
poverty, problems of over-popUlation: all these are
quantifiable aspects of computable systems. It has
taken social upheaval and threatening violence to
draw them to our proper attention; it has taken a
major revolt of the young to motivate any kind of
rethinking.
The risk which faces us today is the probability
that society will yet refuse to study the systemic
generators of human doom, and will disregard the cybernetic capability which already exists competent
to bring these many but inter-related forms of
crisis under governance.
Seeds of Social Destruction

There are two reasons for this fear. First of
all, our culture does not take kindly to the notion
that it nurtures the seeds of its own destruction.
Instead of stUdying the systemic reality in which
outcomes are latent, it prefers the technique of
prognostication. Small wonder: by using such wholly
non-systemic devices as the Delphi technique, we may
predict a possible millennium for our comfort. But
the Delphi technique is aptly named: its pronouncements are shrouded in ambiguity - because they take
no nccount of the syst(!lllic cOllt(!XL ~1t!anwhile, the
systems we have alreudy start(!d, which l\'(! nourish
and foster, are grinding society 1.0 !l0w(lt!r. It might
sound macabre to sugges t that compu ters wi 11 finish
the job of turning this planet into a paradise after
human life has been extinguished. Uut that vision
is little more macabre than the situation we already
have, when we sit in the comfort of affluent homes
and cause satellites to transmit to us live pictures

19

of children starving to death and human beings being
blown to pieces.
The second reason for my pessImIsm is that technology now seems to be leading humanity by the nose.
We appear to have no sense of priorities where our
problems are concerned; we do what is technologically
easy - and we do it regardless of cost. For example,
the problem people have of transporting themselves
from one remote place to another really exists between homes or offices and international airports.
But the problem we continuously solve is the non-existant problem of moving between those airports. It
is easier to go from Mach 1 to Mach 2 than to tackle
the genuine problem. Perhaps it was also easier to
go to the moon than to face up to what is happening
in the street outside.
Cybernation is about the Regulation of Society

Th"lS I direct myself and you to the claim that
cybernation is about the regulation of society, and
that this is what computers are for. Perhaps this
opening is a surprise. Would it not have been easier for all of us to plunge into the technology of
computation, to prattle on happily about nanoseconds
and massive data banks, to wonder at the explosion
of knowledge and the impending marvels of data storage and retrieval by holograms and photochromic
tubes, rather than to tell the truth about cybernation? What did you really expect? The fact is that
most of the problems we stand ready to consider are
bogus problems. They are generated by theories
about technological progress, and theories about the
way society works. Theory is often the only reality
countenanced by our culture.
The reality is that we are elements in a vast and
almost ungovernable social system generating outcomes that happen to us. We come sprightly to conference, dragging lead-heavy bones, to talk about
machines that matter only if they can help us men.
Our fat is suffused with insecticide, but we are
avid to decide what it will be like to take our
newspaper out of the back of the television set. The
expansion of knowled'Je will yet save the world, shall
I not tell you, coughing through the carcinogens and assuming that my plane was not hijacked and that
I was not "mugged" on the way':":":'.
Information is What Changes Us

I am fighting for a way through to your real ears.
That is exactly to say that I am trying to differentiate, in you, between data and information. Data
are a whole lot of meaningful pat terns. We can generate data indefinitely; we can exchange data forever;
we can store data, retrieve data, and file them away.
All this is great fun, maybe useful, maybe lucrative. But we have to ask why. The purpose is regulation. And that means translating data into information. Information is what changes us. My purpose
too is to effect change - to impart information,
not data.
Data are an excrescence.' Data are the very latest kind of pollution. We are not going to do anything at all about the management of information and
knowledge towards the regulation of society as long
as we think in data-processing terms. That is technologically easy. It is what the computer companies
and the tele-communication interests would like us
to do. Data are assuredly the great new marketable
commodities of the nineteen-seventies. But, let me
repeat, data of themselves have no value.
What has value is the machinery to transform data
into information, and the machinery by which that.

20

information may be used to innervate society. Society has become a complex organism, and it needs a
nervous system. Managing the development of informational science and teChnology is all about this
task. There is no other message than this.
2. BASES OF ARGUMENT

The technological capabilities on the availability of which my arguments will be based already exist. There is not really a significant element of
prognosis about them. There is however one proviso
to this: it derives from a logical trap to which I
will shortly draw attention. But first, here are
some fundamental propositions.
First Proposition. We can now automate whatever
we can exactly specify.
Second Proposition. Most (possibly all) ostensi~
bly human prerogatives for inferential, judgmental,
learned and adaptive behaviour can be exactly specified -- at least with respect to finite contexts.
Third Proposition. Within specified frameworks,
much ostensibly intuitional and creative human behaviour can be indistinguishably imitated by machine.
Fourth Proposition.
relevant.

Distance is technically ir-

Any Purposive System Can Now Be Created

All this means that purposive systems can now be
created to undertake any kind of purpose at all. We
know how to design those systems, and how to innervate them with data streams. And so society would
appear to be confronted by a problem of choice: what
activi ties should actually be automated? But I shall
argue that this question is largely illusory.
First of all, there is the logical trap. This is
of the sort called by logicians a fallacy of addition. We may do any of the things we can do; itdoes
not follow that we may do all the things we can do.
In the present state of the art, that is to say, we
shall rapidly exhaust our reserves of skill. So here
is the proviso about technological capability. My
own belief is that we shall have to embody a great
deal of basic software in special purpose hardware,
and that we shall need to automate the creation of
special software itself. I think that computer science will break through the barrier of human programming, and move to an era when programs are written by machines under general human surveillance.
This will in turn lead to programs which modify
themselves in the light of experience. Then we
shall be near the realization of the machine being
more intelligent than its designer, which von Neumann envisaged and showed mathematically possible
more than twenty years ago. There is no need for
more than this one paragraph of such modest guesswork - because after that it may well be too late
to do what ought to be done right now. At any rate,
this is the only technological barrier which I can
identify.
Lack of Concentration of Power to Choose

Then we revert to the spurious problem of choice.
Why should not responsible authorities choose between desirable and undesirable systems for handling
knowledge and information? The answer is that in
neither the private nor the public sector of a free
society is there a sufficient concentration of power
to do so. If, for example, mammoth publishing interests decide (as they may) not to mobilize the resources of electronics adequately in the dissemina-

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

"

tion of knowledge, then it is open to electronic interests to become the publishers of the future. It
is also open to the information handling community
itself to embark on entrepreneurial activity at the
expense of both these industries. In the public
sector, it is certainly open to central government,
through its grant-awarding agencies in particular,
to encourage or discourage particular applications
of cybernation. But it will be very difficult to
inhibit developments which are of themselves economically viable in the way that (for example) space
exploration would be inhibited without central funding.
Old Problem: Getting Enough Information

And here we perhaps identify the basic nature of
the problem which cybernetic systems set out to
solve. Throughout history until this time the problem was to acquire sufficient information to generate
effective change. The individual wishing to become
expert in some field of knowledge had to buy information expensively; the government wishing to understand even the rudiments of the structure of its society had to buy information through the census. And
so we have gone on, paying more and more money for
data acquisition -- on the assumption that data constitute information. But we have already said that
data become information only at the point when we
ourselves are changed. It is self-evident that our
capacity to be changed, whether we are an individual
seeking private knowledge or a government seeking
understanding of society, is strictly finite. In
conditions of data paucity, almost all data acquired
can be transformed into information -- and data far
outruns this metabolic capability, most data arc
literally worthless. Yet we pay more and more for
these worthless data because that is the established
order of things.

h.

New Problem: Information Overload

e
f

,
\

1-

The fact is that quite recently the sign of th8
informational problem changed from plus to minus.
The problem is no longer about acquiring data, which
are generated as a by-product of every modern undertaking. The problem is about informational overload. The private citizen seeking knowledge is inundated by information which is virtually free. Yet
the publishing industry responds in the old mode -by selling him yet more. The firm continues to buy
expensive market research, because that is what it
has always done, oblivious of the fact that transactions of every kind can now be electronically monitored, so that data are in glut. Its problem too is
one of procuring adaptive behaviour, and no longer
at all one of "finding the facts". As for government, there is really no dearth of societary information either; there is instead a problem of organizing information -- across departmental boundaries
and in time.
Institutions, firms and (thanks to television)
private CItIzens today receive critical information
very quickly indeed; the aggregate picture at federal level is slow by comparison to materialize. To
put the point the other way round, then, the body
politic has wildly overactive reflexes. In the body
physiologic this is the condition of clonus -- it is
a symptom of spasticity. If we live, as I suspect,
in a spastic society it is because of clonic response. And by the expectations of these arguments,
the clonus will get worse.
Thus I argue that the problem of information management is now a problem of filtering and refining a
massive overload -- for all of us, whether citizens,

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

firms, institutions or governments. We might well
say that it is a problem not so much of data acquisition as of right storage; not so much of storage
as of fast retrieval; not so much of retrieval as of
proper selection; not so much of selection as of
identifying wants; not so much of knowing wants as
of recognizing needs -- and the needs are precisely
the requirements of systemic equlibria.
An Array of Subsystems

This almost ta~ular account of the matter ostensively defines another cybernetic truth. In any
controlled system, there must be an hierarchic array
of sub-systems, in which both the values and the
structure of anyone sub-system are set by a logically superior system. That is to say that one cannot discuss the purposive nature of a system in its
own language, but only in a higher order language.
There are potent reasons for this in theoretical
logic, just as there are potent practical issues in
terms of the need systematically to reduce the informational overload by a system of filters. These
filters are necessarily arranged hierarchically, in
a way which matches the hierarchy of logical systems.
The Concept of Metasystem

Thus I introduce the. concept of metasystem: a
system which stands over and beyond a logically inferior system, and one which is competent to handle
that lower system's logic. Please note that metasystems are logically superior, and not necessarily
more senior or more highly endowed with status or
privilege. Please note also that in an hierarchy of
systems there will be several orders of "metal". Let
us take a moment of time to illustrate these points,
since the concept of metasystem plays an important
role in what I have to say.
Consider [or example a school, in which each of a
hundred teachers adequately controls and instructs a
roomful of pupils. The roomful is in each case made
up of several sets of pupils. Now each set of pupils is in fact pursuing a course of instruction
which takes it from one room, one association of
sets, and one teacher, to another room, another set
of sets, and another teacher. If we consider the
totality of rooms, holding their pupils and teachers,
as sub-systems of the school (for this is indeed
the organizational format we observe on a visit)
there is no way of knowing or discussing in such
terms the educative process as it affects all the
pupils. To do this we shall need to find the metasystem which organizes all the groupings and ensures
that they mesh together. This metasystem is the
timetable, in terms of which the course followed by
a particular pupil stands revealed. This is a logically superior system; but we do not expect the
teacher in his room to treat the timetable as some
kind of ju-ju. On the contrary; but if h~ wishes
the timetable altered, he will perforce raise the
issue in metasystemic terms. It is simply no good
to say "this is my class, and I will take it at
another time".
Furthermore: if the state wished to discuss the
total process of education for all its high schools
in relation to nursery schooling on the one hand and
to universi ty education on tlw o t1H'l" , t1wn a new metasystem logically beyond the first rnetasystern would
be required. And in this case the question whether
the second metasystem is not only logically but also
constitutionally superior would arise. It would be
discussed in those familiar terms about autonomy,
about professional integrity, about bureaucratic interference, about sub-optimization, about synergy.

21

· .. Such discussions would be less boring if we
could get the logic right first.
The Concept of the Esoteric Box: an "Establishment"

Let us now retrieve the argument that the development of purposive automated systems involves a
spurious problem of choice. For, we argued, there
is no method in a free society whereby such choice
could be implemented. I would like to examine this
argument in more detail, with a view to uncovering
certain mechanisms which are germane to the issue
before us. The objective now is to try, like good
scientists: to determine the basic parameters of the
problem at some level of abstraction which facilitates understanding. Were we to fail in this endeavor to stand back and to generalize, we should
conclude with long lists of possible systems, in
hundreds of possible contexts, with long lists of
possible dangers attaching to each. Then we should
achieve no useful insights at all.

others by the provision of incentives and inhibitors
from outside. I mean by this the awarding or withholding of grants, tax concessions, public campaigns,
and so on. Every esoteric box has its own feedback
mechanisms; what the state can do is to change the
gain on the relevant amplifiers. But because of the
high internal stability of the box, we must expect
this kind of control device to operate in a cumbersome and generally inefficient way. The other device
available is legislative. The main trouble here lies
in the identification of what is antisocial. Most
advances in human welfare have paid a price in the
infringement of personal liberty: whether that price
is seen as reasonable or as a fundamental deprivation of human rights will often be a matter of interpretation. But I shall in any case assume that
wise government will interact with the authorities
in any esoteric box to achieve acceptable codes of
behaviour. What really concerns us in this situation is what happens at the metasystemic level.
Interaction

Firstly, what is the entity which will in practice develop systems of knowledge and information?
It is some kind of social institution: perhaps a
firm, perhaps a profession, perhaps a social service.... Whatever it is, it is surely an identifiable entity, with certain recognizable characteristics. I call it an esoteric box. What is going on
inside this box is an established order of things:
things accepted as mores of the box, things professional, things historical, and so ono There is a
complex arrangement of sub-systems, a strange set of
relationships between people of standing inside the
box, and a recondite way of behaving. These features -- their complexity and unintelligibility to
the outsider -- justify the box's adjective "esoteric". Admission to the box's aC,tivity cannot be
gained without the appropriate passport. But the
box is not a closed system, it is part of society;
it certainly has inputs and outputs. Even so it is
internally and autonomously self-organizing and selfregulating. And although the box processes whatever
it exists to affect (and this is often people), that
which is processed does not change the box at all.
The box goes on; it is very powerfully organized to
maintain its own internal stability, and therefore
its survival as an integral institution.
An Identifiable Social Institution

I have elsewhere sought to show that the esoteric
box, the identifiable social institution, is a
strongly robust system in equilibrium. If we try to
influence its behaviour by changing variables which
apparently affect it, it responds neither by collapsing nor by a violent reaction. It simply shifts
the internal position of equilibrium very slightly,
thereby offsetting the environmental Change that has
occurred. (In the model from physical Chemistry
that I have used to study these boxes, this behaviour would be an instance of the operation of Le
Chatelier's principle.)
... Which Acts to Keep Itself Going

Now if it is an esoteric box which is going to
develop an information system directed to cybernetic
ends, its primary objective will be to enhance its
own performance and chance of survival -- it will
not attend first to the performance and survival of
society at large. Equally. the box will be highly
resistant to efforts made to constrain its freedom
to do so. There seem to be only two mechanisms
available to a free society seeking to influence an
autonomous institution in any case. The first is to
facilitate some modes of development and to inhibit

The fact is that esoteric boxes interact. Any major facet of public policy, such as health, education, the manipulation of credit, security, and balance of payments and so forth, involves at least a
string and possibly a complex network of interacting
esoteric boxes. Now just as the esoteric box itself
is seen as something extremely stable and survivalworthy, so the system which links the boxes is typically tenuous and unstable" It is not itself an institution, not itself a higher order esoteric box"
It is simply an assemblage of esoteric boxes, and it
does not constitute a proper metasystem at all. It
is in this fact that the threat to society really
lies; it is here that we shall seek the important
scientific generalizations.
Consider education, for example. There are, to
speak arbitrarily, four major esoteric boxes involved in this facet of society. There is the system of compulsory schooling; there is the university
system; there is the post-experience career-oriented
system sponsored by industry; there is the free market in adult education. All four of these esoteric
boxes may be sub-divided, almost endlessly; but we
are seeking to move ~ur thoughts in the opposite direction -- to identify the commonality of these systems and to examine their interactions. If we take
health as our example, we shall find a similar situation. There is an esoteric box labelled general
medical practice, and another called hospitals;
there is a public health box labelled sanitation;
there is a market-oriented box dealing in pharmaceuticals; there is a market-place for medical information which belongs to publishing.
In short, we may take any facet of social policy
and find the strings and networks of highly stable
esoteric boxes which between them make a composite
but not integrated impact on the individual citizen.
We may do this for security, discovering esoteric
boxes for the police, esoteric boxes for fire protection, and esoteric boxes for insurance -- not to
mention the esoteric boxes which are the armed services themselves. We may do the same thing for the
movement of goods, discovering esoteric boxes for
every method of transport. We may do it for the
movement of money, detecting esoteric boxes for
emolument and social benefit, for taxation, for
credi t ... .
Unstable Networks

Then the question arises, why are those strings
and networks as unstable as they appear to be? If
(please turn to page 32)

22

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

{r
l'

's

MAGPOINTS - Two New Symbols for Space Age Mathematics
e
e

s
e

Article 1. MAGPOINTS by Myron J. Brown, 16 Hawthorne Rd., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15221
Article 2. REVIEW BY THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS by
Ms. Betsy Ancker-Johnson, Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C. 20234
Article 3. REPLY TO COMMENTS BY Ms. BETSY ANCKER-JOHNSON
from Myron J. Brown

1-

"The system is so simple that it can be taught in grade schools as part of the numbering
system. It is a logical extension of the decimal system and simplifies calculations when
very large or very small numbers are involved, in the same way that scientific notation
does, but is symbolically simpler."

1-

.t

.y
~d

1-

I.

Article 1. Magpoints
by Myron J. Brown

In our modern numbering system we typically write
a number such as 1234.567, which is the whole number
1234, separated from the decimal fraction .567, by
the decimal point. If the present method of numerical exhibition is extended to include a new symbol
followed by a figure for the order of magnitude of
the number being written, then very large or very
small numbers can be written much more efficiently.
The present method of exhibiting the order of
magni tude is to imply that there is a multiplier of
one, or to employ the system of scientific notation.
Scientific notation uses the conventional decimal
system number followed by the algebraic expression
" x 10m " - for example, 2.998 x 108 •
The Basic Concepts of the Magpoint System

An improved system has been developed having the
two following basic concepts:
1. Two magpoint symbols are used, one the mag
symbol (~), the other the gam symbol (~).
Either of these symbols may be followed by
a numerical exponent, m. The combinations
of magpoints and numbers have the following
meanings:
m
~ m means the same as xlO
m
~ m means the same as xlOA complete number would take a form such as
8
2. 997925 ~8 = 2.997925 x 10
6.6256~34 = 6.6256 x 10-34
The expressions are verbalized as "two point
nine nine seven nine two five mag eight" and
"six point six two five six gam thirty four".

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

The directional arrow has mnemonic value in
that it indicates in what direction the decimal point is to be moved. The exponent indicates how many places it is to be moved.
2. No number will be complete without the decimal
point being located ei ther explici tly or implicitly and a magpoint with an exponent being
expressed either explicitly or implicitly.
The implied position of a decimal point -- that
is, its location when the decimal point is omitted
-- is to the right of the last digit. There can be
no other valid implication. Likewise, the implied
magpoint and exponent will be a mag with a zero exponent -- rendering a multiplier of one for the significant figures used. For example, 3.1416 means
3.1416 ~O or, in scientific notation, 3.1416 x 10 0
Since 100 is equal to 1, the multiplier is simply
one. There can be no other valid implication.
Advantages of the Magpoint System

These advantages are pointed out for the proposed
system:
1. For the first time, a number can be written on a
single line to express an integer, a decimal fraction, and an order of magnitude.
2. Because of the convenience and completeness of a
number so written, any parameter may conveniently
be specified in basic units -- that is, those
units such as meters, grams, seconds, farads,
hertz. etc., which are called for in basic
formulas.
3. The numbering system is compact and thereby suitable for marking small devices and inclusion in
limited space on drawings. The decimal point,
which is an easily obliterated mark, can always
be eliminated and the parameter will always be

23

expressed in basic units. For example, a .25 mfd
capaci tor can be designated as a 25~ 8 capaci tor.
Note that the proposed method uses only four
characters in this example, whereas the conventional method uses six. Further, the decimal
point is eliminated by implying its location
after the last significant figure.
4. A similar saving of space is possible in the display of numbers in the readout of computers, particularly pocket size models. Two decades of
readout devoted to the exponent lying behind the
magpoint will replace 99 decades of readout in
the present method of fully displaying a conventional number.

e
s
t
t
o
Script Magpoint Symbol - "Mag" as shown. "Gam"
when reversed. Longhand computations are most
conveniently made with the decimal point following the first significant figure.

e

5. Named orders of magnitude can be avoided. There
are presently fourteen named orders of magnitude
covering thirty exponential decades. The system
taxes the memory of users, particularly occasional users. There is a hodge podge of abbreviations containing lower case letters, capitals,
one Greek letter, one double letter and confusing
names such as deci and deka. Note the following
table and the simplification provided by the magpoint system.

Symbol

Name of the
Order of
Magnitude

Scientific
Notation

Magpoint
and
Exponent

a
f

atto

P
n

pico
nano

I-L

micro

m

milli

18
x 10x 10- 15
12
x 10x 10- 9
6
x 10x 10- 3

c

centi

x 10- 2

<01(2

d

deci

x 10- 1

<01(1

da

deka

x 10

~l

h

hecto

k

kilo

femto

M

mega

G

giga

T

tera

2
x 10
3
x 10
6
x 10
9
x 10
12
x 10

.... 18
.... 15
<01( 12
.... 9
.... 6
.... 3

~2

~3

~6
~9
~

12

By the choice of the proper exponent, the significant figures will read directly in the basic
parameter or one of the named orders of magnitude. For example, a capaci tor marked 470 .... 12
can be read either as "four hundred seventy gam
twelve farads" or as "four hundred seventy picofarads".
6. The system is so simple that it can be taught in
grade schools as part of the numbering system.
It is a logical extension of the decimal system.
For more advanced calculations, it is a convenient way of keeping track of the decimal point
when using a slide rule. Further, the magpoint
system simplifies calculations when very large
or very small numbers are involved, in the same
way that scientific notation does, but is symbolically simpler. The same rules apply as when
calculating by scientific notation, viz.: decimal
numbers are manipulated as in common arithmetic;
exponents are added when multiplying, subtracted
when dividing, multiplied by the power when raising to powers and divided by the power when extracting roots.

24

Magpoint Symbol - "Mag as shown.
"Gam" when reversed. To match
typewriter pica reduce to 2.8 mm high.

Conclusion

In this age of nuclear physics and interplanetary
space travel, atomic clocks and pocket computers,
there is a need to provide the scientific and nonscientific worker with an improved method of writing
numbers such that there is a smooth and simple continuum from the very small numbers to the very large
numbers. Two symbols, a mag symbol (~) and a gam
symbol (<01() , used with an exponent to disclose an
order of magnitude, is proposed as a satisfaction of
this need. With such a system, a very small number
such as Planck's constant would be written as
6.625<01(34 joule-sec., and a very large number, such
as the speed of light, would be written as 2.998~8
meters per second.
Article 2. Review by the National Bureau of Standards
by Ms. Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Mr. Myron J. Brown has made a new proposal for a
convenient notation of decimal numbers.
This
proposal is indeed a very interesting one and I
appreciate his thinking of the National Bureau of
Standards as the natural place in the Federal Government that should review and promote a proposal
such as his.
The staff at the Bureau of Standards has reviewed
Mr. Brown's proposal and reports to me that the computer community has had to cope with this problem
for the last 20 years, namely to avoid the cumbersome raised exponential notation such as 7.3 x 10- 3 •
At this time there are three systems in use already
which are competitive to Mr. Brown's:
(1) The computer notation with the exponent E, viz.
1.234 E-5, where E indicates exponent to base 10.
The American Standard FORTRAN uses this notation,
though with two positions reserved in the exponent
field.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

,
I

(2) A variant of (1), which is widely used in published mathematical tables, omits the E altogether:
e.g., 1.234(-5>.
(3) The Algol notation (Algol is a computer language
that is widely used in Europe, but is mostly of academic interest here in the U.S.) employs one special
symbol, something like a lower-case 10, in the same
sense as the E in Ame~ican Standard FORTRAN:
1.234 10-5.
All these schemes suffer in comparison to Mr. Brown's
in that they use more symbols as compared to what he
proposes. However, the American National Standards
Institute has the difficult task of standardizing
the meaning of the 128 different. symbols that can be
represented by a 7-bit code such as is used in telecommunications today. Mr. Brown's symbols mag and
gam could be possibly represented by ~ and ~, but a
good number of already existing conventions about
these symbols would have to be scuttled in the
process.
With respect to Mr. Brown's comment No.4 on saving
space on small calculators, he is, I am sure, aware
of the fact that a good many of these (such as the
Hewlett-Packard HP35. or the Compucorp Scientist and
Statistician models) use the exponent notation such as
1.234 -77, or 2.623 03 in their display.

e.

On the international scale, the matter is even worse
where we have to observe not only our own American
National Standards but also those of the General
Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) which is
responsible by international treaty for the symbols
and notation of the decimal powers from atto (10- 18 )
to tera (10 12 ). These were developed not only for
notational ease (which might be debated when confronted with d and da) but also for conversational
purposes. Since such an international standard involves the signatures of all the member states, you
might imagine the uphill battle any country faces
to gain acceptance on any such proposal.

Ie

It

.1

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s

Article 3. Reply to Comments by Ms. Betsy Ancker-Johnson
from Myron J. Brown

The comments by Ms. Betsy Ancker-Johnson, are
greatly appreciated since the viewpoint of her office and the review of the National Bureau of Standards reflect experience with commercial interests and
the ensuing problems of national and international
standardization.

.,

Ilj

'r

When the problem of avoiding the cumbersome raised
exponential power such as 7.3 x 10-3 became real to
the computer industry in the last twenty years, solutions followed the usual pattern of expediency and,
as a result, at least three practices evolved, namely, the FORTRAN notation, 1.234 E-5; the Algol notation, 1.23410-5; and the small calculator practice,
1.234 -05. These three practices, plus the basic
method of scientific notation, 1.234 x 10- 5 ; and the
method used in mathematical tables, 1.234(-5), are
all expedients for surmounting an inefficiency of
the decimal system of numeration when handling very
small or very large numbers. The magpoint system,
by correcting this inefficiency, provides a simple
method that can readily supersede these other five
methods. Because of its efficiency and rigorous accuracy, it is a method that would make it a candidate for standardization.
It is interesting to note that all of these tramethods are tied to the concept of negative
and positive exponents. In contrast, the magpoint
system, which is suitable for teaching in grade

dition~l

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

schools, avoids the negative (-) and positive (+)
symbols and the exponential concept by indicating
simply that the decimal point is moved in one of two
directions a certain number of places as indicated
by the magpoint symbol and the number which follows
it. That this is equivalent to introducing a multiplier equal to a negative or positive power of ten
becomes of interest as the student reaches studies
in higher mathematics. Not only do the new symbols
make early usage of magpoints possible but in the
more erudite applications the expressions use fewer
symbols and are strictly accurate, avoiding the possibility of ambiguity inherent with some of the five
other methods reviewed.
Another pair of symbols in the already extensive
lexicon of scientific symbols poses certain mechanical problems of typography, reproduction, and encoding, the latter being for telecommunications and
tape storage. The symbol mag (~) and gam (~) are
derived in shape and form by a simple modification
and rotation of the capital letter "A" of a conventional typewriter font. Modern typewriters, in many
cases, have keys for changeable type; another device
for typewriters is a plastic accessory which bears
an embossed replica of the symbol .- this accessory
is hand held when making the typed impression. A
third device is a sheet plastic stencil that is used
as a guide when drawing the symbol with a pencil.
In telecommunications it is suggested that the words
"mag" and "gam" be transmitted as words until some
code for the symbol is accepted. For tape encoding
the present combination of E+ and E- would respectively represent mag and gam. In facsimile and television no special provisions need be made since
these media are self-encoding.
As to the international scene, it can be envisioned that our delegates to an international convention, armed with a proposal that the decimal system of numeration be expanded to include a magpoint
and an exponent O.234~5 or 6.789...(2) could win a
standardization that would make the European designations of the lifted dot (3'1416) and the comma
(3,1416) obsolete. That is, the magpoint system
would be standardized as a package, including the
numeration when the magpoint is implicit, thereby
making 3.1416 correct and 3·1416 and 3,1416 obsolete.
In summary, after integrating the National Bureau
of Standards comments into the original concept, the
proposed magpoint system and its use in numeration
are based on these concepts:
1. The decimal system of numeration is inefficient when handling very small or very large
numbers.
2. The form and location of the decimal point
in the decimal system of numeration is not
internationally standardized.
3. The expression of the order of magnitude of
numbers is not standardized and follows at
least six systems, the decimal system using
zeros, the scientific notation system, three
computer conventions and a mathematical table
convention.
4. The names of fourteen orders of magnitude
from atto (10- 18 ) to tera (10- 12 ) have
been standardized.
5. The magpoint system is an efficient means of
expressing a decimal number and its order of
magnitude. As such, the magpoint system is
a worthy candidate for standardization. It
will supplement and support the already standardized named orders of magnitude without
conflict.
0

25

GAMES AND PUZZLES for Nimble Minds - and Computers
Edmund C. Berkeley
Editor

COMPMEANO

NUMBLES

The following was "picked up from the floor of a computer laboratory". The characters were printed by a computer output device.

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:

Is it a random number sequence? or does it have meaning? If so, what does it say?
The answers to these questions will be published next
month.
COMPMEANO PUZZLE 744

760708340750158125782930078791
590375873578607583172742929216
788687073591492601507085982853
172808707539879118507381407039
160852734075427368735081887076
070834075015170729150662737508
691630678687075831727429292172
010159176070831675985074075960
985072216608293007879159032728
543069540707671540847607082348
278791327541769

Each ca pitalletter 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.
NUMBLE 744

AY
+ T H E
Y KH
x E GG
A HC E
A HC E
H L N T
E E N N E E
L

NAYMANDIJ
A "naymandij" puzzle is a problem in which an array
of random or pseudorandom digits ("produced by Nature")
has been subjected to a "definite systematic operation"
("chosen by Nature") and the problem ("which Man is
faced with") is to figure out what was that operation.
A "definite systematic operation" meets the following
requirements: the operation must be performed on all the
digits of a definite class which can be designated; the result displays some kind of evident, systematic, rational
order and completely removes some kind of randomness;
the operation must change at least six digits from their
original random value; all other digits must remain unchanged in value and position; and the operation must be
expressible in not more than four English words. (But
Man can use more words to express it and still win.)
NA YMANDIJ PUZZLE 744

9 385 7
2 5 3 7 3 0 0 7 3 7 2 9 5 7
3 4 3 6 6 2 9 3 7 0 2 5 9 384 334 3
9 0 941 637 507 0 0 664 6 5 1 0
9 2 269 2 7 627 9 6 7 097 4 0 5 7
778 1 3 7 602 8 9 5 7 6 5 300 9 1
9 7 427 694 7 347 0 0
7 957 2
087 879 3 7 546 6 3
9 4 2 7 9 2
5 9 9 2 305 990 1 5
7 9 357
o 7 0 8 401 1 405 7 1 550 1 674
7 350 3 9 9 6 379 5 2
768
8 2
The solution for Naymandij Puzzle 743 in the March
issue is: Sequence half row 9.
26

223450

070164

The solution for Numble Puzzle 743 in the March issue
is: D = 0; E = 1; G = 2; C = 3; N = 4; R = 5; S,Z = 6;
. I,Y = 7; A = 8; F = 9.
The message is: Rain times icy equals freezing and it
all increases the skidding.

SIXWORDO
In the March issue of Computers and People, we said
in substance:
The day is coming when words will be understandable by computers not only in limited contexts but
more widely. In the meantime it will be good to
practice with several kinds of exercises. ... One
kind of exercise is persuading people to translate
from more difficult English sentences with many
words into shorter and easier sentences with fewer
words, for there is a great deal of English written or
spoken which is hard to understand for a variety of
reasons.
Some of the questions we raised were:
- Is it possible to express any desired meaning as a
sequence of short sentences?
- Can each such sentence be no longer than 11 words?
- What is the best value of n for a computer? for a
person?
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for Apri I, 1974

One of the exercises or puzzles proposed was to paraphrase a passage (a series of sentences), making every new
sentence no longer than six words, the meaning to be just
the same. According to the dictionary, to paraphrase means
to resta te a text or passage giving the meaning in another
form; in this case there is no requirement to change or alter any word - only the requirement of producing sentences no longer than six words.
SIXWORDO PUZZLE 744

This proposed solution however does clearly lose some
of the meaning of the original passage. I would estimate
that not more than 90 to 95% of the original meaning is
successfully expressed in this SIXWORDO proposed solution. Therefore, my tentative conclusion is that 6 is too
small a number of words, and is an unsatisfactory lower
limit of n.
Other solutions of this puzzle sent in by readers of
Computers and People will be most helpful.

(l) Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, has over 820
faculty members and an enrollment of over 8,600 students.
(2) A state university, it provides programs in liberal arts
and professional fields, including teacher training and library science. (3) Booth Library holds about 300,000 cataloged volumes. (4) The university has experienced a
steadily increasing enrollment, and the library, in consequence, has been adding over 20,000 volumes per year in
an attempt to keep pace with enrollment. (5) The number
of volumes per student, 35, is about three-fourths of the
national average, 45. (6) The collection is being reclassified from the Dewey to the Library of Congress classification system. (7) During 1970-71 about 115,000 volumes
were circulated by the Booth Library automated circulation system.

PICTORIAL REASONING
The following pictorial reasoning test is a test to see
how carefully you can observe and reason. It is not timed.
1. In each row find the four pictures that are alike in
some way and find the one that is not like all the others
and write its letter, A, B, C, D, or E as your answer.
2. If you become convinced that no picture is essentially unlike the others, write F for "fatally ambiguous"
as your answer.
"A solution with reasons" will be published in the
next issue.
PICTORIAL REASONING TEST 744

- From page 35, Case Studies in Library Computer Systems, by Richard Phillips Palmer, published by R. R.
Bowker Co., New York and London, 1973, 214 pp.

A

E

SIXWORDO PUZZLE 743 - A SOLUTION
(If better solutions are received, we plan to publish them.)

..

Comment. Such a series of short sentences has an obnoxious style, and reminds one of the silly reading books
in kindergarten. Such books are so boring that they seem
likely to discourage many children from ever wanting to
read, especially when they can watch television.
But a computer of course will input anything that is
given to it, and usually without complaining. And it ought
to be t hc case that the frameworks of sentences occurring
in sentcnces of up to 6 words might make it rather easy
for almost all such sentences to be "understood" by a
suitably programmed computer.
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

~

~

(l) It was a fascinating place. Especially for working,
it was fascinating. (2) There was the graceful old hacienda.
It was now falling into disrepair. The disrepair was picturesque. (3) There was the cone of Popocatepetl. It was
volcanic, immense, close by. It dominated the western sky
line. (4) The orchard was really many orchards. Throughout were old avocados. They were in long straight rows.
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(please turn to page 42)

27

The Assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and Possible Links With the Kennedy Murders
Wayne Chastain, Jr.
Part 3
810 Washington Ave., Apt. 408
Memphis, Tenn. 38105

L

j,'Assassinating King would be analogous to assassinating Ho Chi Minh in t.h.e,J
Vietnamese situation, with added fallout benefits in the U.S. situation

Was the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,
the result of a conspiracy?
Parts 1 and 2* of this series of articles introduced the "eggs
and sausage" man, a mysterious person who appeared on the
scene the day of the murder.
Wayne Chastain has also examined the theory of a larger
conspiracy - left-wing radicals or black militants, or the Federal Government, or right-wing racists - and disqualified each
of these as a realistic possibility. But he continues to investigate, 'Who really killed Dr. King, and does this relate to the
murders of the Kennedys and other political assassinations in
America?"
Conspiracy by Paramilitary Organizations

The paramilitary right, as the third possibility,
presents many very persuasive arguments. The Minutemen was one of the more visible paramilitary
right-wing organizations in early 1965, but by 1968,
when King was killed, the FBI had penetrated the
organization, split its ranks, and forced it to go
underground. Thus it was doubtf~l that this particular paramilitary organization had the power to carry off a successful conspiracy and effective coverup. Although some elements of the organization had
marked King and Senator Fulbright l for assassination,
it was DePugh himself who defused the plots. The
objectives of the Minutemen were the same as the
black militants -- namely, to trigger violent urban
warfare in the nation. Their ultimate objective was
to step in and take over the government when it
proved inadequate to cope with rising lawlessness in
the street, in much the same fashion as Hitler and
the Nazi Party did in Germany in the late 1920's and
early 1930's.
It is doubtful, however, that the minutemen had
the cohesive organization and sufficient allies inside the Federal Government to have achieved a successful cover-up.2 There was no evidence to link
James Earl Ray (assuming for argument's sake that Ray
did indeed kill King) with the Minutemen, although
one report this writer investigated contended the
mnutemen -- headquartered in Independence, Mo. -had its largest membership in that state and had
penetrated the ranks of the State Police and the
Prison System. Thus, "the Minutemen arranged f.or
Ray's escape in 1967". This writer could not confirm the substance of that report. Note, Ray was
linked indirectly to the National States Rights Party as his brother, Jerry Ray, was an active member.
* Parts 1 and 2 were published in the February and March issues of
Computers and People, which are available from the publisher as
back copies at $2 each.

28

Ray's attorney, J. C. Stoner, is also the attorney
for both the KKK and the National States Rights Party.3 As discussed above, neither one of these parties or organizations have the clout to carry off a
successful cover-up because they are heavily penetrated by the FBI.
The Military-Industrial Complex

If one uses the term "paramilitary right" in a
broader sense, rather than one or two organizations
such as the Minutemen or the American Nazi Party,
then one could conceive of a select group that could
carry off a successful assassination and a subsequent cover-up. Such a select group of paramilitarists would of necessity come from within the enclaves of the powerful military-industrial complex.
They could include military persons, civilians within governments and wealthy private citizens. The
latter would be members of the respectable right,
those who kept a low profile on the issues, and were
not visible on the landscape of anti-communist activities.
The matrix of anti-King feeling in the nation
contained a dimension that has often been overlooked
when speculating on motives that may have lay behind a murder conspiracy. This dimension imperceptibly grew between 1965-68 because it was obscured by Dr. King's escalation of domestic civil
rights issues -- such as housing in Chicago, voting
rights in Selma, and decent wages for black sanitation workers in Memphis -- during this same period.
This dimension is reflected by the escalation of Dr.
King's anti-Vietnam War rhetoric and his increasing
participation in anti-war protest demonstrations.
Dr. Abernathy and other SCLC leaders had in private
urged Dr. King to stick to black civil rights issues,
for both tactical reasons 4 and because some feared
Dr. King might meet the fate of Malcolm X.
Dr. King's Anti-War Activities

On the day before he was killed, Dr. King made
one of the most vehement anti-war speeches of his
career. It was made in the courtyard of the Centenary Methodist Church (FBI agents -- with movie cameras -- sat in parked cars across the street). The
church's pastor, Rev. James Lawson, an articulate
and black intellectual, represented the dove faction
of the SCLC, which had always urged Dr. King to
sound out loud and clear against the war. Lawson
had organized the first anti-war, peace demonstrations in Memphis two years before. Lawson's antiwar activities had also aroused the ire of the white
majority. Rev. Lawson's pacifism dated back to the
early 1950's when he preferred to go to Federal

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

prison rather than register as a conscientious objector at his draft board. Lawson had shrewdly detected that there were groups who hated King - and
himself - but who were not "overt racists". Lawson
had described these groups as "paranoid patriots" at
a foreign policy seminar on United Nations Day the
year before, becoming the target of the local John
Birch Society and the American Legion's watch dog
committee on subversion. Lawson said the "neurotic
preoccupation with anti-Communism had blinded many
whites to the racist ramifications of the Vietnam
policy". He pointed out a higher percentage of
black soldiers dying in Vietnam than whi te soldiers,
to "satiate the white man's anti-Communist fetish".
The net effect, Rev. Lawson said, was a "racist war"
against the interests of blacks in America and destructive of the lives of the yellow-skinned Vietnamese.
Writers 5 reflecting the view of the "paranoid
patriots" and paramilitary professionals expressed
the view that Dr. King loomed as a "national security threat to the nation," but these writers did
not necessarily criticize his role in pure civil
rights activities for blacks. "King is today the
most dangerous man in America," lamented one
writer. 6 This was because King was about to lead
his Poor People's March to Washington beginning in
June, 1968.
Five Events in Early 1968

Five events occurred in early 1968 that had a
traumatic effect on those who viewed the winning of
the Vietnam War as an imperative to "stopping worldwide Communism".

•

1. The Tet Offensive occurred in late February
and early March. The event shattered the confidence of Americans - both within the official and private sectors - in the South Vietnamese Government's ability to represent the
South Vietnam populace and survive the assualt
of a phenomenon that now appeared to be a
"ci vi 1 war" after all. (The earlier assumption was that North Vietnam had invaded the
South through infiltration tactics). For the
first time, a thin majority of American public
opinion favored pulling out. Many newspapers
changed their long-time, hawkish and superpatriotic editorial policies. Inside government, long-time, hardened hawks became fledging doves (Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford;
U.S. Senator Stuart Symmington, one-time Secretary of the Air Force under the late President Harry Truman).
2. The virtual abdication of President Lyndon
Johnson on the Sunday night before the Thursday slaying of Dr. King. This event opened
the floodgates for dovish Democrats to vie for
the Democratic nomination. Eugene McCarthy
had just barely lost the New Hampshire primary
six weeks before, and Robert F. Kennedy had
already announced his candidacy.
3. The announcement accompanying President Johnson's abdication that he was going to call a
hombing halt for the extreme portion of North
Vietnam and was immediately launching peace
negotiations with the North Vietnamese in
I'a ri s.
.
tl. The riot in Memphis in March. This event was
dl~scribed by Time magazine as the "beginning
of a long, hot.bloody summer of 1968". Dr.
King was enroute to start peace marches in
North Mississippi when he returned to Memphis,
where he was killed, to attempt a peaceful
demonstration.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

Wayne Chastain of Memphis, Tenn., is a veteran
newspaper reporter and southern journalist wi th
experience on several metropoli tan dailies in
Texas including El Paso, lIouston, Dallas and San
Antonio, as well as on the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and a Memphis daily.
lIe had traveled wi th
Dr, King's en tourage 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
Memphis prior to the shooting. He was on the murder scene wi thin 10 minutes after Dr. King was
shot. He interviewed eyewitnesses for one of the
fi rs t comprehensive news accoun ts to the na tion of
Dr. King's death.
A native Texan and a graduate
of the Universi ty of Texas wi th a bachelor's degree in history and poli tical 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 of pro-Cuban arms runners,
and other activities related to Kennedy's death.
Months before The Warren Commission's report,
which was published in the fall of 1964, Mr. Chastain - after exhaustive interviews with hundreds
of wi tnesses - had reached the conclusion that
President Kennedy's dea th was the resul t of a
plot involving paramili tary professionals financed
by a group of weal thy, right-wing Texans 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 forthcoming book enti tIed:
Who Really Killed
Dr, King - And the Kennedys?
A Di s turbing View
of Political Assassinations in America.

5. The announcement that Dr. King would lead a
"Poor People's ~larch" from Mississippi to
Washington, D.C., in June. According to many
writers reflecting the paramilitarist viewpoint, this explosive event may have been the
spark that would bring to the nation's capital
the massive rioting of Detroit and Newark of
the summer before. The powder keg in Washington, however, would contain the potential of a
much more devastating detonation because it
would occur in a Presidential election year.
The march might climax a coup of the peace
protesters. Many of the "paranoid parami litarists" might even analogize Dr. King to Ho
Chi Minh, and describe the peace coalition as
Dr. King's National Liberation Front (The National Liberation Front in South Vietnam almost topped the South Vietnam regime in 1963).
The latter event might also be analogized to the
third and final phase of Mao Tse Tung's formula for
the War of Liberation's encirclement tactic. This
was the phase which had almost cut Saigon off from
the rest of South Vietnam in late 1964 and early
1965 before the U.S. stepped up its commitment and
sent American combat troops to prop up the regime.
Washington and Vietnam Parallels

The solution to the problem in Washington, D.C.,
in 1968, however, could be dealt with more expeditiously than the geopolitical cancer which began
growing in Saigon in the fall of 1%:1. The latter
event called for a long shot - assassination of a
longtime ally, who had outlived his usefulness to
the U.S. and who could no longer hold the line effectively against encroaching Communism. This would
create a vacuum that could be quickly filled with an
active military junta that would brook no opposition
from the insurgents.

29

In the U.S. situation in 1968, the solution was
more simple: assassinate the leader of the insurgents -- a feat that could not have been done in
Vietnam in 1963. The irony of Diem's oppression was
that it was so massive and complete that it prevented the visibility of anyone strong personality
in the South that could symbolize the leadership of
the National Liberation Front and its military arm,
the Viet Congo Instead, the Southern revolutionaries had to look to the North for a personality to
symbolize their struggle -- Ho Chi Minh. Assassinating Ho Chi Minh was almost next to impossible as
neither the U.S. nor the South Vietnamese had any
roots or guerilla infrastructure in the North to get
close to the aging nationalist leader.
King and Vietnam Parallels

Assassinating King would be analogous to assassinating Ho Chi Minh in the Vietnamese situation,
with added fallout benefits in the U.S. situation:
death of King would leave a vacuum of leadership in
the SCLC (Rev. Jesse Jackson of Chicago was in competition for the top post with Rev. Ralph Abernathy
shortly after King's death). This would defuse the
power of the SCLC and perhaps prevent the Poor
People's March in June. (The event did not forestall the march, but King's absence in Washington
during the month of June will always be an unknown
factor in whether the march would have been more effective in terms of concrete concessions from Congress ).
The plotters may have assumed that the assassination could easily be blamed on black militarists
or some "whi te nut," or both, wi thout the public
ever perceiving the national security implications.
King's death would also trigger the black militants
into action and they would temporarily create chaos
in the cities, but the mighty forces of urban 7 police forces -- many of them trained at paramilitary
and riot controls in secret camps in Georgia under
the aegis of the CIA during the late 1950's and early 1960's -- with the help of National Guard units
could swiftly crush the dissidents. The broad white
middle class, relieved and grateful to the martial
forces because of the effective repression of the
rebel forces, would be conditioned and predisposed
to accept a "man on a white horse" in the forthcoming Presidential election less than six months
away. This could mean the election of Governor
George Wallace of Alabama (note the concession Wallace made to the paramilitary right: selection of
retired Air Force General Curtis LeMay, former chairman of the joint chiefs-of-staff, and vocal hawk, as
his Vice Presidential running mate. 8 )
"Man on a White Horse" Fever

Or, if a Wallace election was too much to be
hoped for, would not a vigorous Wallace candidacy
alienate the blue collar workers of the North and
Eastern cities from their traditional loyalties to
the Democratic Party, and assure a victory of Richard Nixon? And even if the Democrats should win,
wouldn't a Humphrey victory be preferable to one by
Robert F, Kennedy (still alive at the time)? Wasn't
it Humphrey who made the caustic criticism of RFK,
when the latter called for a coalition government
with the National Liberation Front and the Ky Government in 1966? Humphrey had said that this would
be like "putting the fox in the chicken coop". Wi th
a "man on a white horse" fever in the air, would not
Humphrey be amenable to the paramilitary right, in
much the same way he was to the hawkish taskmaster

30

he had served for four years? And after all, if
RFK's popularity were to still survive the shift to
the right, could not he be dealt with in another
way?
Two Strange Visits

Five days after the eggs and sausage man left
Jim's Cafe, two other strange visits -- perhaps by
the same man -- occurred in Memphis. They seem to
make the eggs and sausage man's visit seem more significant.
One visit was made by a mysterious blond Latin.
The second visit was by a dark-haired man, strangely
resembling the blond Latin except for his hair and
lack of stylistic clothing. The blond Latin visited
an attorney. The dark-haired man visited two ministers. The visits occurred at different times of
the day, leaving the possibility that they were by
one and the same man. Both visitors gave their
next destination as Brownsville, Tenn., for purposes
of visiting a well-known member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Neither the Klan leader, nor local citizens, ever
received a visit from either of the two men.
Thus, the purported visit to Brownsville may have
been an attempt to drag a red herring across the investigative trail -- a ploy to cast suspicion on a
racist or racist organization and divert investigations away from the "national security" motive.
Last but not least, both men exhibited multilinguistic aptitudes -- either to dazzle or to confuse their listeners. They both gave Latin sounding
aliases to their listeners. Both purported to have
known the man who killed King, his motive and his
modus operandi. Both stories coincided in most respects. Both said the killer had impersonated a
Negro in setting the scene for Dr. King's assassination (remember the supposed SCLC advance man who
convinced Mrs. Bailey to switch Dr. King's suite to
the second floor?).
The two ministers and the attorney have tentatively identified their visitors from photographs
provided by -- Renfro Hays, a Memphis private detective; and Bernard Fensterwald, executive director
of The Committee to Investigate Assassinations and
a Washington, D.C., attorney.
The evidence suggests that the eggs and sausage
man, and the two visitors, are all one and the same
man. For the time being, we will call him by the
code name Jack Armstrong.
A Soldier of Fortune

Jack Armstrong is a code name for a dark, handsome soldier of fortune. He excells both as a
guerilla fighter and confidence man par excellance.
An erstwhile licensed pilot, Armstrong participated
in at least three South American revolutions during
the decade of the 1950's. Thus, he exploited -- and
exported -- a seller's market for skills provided
him by Uncle Sam during the Korean War. Trained by
the U.S. Army as a ranger-commando, Armstrong was
commissioned directly from the ranks as a second
lieutenant. This was a remarkable feat for a 20year-old youth who had only been in the army a few
weeks and had no combat experience, did not have a
college degree, had not attended Officers Candidate
School, had not taken Army ROTC during the two years
of college he attended before enlisting. Perhaps
it was because he demonstrated an unusual proficiency for physical agility, firearms, and explosives,

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

as well as an aptitude for inexhaustible rough and
tumble combat. He registered a score of 142 on the
Army General Classification Test -- a score roughly
comparable to an IQ score earned by less than a
fraction of one per cent of those tested in the
Armed Services at that time. Other tests reflected
an aptitude for languages and verbal fluency as well
as high mechanical insight. He later fought behind
the lines in North Korea. After the war, he would
brag to close friends at college that he once rescued a contingent of downed B-29 crews across the
Yalu Hiver in Manchuria near that nation's industrial complex.
A Natural Born Fighter

Slightly less than six feet tall, Armstrong possessed in his youth a lean -- but deceptively muscular -- physique. He acquired a reputation as a
"murderous in-fighter" in hand-to-hand combat, both
among his army buddies and his college friends. He
employed a unique style that combined the best of
boxing, judo, karate, and "dirty football tactics,"
comments an old college chum, who described how
Armstrong whipped a college football teammate outweighing Armstrong by 40 pounds and having a longer
reach.
"His victim," the college teammate said, "went on
later to become a famous professional football
player, but in a slugfest with Jack, he would always
be a hopeless amateur outmatched by a relentless
pro."
Another college acquaintenance -- not necessarily
a close friend -- witnessed the s(]me fight. lie
said: "Jack had the instincts of a natural born
street fighter alright. He loved fighting (]nd if
he had less intelligence, he probably would have
gone into the ring. When you first met Jack, you
would say to yourself ... 'this is a nice guy ...
quiet, unassuming, very modest, very friendly with a
sly grin and almost a wink in his eye as if you and
him shared some private joke' .... I later learned
his friendliness was a facade -- behind it was a
come-on. He wanted some one to attack him so he
could retaliate. He would set up his victims -always bigger than himself -- by invi ting friendly
responses and then turning them into aggressive acts
that would justify a retaliatory response."
Armstrong's affinity for violence and danger approached "pathological proportions," the college
acquaintenace said. He added: "I believe that Jack
is a true psychopath ... or a sociopath as psychiatrists use the term today .... "
Armstrong's physical prowess, however, has caused
him trouble. Rap sheets from metropolitan police
departments in several cities show he has been aTrested on Charges of assault and battery on several
occasions. However, those same rap sheets show no
convic ti ons.
Right Out of James Bond Fiction

A slwptic would be justified in believing that
the nhove character sketch was taken out of a James
nond plot if there were not ample documentation for
the ahov(~ listed facts. Reading Armstrong's dossier
furtlwr, his life begins to sound even more like the
script or a contempornry espionage thriller.
IIi s n~a 1 name, however, is known to Bernard Fensterwald, executive director of The Committee to Investi~,at(' Assnssinations.
It is also known to the

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

FBI, and the Memphis Police Department investigators
who handled the Martin Luther King assassination.
Link to Kennedy Assassination?

Armstrong's real name appears at least once in
the appendix of the prolix Warren Commission report. Critics of the Commission have described this
section as the "throw-away bin" -- any material that
did not fit the pre-conceived "lone assassin, two
bullet" frame of reference projected by the Commission members found itself in the appendix, rather
than the narrative body of the report.
Commission staff investigators collected a welter
of reports about plots and counter-plots that the
Commissioners later deemed irrevelant.
One included an interview with a witness who related the details of a gun running scheme planned in
a Dallas, Tex., apartment in late 1961. The scenario included one other soldier of fortune -- later
murdered in New Orleans by arsenic poisoning -- and
an unidentified Army Colonel. The plot called for
smuggling a cache of weapons into Cuba for the benefit of anti-Castro guerillas, who were building an
underground for a second attempt to overthrow Premier Fidel Castro.
Although the witness had apparently never seen
Armstrong, the witness knew Armstrong by name. The
witness linked Armstrong with none other than Jack
Ruby -- the Dallas nightc lub owner who shot Lee
Harvey Oswald to death in the basement of the Dallas
police station in front of the eyes of the entire
world vin television cnmerns.
Armst.rong nnd t.he ot.her soldier of fortune were
supposed to be the ones t.o smuggle a cache of weapons (apparently stolcn from militnry bases by the
right-wing colonel) into Cuba. Ruby, who was present at the meeting with several other persons whom
the witness did not know by name, was the "bag man"
for the operations -- that is, he provided the funds
for the operation at the same meeting. Investigative reports in later years indicated Ruby was not
the actual "Sugar Daddy" for the operation, but
merely a financial conduit of ~ wealthy Houston,
Texas, man.
Not knowing Armstrong by sight, the witness described a "young, mysterious Cuban" who was present.
The purported Cuban never said anything. The witness was not sure what the Cuban's role in the
venture was supposed to be.
The purported Cuban, however, was neither young
nor Cuban. He was Jack Armstrong himself.
(In the next installment, an in-depth portrayal of Jack Armstrong.)

Footnotes

1. William Turner. Power on the Right (New York:
Ramparts Press), pp. 77-78.
2. In a series of letters to Robert Collins, staff
writer for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, DePugh
maintnined that he did hnve sufficic'nt nilies
inside the Federnl (Jovcrnment that ennhl(~d him
to elude capture by the FBI for almost lOmonths.
Ironically enough, lJePugh went into hiding
shortly after his indictment and that was only
a few weeks before King's murder. One hideout
the FBI raided contained documents that included
the list containing four Americans marked for
assassination. DePugh, however, said this was
an FBI planted document. DePugh said he some-

31

3.
4.

5.

6.
7.

8.

times received tips from Minutemen inside the
Federal government that the FBI had discovered
his new hideout and were going to raid it. DePugh said he escaped several times only minutes
ahead of the raiding agents. When he was captured near Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico;
reporters asked him if the Minutemen were responsible for King's death. DePugh vigorously
denied it and said when asked if he had any
knowledge of those behind the murder: "The CIA
or some other Federal agency". In another interview, DePugh said the Minutemen had a much
more massive membership than the FBI realized,
and that the paramilitary organization had penetrated the higher levels of the Federal government.
William Bradford Huie. He Slew the Dreamer (New
York: Delacourt Press), pp. 176-177.
Jim Bishop. The Days of Martin Luther King, Jr.
(New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons), pp. 2, 102,
409, 415, 449. Bayard Rustin advised King to
stay away from anti-Vietnam peace demonstrations
and to layoff anti-war sloganeering in 1965 because of tactical reasons. Tying in the black
civil rights movement with the peace movement
would erode the vast bargaining power King had
with a friendly, pro-civil rights administration. Rustin later changed his views when the
war fever mounted and Johnson had escalated the
bombing raids over North Vietnam in 1966-1967.
William Schulz. "Safety of America at Stake,"
Reader's Digest (April, 1968), Ironically, the
issue containing the article reached Memphis
newstands only a few days before King was killed.
Ibid.
Colonel Fletcher Prouty. The Secret Team (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 2, 394395. If one has read David Halberstam's The
Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House)
one must read Prouty's book to understand the
depth of regimented deception, bureaucratic myopia, and military duplicity that led America
into the quagmire of Vietnam. Halberstam reported the war first-hand, and documents his
thesis by extrinsic sources. Col. Prouty, however, a retired Air Force officer, played a key
role inside the Pentagon and was once a focal
control officer for many clandestine CIA operations. His conclusions, surprisingly, confirm
those of Halberstam. Prouty strongly suggests
(page 2) that the assassinations of both Kennedys and Dr. King (as well as Diem, Nhu, Hammarskjold, Trujillo) were perpertrated by a
"Secret Team" - an inner establishmentarian
clique that cuts across military, State Department, CIA, and financial leadership of the nation. "The power of the team is enhanced by the
'cult of the gun' and by its sometimes brutal
and arbitrary anti-Communist flag-waving, even
when Communism has nothing to do with the matter
at hand. The Secret Team does not like criticism, investigation, or history, and is always
prone to see the world in two divided camps 'them' and 'us'."
LeMay's famous advice to President Johnson in
1964 before Johnson launched massive bombing of
North Vietnam was that "two weeks of massive
bombing of Vietnam" would force the abdication
of Ho Chi Minh and the surrender of all North
Vietnam forces in South Vietnam. LeMay apparently believed in the Rusk theory prevalent at
that time - namely, that all of the guerilla
fighting in the South at that time was due to
North Vietnamese infiltrators, rather than disaffected South Vietnamese engaged in a civil war
against the Saigon regime.
0

BEER - Continued from page 22

there is no genuine metasystem, why has one not
grown up? Was there never a stabilizing structure
of any kind? I think that there was a metasystemic
structure of a very remarkable kind, but that it has
been abandoned. We have thereby lost the meta-controls which made the composite systems of esoteric
boxes viable. If this be true, no wonder we need
assiduously to design replacements.
First, there was the structure of society's "external skeleton": the religious, legal and moral
framework. Into this hooked the structure of the
"internal skeleton"; there were indeed formal bonds
linking social institutions themselves. Younger
people seem to be systematically abandoning the
values of the external system, so that it ceases to
be relevant to any control process dependent on negative feedback. Given that almost fifty per cent of
the population of the United States is now under
twenty-five years of age, the revolt of youth is destroying metasystems whose stabilizing value they do
not understand is a serious matter indeed. The young
have more power in society than even before: purchasing power, and the power that derives from not
being afraid of inheri ted norms. Most of them are not
taking technology for granted. Many of them are questioning established values in terms which their elders do not understand. Some have already begun
smashing up computer installations. As to the internal system, changes in technology are moving the interfaces between the esoteric boxes representing established institutions - and they are not responding. Instead of evolving by adaptation, these boxes
are putting up the shutters and seeking to maintain
themselves as integral systems while the context
changes around them. This wi 11 not work.
Thus the strings and networks are unstable, and
the metasystems are missing. Rather than attempt
the exhaustive enumeration of these composite systems let us try to state the features they share in
terms of knowledge, information and control. They
seem to me to be the following:
Characteristics of Strings and
Networks of Esoteric Boxes

10 In all cases some esoteric boxes in the system
are part of the public sector and some part of
the private sector.
2. In all cases the esoteric boxes are generating,
and (inefficiently) passing between themselves,
knowledJe about the world in which they operate.
3. In all cases they are also generating, either as
primary or as spin-off data, knowledge about the
individual citizen which they rarely interchange.
40 In all cases the very forces which produce stability within the esoteric boxes themselves conduce to instability between the boxes.
5. In all cases, what constitutes the improved management of knowledge within the esoteric box has
to do with the rapid matching of sets of possible
courses to sets of actual conditions, and the
rapid correction of mismatches by feedback governors.
6. In all cases what would count as an improvem~nt
in the management of information between esoteric
boxes, and therefore an embodiment of the metasystem concerned, would be an integral information network and a mutual trade-off in knowledge
both of the world and of the citizen.
If this list of six points correctly states the
position, it behooves us to elucidate them further.
(To be continued in the next issue)

o
32

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

FORUM - Continued from page 7

the program (in operation steps, and in time on the
machine)? What was the input? example? What was
the output? example? What were the tests used to
make sure that the answer or solution given by the
computer was correct? What are the limitations of
the answer or solution? How can the answer or solution be used additionally in the future? What surprises turned up in the course of working on the
problem? Any remarks or comments interesting to the
reader or useful to the next investigator?
The usual length of an article is 2000 to 3000
words. Charts, pictures, and drawings that help to
clarify the ideas in the article are very desirable
if they contribute materially to the explanation.
To be considered for any particular issue, the manuscript should be in our hands by the second day of
the preceding month.

"Digital Processes" will cover all aspects of
theory and design of digital systems, such as: computer and systems architecture; memory and peripheral
devices; evaluation and testing procedures; techniques of computer-assisted documentation; logic design techniques; switching and automata theory; coding theory; computational methods; etc. The journal
will include: original research work, short technical communications; critical survey and review papers, etc. The edi tor-in-chief of "Oigi tal Processes"
is Prof. Douglas Lewin (Chair of Digital Processes,
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Electronics,
BruneI University, Uxbridge, U.K.); he is assisted
by an international editorial board of 22 members.
We hope this new project will be of interest to
your readers. Any person desiring more information
should write to me.

All suggestions for articles, manuscripts, inquiries about editorial material, and letters should
be addressed and mailed to the Editor:

o

0

....

CITY
WEATHER
BUREAU

Edmund C. Berkeley
Editor, Computers and People
815 Washington St.
Newtonville, MA 02160
00

:0

The Contents of
Computers and People

:0

0»

.. 9

(1

A. Orsava
145 Marlee Ave.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

o

I wish to compliment you on the excellence of
your February is sue v which I enj 0Xed thoroughly.

Below are my solutions:
Solution to Naymandij Puzzle 742:
9's".
Solution to Numble 742:
tine."

"Couple 8' s wi th

"I want you to be my Valen-

Editorial Note: All suggestions for making Computers
and People more interesting, more entertaining, and
more useful will be welcomed.

Digital Processes A New International Journal
,.

on the Theory and Design
of Digital Systems
Heinz Georgi
Managing Director
Delta Publishing Co. Ltd.
P.O. Box 20
CH-IBOO Vevev 2, Switzerland
Wt~ art! pleased to inform you that \\'e plan to
launeh a new international journal enti tIed "IHUi tal
Pr()et~SSt~s".
The first issue will be published towards thL' end of 1974.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

#~#C??t~
" - and you predicted POSITIVELY no chance of precipitation for today!"

The Fox of Mt. Etna and the Grapes
Once there was a Fox who lived on the lower slopes of
Mt. Etna, the great volcano in Sicily. These slopes are extremely fertile; the grapes that grow there may well be the
most delicious in the world; and of all the farmers there,
Farmer Mario was probably the best. And this Fox longed
and longed for some of Farmer Mario's grapes. But they
grew very high on arbors, and all the arbors were inside a
vineyard with high walls, and the Fox had a problem. Of
course, the Fox of Mt Etna had utterly no use for his famous ancestor, who leaping for grapes that he could not reach,
called them sour, and went away.
The Fox decided that what he needed was Engineering
Technology. So he went to a retired Engineer 'who lived on
the slopes of Mt. Etna, because he liked the balmy climate
and the view of the Mediterranean Sea and the excitement of
watching his instruments that measured the degree of sleeping or waking of Mt. Etna. The Fox put his problem befort: the Engineer.

From Ride the East Wind: Parables of Yesterday and
Today by Edmund C. Berkeley: see more information
on page 3.

33

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK
Computing and Data Processing Newsletter
Table of Contents

APPLICATIONS

Advanced Research Into Brain Physiology
Computer Prints Book Each Night to Help
Researchers Find Journals
Computer Aids Pharmacists in Filling
Prescriptions

RESEARCH FRONTIER

34
34
35

NEW PRODUCTS

MIT Libraries Launch New Information Service
SIM ONE Entering Commercial Production

35
36

APPLICATIONS
ADVANCED RESEARCH INTO BRAIN PHYSIOLOGY
WITH A LOW-COST COMPUTER SYSTEM
Dr. Peter Henning
Varian Data Machines
611 Hansen Way
Palo Alto, Calif. 94303

Researchers at the University of Arkansas Medical
Center, Little Rock, Ark., are using a small, lowcost computer to investigate brain dysfunction in
slow-learning children. ADAPTS, as the system is
called, was created by Varian Data Machines, a subsidiary of Varian Associates. The central element of
ADAPTS is a Varian Model 620/f-lOO, a compact but
powerful high-speed machine weighing only 35 pounds.
Dr. Roscoe Dykman, a professor in the University's Department of Psychiatry, says that the new
system will be used first to study brain function in
children who have normal or superior IQ's but whose
learning is impaired by difficulties with reading,
spelling, writing or arithmetic.
Dr. Dykman looks for minimal brain dysfunction
(~ffiD) in such children by measuring their responses
to light flashes, sounds and spoken words. The speed
and nature of a child's reaction will be assessed
through monitoring of his electroencephalogram (EEG) ,
galvanic skin response (GSR) and other indicators of
his neurophysiological state. In his research, Dr.
Dykman hopes to develop reliable indicators for riffiD,
so that physicians will be able to tell quickly and
easily whether a child's learning problems are
chiefly psychological or whether they stem from a
brain anomaly.
In a related study, Dr. Dykman and his colleagues
will use the ADAPTS system to investigate brain wave
frequency patterns in normal and learning-impaired

34

Machine Extends Computer Graphics into
the Dimension of Touch

36

MISCELLANEOUS

New Language for Computer-Firm Features
Growl and 'Ho, Ho, Ho'
NSF Makes Awards to Improve Computer
Use in Research

37
37

children and to analyze the effects of medication on
brain wave activity. A human brain generates several distinct types of waves. Alpha waves (with
frequencies of about 10 Hz) usually predominate when
a person is awake and relaxed. During peak alertness, beta waves (at 15-30 Hz) predominate. In drowsiness or sleep, the slow delta and theta waves -wi th frequencies less than 7 Hz -- take over. "We
suspect now that slow-learning children have more
slow wave activity than normal children," Dr. Dykman observes. "We want to find out i f thi sis so,
and see whether medication will move them into a
normal range of brain wave activity."
In analyzing the frequency recordings that this
research will generate, the Varian 610/f-IOO computer will use Fourier transformation, a technique
for fitting a mathematical series to observed data
points.
The same computer system will help scientists
learn how the brain works. and help teach hypertensive patients to moderate their blood pressure by
controlling their own brain activity.
COMPUTER PRINTS BOOK EACH NIGHT
TO HELP RESEARCHERS FIND JOURNALS
AI Hicks
Office of Public Information
University of California, Los Angeles
405 Hilgard Ave.
Los Angeles, Calif. 90024

A computer at the UCLA Health Sciences Center,
Los Angeles, Calif., prints out an updated SSO-page
"book" every night to help researchers keep up with
the 40,000 copies of scientific journals that arrive
each year at the school's biomedical library. The
nightly printing is done by an 10M System/360 Model
91. It lists all publications on file, including
those received earlier that day.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

The biomedical library, which serves one of the
largest teaching and research complexes of its kind
in the country, subscribes to more than 6,500 scientific journals. Its stacks contain 175,000 bound
volumes of periodicals.
The computer also provides a daily rundown of
those publications not received on time. If staff
members see urgent need for a particular issue, they
can direct the IBM system to write a follow-up letter to the publisher. In addition, the system displays lists of journals as volumes are complete and
ready for binding, gives their location in the stacks
and prints identifying slips for an average of 800
volumes of journals the library sends to the bindery
each month.
The logging of journals, tracking of missed issues and printing of bindery reports are the main
tasks carried out with the aid of the IBM system.
However, the computer is programmed so that library
staff members may order special lists for internal
use -- by title, call number or physical location in
the library or by name of the agent through whom
particular subscriptions are ordered.
In the library, visual display terminals, which
resemble TV sets with typewriter keyboards, are used
in the check-in process. When a clerk keys in receipt of a new journal, for example, the system records it automatically and the display on the terminal's screen lists the volume number and date of
the next issue to be received and when it is expected.
The 7,000 hardcover scientific books that arrive
yearly also are computer processed. After a staff
member types one standard catalog card, the computer
generates 10 or more others that index the book under a variety of classifications.
The UCLA facility has been a pioneer in the use
of data processing in libraries, and the research is
continuing. Much of the current work is funded by
the National Library of Medicine.
COMPUTER AIDS PHARMACISTS
IN FILLING PRESCRIPTIONS
Eleanor D. Midrack
Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital
Cleveland, Ohio 44109

A computer at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital is programmed to help pharmacists spot potential drug overdoses as they fill prescriptions
faster and with less chance of error. It has increased the number of prescriptions that can be
filled from 80 to 400 an hour. At the same time,
the system provides a safeguard against drug overdoses.
When a prescription is received in the pharmacy,
a six number coded abbreviation for the drug is
keyed over a TV-like terminal into an IBM computer,
along with coded information on the patient and doctor. The data is then reviewed by the system, and
if not chnllenged in any way, a nearby printer types
out a label to be affixed to the prescription. In
addition, the system will indicate the shelf life of
a drug :Ind track this for the benefi t of the patient.
Sevpr:II of the TV-like uni ts in the pharmacy are
linked to the hospital's central IBM computer, a
System/:170 Model 155, which also supports other hospital nwdical and administrative programs. Once the

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

prescription-filling procedure is complete, the system automatically charges the drug to the patient's
account for later billing.
Lee Jackson, operations systems director, who designed and programmed the system, feels that the
computer relieves the pharmacist from the chore of
typing labels and lets him devote his time to drug
selection and preparation. "This also gives the
pharmacist additional time to discuss the medication
with the patient, a procedure that would not be possible under a manual operation," he said. "In addition, this system goes to the patient's central medical file for further checks, something the pharmacist did not have time to do. It also prints out a
label that has more information than most labels do
now."
The system also will enable the pharmacy to
stock an optimum level of drugs. Based on past
usage records, the system will produce a report
that highlights those drugs that should be reordered to avoid shortage$. Conversely, it will also
make it possible to reduce the level of drugs that
are infrequently prescribed.

NEW PRODUCTS
M.I.T. LIBRARIES LAUNCH
NEW INFORMATION SERVICE
News Office
Massachusetss Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Mass. 02139

The ~Iassnchus(~tts Insti tute of Technology's five
divisional libraries hnve Inunched a new information
service that provides rapid and economical access to
large bibliographic data bases through computer
search techniques. The service is available through
NASIC -- Northeast Academic Science Information Center -- a National Science Foundation-supported program of the New England Board of Higher Education.
Natalie N. Nicholson, director of libraries, said
the three major interdisciplinary data bases initially available through NASIC are: (1) CA-Condensates (Chemical Abstracts Condensates) covering
Chemistry, chemical engineering and related physical
sciences; (2) ERIC (Education Resources Information
Center) covering education, linguistics and information sciences; and (3) INFORM covering selected
areas of business, management, economics and related
subjects. In addition, ~1EULINE (Medicine, Online)
covering biomedical sciences and applications, is
being provided through cooperation between M.I.T.
and the National Library of Medicine. Together, the
four data bases contain reference to more than two
million documents.
Search results can be obtained immediately from
on-line terminals by using an interactive dialog
with the appropriate computer to interrogate the
data bases. Users also can have a profile of their
research interests filed with the computer. New literature in their field will be searched and search
results will be mailed to tlwm.
The libraries, the Electronic Systems Laboratory
and the Information Processing Services are cooperating on the program at the Institute. Each divisional library has at least one information specialist to assist the user in translating his problem
statement into the languages of the particular computer systems that are pertinent to that problem.

35

Miss Nicholson said the new service is a national
"first" in that it will be a test of the NASIC concept of a regional organization that provides access
to a large variety of digital data bases on a fee
bas is. Fees vary wi th the amount of service provided
by the information specialist, the data base searched
and the time spent at the terminal. Since MEDLINE
is substantially subsidized by the National Library
of Medicine, the cost of searching it is less than
for the other data bases. There is a charge of $8
per hour for the information specialist's time with
a minimum charge of $5. Additional fee details are
explained in separate brochures describing each data
base.
The NASIC service eventually will include data
for all major fields of research interest at M.l.T.,
Miss Nicholson said. New data bases will be added
soon to cover interests in government research, engineering and physics. Based on the experience
gained at M.I.T., NASIC plans to expand to cover New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware as well
as New England.
SIM ONE ENTERING COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION
Jean Vandenberg
News Bureau
University of Southern California
University Park
Los Angeles, CA 90007

SIM ONE, the computer-controlled, plastic-skinned, simulated patient, is entering commercial production. An agreement signed by the University of
Southern California (USC) and CapTech Inc., a public
OTC (over the counter) corporation of Long Beach,
gives CapTech's Division, Sierra Engineering Company
of Sierra Madre, exclusive license to fabricate the
patient simulator according to a model developed by
USC.
SIM ONE is a six-foot manikin with a "skin" of
resilient plastic which has been used for anesthesiology training at the USC School of Medicine since
1968. It does not talk - yet. But it breathes,
chokes, blinks, coughs, and regurgitates. Anesthesiology residents can become skillful in the delicate and potentially dangerous technique of endotracheal intubation before approaching a human patient.
Intubation, a technique frequently used in anesthesiology, requires insertion of a semi-rigid tube
down a patient's throat and upper chest, between the
vocal cords, for artificial lung ventilation. SIM
ONE wi 11 respond to errors in procedure jus t as a patient would - even to the point of "dying".
SIM ONE can also present symptoms of a patient in
shock, such as lowered blood pressure, vanishing
pulse, and gasping for breath. Unless an emergency
room attendant does the right things quickly, SIM
ONE will "die". But unlike a human patient, a flick
of the switch will bring SIM ONE back to "life".
Computer programs have been carefully designed to
simulate exactly the reflexes of a patient so that
students may practice the same techniques repeatedly
until they reach a professional level of skill.
When SIM ONE became operational in 1968, it created considerable attention for the possibilities it
opened for use of simulated patients to teach difficult medical and dental procedures without risk. SIM
ONE's versatility and that of its future descendants
is limited only by the data fed into its computer
sys tem.

36

RESEARCH FRONTIER
MACHINE EXTENDS COMPUTER GRAPHICS
INTO THE DIMENSION OF TOUCH
Fred Myers
Polytechnic Institute of New York
333 Jay Street
Brooklyn, N. Y. 11201

Three-dimensional movies that people can touch as
well as see may be just around the corner.
Edging mankind one step closer to the "feelies"
of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," a computer
scientist working on his Ph.D. at Polytechnic Institute of New York (PINY) has invented a "tactile simulation device". About the size of a large television set, the machine lets its user feel the form,
contours and textures of programmed objects that do
not really exist. At the same time, these objects
are visualized in three dimensions.
Dr. Michael Noll perfected this device as part of
his work on a doctoral dissertation in electrical
engineering at Polytechnic. He built his machine at
Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., where he has
been a research scientist for the past 12 years.
From 1970 until recently he was on leave to serve as
a technical assistant for computers in the Office of
Science and Technology of the Executive Office of
the President in Washington, D.C.
His invention is a square box with an upright rod
projecting through a hole in its cover. Atop the
rod is a featherlight knob about the size of a billiard ball. In an "off" or unprogrammed condi tion,
the knob is free to move anywhere within a one-foot
cube of empty space above the machine - responding
lightly to the touch of a fing~r in any direction.
But when a solid object is programmed into the COIllputer that controls the box, the knob "collides"
with the object, scrapes along its surface or
bounces off.
With eyes closed, an operator whose fingers are
resting on the knob can thus feel a potentially infinite variety of shapes as he moves his hand at
random through the empty space.
"I envision a number of education, research and
training applications - perhaps most important a
sort of computer 'graphic' for the blind," says Dr.
Noll. "But what is more, the device could be developed and refined for sighted persons, resulting in
an independent, improved and altogether new a,proach
to man-machine communications."
Dr. Noll has coordinated three-dimensional visual
simulation with tactile simulation, using a computerized steroscopic device in concert with his
"feelie" machine. He estimates that within two
years it would be possible to build a more complex
device that will bring tactile sensation to the palm
and fingertips as well as the hand and arm.
The present machine - the pioneer, perhaps, of a
new communication medium - is mounted on three sliding axes: one for each of the three dimensions. Its
movement along each axis is controlled by a small
electric motor with a potentiometer to measure the
constantly varying distance from the central point
to the side of the box. Calculating these three distances, the computer always knows the precise position of the "feelie" knob - and can trigger res i s tance from the three electric motors just where it is
needed to simulate the object being modeled.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

MISCELLANEOUS
NEW LANGUAGE FOR COMPUTER FIRM
FEATURES GROWL AND 'HO, HO, HO'

Brooks Roberts
earl Byoir & Associates, Inc.
800 Second A venue
New York, N. Y. 10017

The Jolly Green Giant has been cut down to size.
He now stands 29 inches tall and is dressed in green
transistors. And Lincoln-Mercury's snarling cougar
has been reduced to a mere 17 pounds, with a trace
of a smile softening his snarl.
The transformations have taken place in an art
studio in Boston (Mass.) where designer Joe Veno has
been laboring to create Honeywell's 1974 computer
advertising campaign.
Veno is the man who builds Honeywell's computer
animals, a menagerie constructed of diodes, transistors, wires, switches and integrated circuits, that
has been featured in the company's advertising for a
decade. The latest additions to Veno's gallery are
the famed trademark of the Green Giant Co. and the
popular symbol of Lincoln-Mercury's sporty mid-size
car. Making each sculpture took about two weeks after Veno had prepared illustrations for approval by
Honeywell's ad agency. He carved the designs out of
urethane foam and then attached parts to the carvings
with a special adhesive.
Why is Honeywell using the symbols of other companies in its advertising? Key element of the campaign is letting users describe how Honeywell computers have been successfully applied to their business operations. The Green Giant sculpture, for example, is used in an ad which says, "Here's how Honeywell helps keep the Green Giant jolly." The ad describes how computer terminals are used to process
data at 57 locations around the country. A direct
quotation from a Green Giant vice president tells
how Honeywell "helps us secure a maximum return".
Honeywell uses the cougar sculpture in an ad outlining the successful computer applications supplied
for Ford Motor Co. "At the Sign of the Cat, we're
adding to their kitty," proclaims the Honeywell ad.

Veno built the sculptures from a collection of
computer parts he gathered on "shopping trips" to
Honeywell manufacturing plants in the Boston area.
"I look for color and interesting designs," he says.
"If a part has the right shape and size to fit the
concept I"m trying to develop, I try to get it."
Veno says he used about 1,000 computer parts to construct the cougar and 600 to build the Green Giant.
NSF MAKES AWARDS TO IMPROVE
COMPUTER USE IN RESEARCH

Walter H. Dodd
National Science Foundation
1800 G Street
Washington, D. C. 20550

Nine awards, totaling $280,400, designed to improve the effectiveness of computers for scientific
research recently were announced by the National
Science Foundation (NSF). The awards support a cooperative program to develop accurate, consistent,
and well-documented mathematical computer programs
for researchers.
One of the biggest problems in the computer field
is the need to improve the quality of computer programs, called computer software as opposed to computer hardware which consists of computers and other
physical equipment. Computer software for scientific
research, as well as those for other applications,
have developed chaotically over the last decade, the
NSF said. NSF is making a special effort to improve
the quality of scientific computer programs because
of their importance to research.
Errors in scientific computer programs are frequently subtle and may escape detection for months
or years. They difi'(!r from errors in business computations, for example, when a surprised recipient
receives a check for $99,999.99 when no check was
due. An important part of the NSF computer software
research is to validate mathematical computer programs for scientific research.
In a collection of scientific computer programs
developed with NSF support, no errors in the program
were found in the past 14 months with the programs
being used by over 200 computer installations. Furthermore, in one specific application the computer
running time was reduced to five per cent of that
previously required and the accuracy of the computations doubled.
NSF awards were made to: Argonne National Laboratory (Dr. Wayne Cowell); University of Kentucky (Dr.
Henry C. Thacher, Jr.); Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
California Institute of Technology (Dr. Edward W.
Ng); University of Southern California (Dr. Robert
F. Tooper); Purdue University (Dr. David S. Dodson);
Northwestern University (Prof. Benjamin Mittman);
University of Wisconsin (Prof. Larry E. Travis);
University of Texas (Dr. David Young); and Universi ty of Toronto (Dr. Thomas E. Hull). Argonne National Laboratory, University of Kentucky, and the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory will develop the new mathematical computer programs while the other institutions will field test them.

- Lincoln.Mcrcury's live cougar (background) shows feline interest during prc~;entation of late-model cougar made of computer parts. Willard
A. Lilt!!: (Icft) Midwest regional sales mgr., accepts "cougar" from
Kcnncth G. Fisher, regional VP of Honeywell's computer operations.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

The awards, made for a two year period, constitute a concerted and continuing effort by NSF's Office of Computing Activities to increase the effectiveness of computing resources through the Software
Quality Research Program. In addition to NSF support, the project for improved computer software is
being supported by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

37

NEW CONTRACTS

Computer Sciences Corp.
(CSC) , El Segundo, Calif.

The Singer Co., Business
Machines Div., San Leandro,
Cal if.
U.S. Naval Electronic Systems
Command

Dataproducts Corp., Woodland
Hills, Calif.

Four-Phase Systems, Inc.,
Cupertino, Calif.

Pertec Corp. (ASE), El
Segundo, Calif.

Sperry Univac Div., Sperry
Rand Corp., Blue Bell, Pa.

Control Data Corp., Minneapolis, Minn.

Barclays Bank Limited,
United Kingdom

GTE Sylvania Inc., subsidiary
of General Telephone & Electronics Corp., Mountain View,
Calif.
Peripheral Equipment Div.,
Pertec Corp. (ASE), Chatsworth,
Calif.
Xonics, Inc., Van Nuys,
Calif.
Litton Industries, Sweda
International Div., Beverly
Hills , Calif.
GTE Sylvania Inc., subsidiary
General Telephone & Electronics
Corp., Mountain View, Calif.

U.S. Army

Recognition Equipment, Inc.
Dallas, Texas

Facit-Addo, Electrolux, AB,
Stockholm, Sweden
U.S. Air Force
Au Printemps, S.A., Creteil,
France
U.S. Army

National Cash Register Co.,
Dayton, Ohio

Myer Emporium Limited,
Sydney, Australia

Bunker Ramo Corp., Trumbull,
Conn.
Sperry Univac Div., Sperry
Rand Corp., Blue Bell, Pa.

Franklin Savings Bank of
New York City, Computer
Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Federal Aviation Administration, Anchorage Air Route
Traffic Control Center,
Anchorage, Alaska

Scientific Technology Inc.,
Mountain View, Calif.
Incoterm Corp., Natick,
Mass.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Huntsville, Ala.
United Air Lines, Denver,
Colo.

Cubic Corp., Western Data
Products subsidiary, San
Diego, Calif.

Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle,
Wash.

Interdata Inc., Oceanport,
N. J.

Remote Computing Corp. (RCC),
Palo Alto, Calif.

National Cash Register Co.,
Dayton, Ohio

J. C. Penney Company, Inc.
New York, N. Y.

National Sharedata Corp.,
Dallas, Texas

First National Bank of Odessa,
Odessa, Texas

Recognition Equipment, Inc.,
Dallas, Texas

National Cash Register Co.,
Dayton, Ohio

TRW Data Systems, Hawthorne,
Calif.

J. C. Penney Company, Inc.
New York, N.Y.

Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) ,
El Segundo, Calif.

National Aeronautics & Space
Administration (NASA), Langley
Research Center, Hampton, Va.

38

Up to 50,000 hand-held OCR (optical character recognition) Wands to be used with
Singer's electronic point-of-sale terminals
Providing technical support and management
assistance to the command's Special Communications Project Office
Four models of Series 2000 line printers
to be used in new System IV/40 and System
IV/70 Intelligent Terminals
Supplying shared processor data entry systems under a thr"ee year, non-exclusive purchase agreement; requirements estimated at
more than $15 million over the 3-year period
Front-end communications processing hardware and software for Barclays Integrated
Network System (BINS) consisting of 3 pairs
of CYBER 1000 communications processors,
each serving one of three main data centers equipped with IBM 360 and 370 computers
Design, development, and implementation of
a system providing computer-controlled electronicprocessing, data storage and retrieval

$7.5 million
(approximate)

Digital magnetic tape transports and disk
drivers over a two year period; willbe used
in data entry systems built by Facit-Addo
Data services and analyses for the Advanced
Ballistic Reentry Systems (ABRES) Program
A minimum of 750 Sweda Series 725 electronic point-of-sale terminals and related processing equipment
Research contract for tactical jamming
system which includes development of
ground-based, very-high-frequency communications equipment that uses computer control
350 NCR 280 electronic terminals and 22 NCR
723 data collectors; conversion to electronic
point-of-sale equipment has already begun
A new computer-based system of BR 2001
teller terminals which will be used to
equip its 11 banking offices
Installing a modified ARTS III (Automated
Radar Terminal System) to process radar
data sent over telephone lines from longrange radar atop a mountain known as
Murphy Dome
Equipping 19 major U.S. Postoffices with
sorter sensor controls for bulk mail handling
64 "intelligent" computer display terminals, 50 P-IOO printers and other auxiliary
equipment for United's Food Service Management and Information System; also will develop software programs for a variety of tasks
Fully computerized automatic fare collection system to be put into operation in
nation's first Personal Rapid Transit system in Morgantown, West Va.
Six Series Model 50 communications processors to be used primarily as regional message concentrators in Automated Mortgage
Management Information Network (AMMINET)
opera ted by Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.
and associated banks, insurance companies,
brokerages, savings and loan institutions
Up to 15,000 NCR 280 electronic point-ofsale terminals and 300 NCR 725 in-store computers and associated peripheral equipment
Five year extension to original contract
agreement to manage computer facili ties and
market automated data processing services
Up to 50,000 hand-held OCR (optical character recognition) Wands to be used with
NCR data terminals
Leasing up to 7,000 point-of-sale credit
communications terminals and 11 computerbased communication system
Further improvement and maintenance of
NASTRAN, a general-purpose software system
for analyzing the behavior of complex structures under a variety of loading condi tions

$3 million
(approximate)

$4+ million
$4+ million
$4 million
(approximate)
$4 million

$3.4 million

$3 million
(approximate)
$3 million
$2.9 million

$1 million
$750,000+
$750,000

$425,000
(approximate)
$400,000+

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

NEW INSTALLATIONS
Basic/Four Model 350 system

Maroun Brothers, Inc.,
Lawrence, Mass.

Basic/Four Model 400 system

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.,
Irvine, Calif.

Burroughs B 1700 system

W. L. Jackson Manufacturing Co.,
Inc., Chattanooga, Tenn.
Unidare, Limited, Dublin, Ireland

Burroughs B 6700 system

Consolidated City of Jacksonville,
Florida, Jacksonville, Fla.
Dime Savings Bank of New York,
New York, N. Y.
Lomas and Nettleton Company,
Houston, Texas

Digital Equipment DECsystem 10

New York Clearing House Association
(NYCHA), New York, N.Y.
University of Washington, Seattle,
Wash.
Engineering Sciences and Technology
Building, Brigham Young University,
Provo, Utah

Pima Community College, Tucson,
Ariz.
Hewlett-Packard HP-2100 system
Hewlett-Packard HP-3000 system

Gerber Scientific Instruments Co.,
Hartford, Conn.
ESL, Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.

IBM System/7

Burdine's, Dadeland, Florida

NCR Cen tury 100 system

Delannoy of Lille, Lille, France

NCR Century 101 system

The McLane Company, Inc.,
Temple, Texas
SKM, Stains, France
Consolidated Computer Systems,
Inc., Oklahoma City, Okla.
The Bendix Research Laboratories,
Southfield, Mich.

NCR Century 200 system
NCR Century 251 system
Systems 86 system

Univac 494 system

Northwest Orient Airlines,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.

Univac 1106 system

Gustave Roussy Institute (I.G.R.)
Villejuif, France

Sisters of St. Mary Mother House,
Data Center, St. Louis, Mo.
Xerox 530 system

National Accelerator Laboratory,
Batavia, Ill.
(4 systems)
The Research Corporation (TRC) of
New England, Boston, Mass.
Sangamon State College, Springfield,
Ill.

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE far April. 1974

Inventory control, a comprehensive order catalogue,
order entry invoicing, accounts receivable, payroll and accounts payable
Customer invoices, two-step order entry, inventory
control, accounts receivable, sales analysis, and
authors' royalty accounting
Accoun ts receivable and payable, payroll and general
ledger; future use includes perpetual inventory,
compilation of sales statistics and cost accounting
(system valued at $104,000)
Financial accounting, inventory control and production cont.rol
A variety of administrative and service functions
for Board of Education, Water and Sewer Dept., Tax
Collector and Tax Assessor
On-line banking services in 8 offices; also mortgage accounting, payroll, general ledger and financial forecasting
Data communications between computer center and
7 regional service centers across nation; also detailed reports to investors, and mortgage processing and accounting
Handling growing volume of interbank money transfers
(system valued at $4.8 million)
Medical, instructional and administrative data
processingj class scheduling and registration
Supporting studies in computer science and programming languages and in research, problem solving and application programming in mechanical and
electrical engineering, and physical, biological,
and social sciences
(system valued at $700,000)
Administrative and instructional purposes including a complete library inventory and circulation
system, mUlti-campus use for student registration
(system valued at $471,000)
Use in automatic systems
Cataloging aerial photos supplied by NASA/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., through Earth
Resources Aircraft Project; this is a subcontract
with Lockheed Aircraft Co.
Monitoring and controlling power to conserve
electric energy
Remote processing of invoices via 8 typewriters;
data from invoice preparation produces reports for
order control, delivery, payroll, sales and stock
management
Processing orders, accounts payable and receivable, and also for inventory control
Order processing, payroll preparation, and inventory
A broad range of accounting services to various
organizations including hospitals
Research and development for automotive steering,
braking and emission controls, earth satellite and
aerospace systems (replaces another digital system)
(system valued at approximately $350,000)
Upgrading present computer complex; will be tied
into existing real-time system, presently composed
of two UNIVAC 494's
(system valued at approximately $2 million)
Wide variety of cancer treatment and research applications including patient administration and patient
care, and administration of facilities; also realtime updating of medical and administrative patient
files; radiotherapy and scintigraphy, calculations
and keeping medical research statistics
Health care information system to initially serve
five Midwest hospitals
(system valued at $1.2 million)
Control of the 300-billion-electron-volt proton
synchroton
(system valued at $375.000)
Environmental impact studies for New England business firms and federal, state and local government
agencies
Computer-supported course work in programming,
operations and vocational training
(system valued at $98,000)

39

MONTHLY COMPUTER CENSUS
Neil l"facdonald
Survey Editor
COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE
The following is a summary made by COYl'llTERS 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 ~!onthly 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 CO}WUTERS AND
PEOPLE
C
figure is combined in a total
(D)
acknowledgment is given to DP Focus, Marlboro, Mass., for
their help in estimating many of these figures
E
figure estimated by COMPUTERS AND PEOPLE
(N)
manufacturer refuses to give any figures on number of installations or of orders, and refuses to comment in any
way on those numbers stated here
(R) -- figures derived all or in part from information released
indirectly by the manufacturer, or from reports by other
sources likely to be informed
(S)
sale only, and sale (not rental) price is s ta ted
X
no longer in production
information not obtained at press time and/or not released
by manufacturer

SUMl"fARY AS OF MARCH 15, 1974
DATE OF
NAME OF
NAME OF
FIRST
YIANUFACTURER
COMPUTER
INSTALLATION
Part 1. United States Manufacturers A-H
AGT 10 Series
4/68
Adage, Inc.
Ar,T 100 Series
Boston, l"fass.
1/72
(A) (Feb. 1974)
Adage 300
3/74
Adage 400
3/74
Autonetics
RECOMP II
11/58
Anaheim, Calif.
RECOMP III
6/61
(R) (Jan. 1969)
Bailey l"feter Co.
Metrotype
10/57
Wickliffe, Ohio
Bailey 750
6/60
(R) (Aug. 1972)
Bailey 755
11/61
Bailey 756
2/65
Bailey 855/15
12/72
Bailey 855/25
4/68
Bailev 855/50
3/72
Bunker-Ramo Corp.
BR-130
10/61
Westlake Village, Calif.
BR-133
5/64
(A) (June 1973)
BR-230
8/63
BR-300
3/59
BR.-330
12/60
BR-340
12/63
BR-1018
6/71
BR-1018C
9/72
Burroughs
BlOO/500
7/65
Detroit, lIich.
B200
11/61
(N) (R) (Mar. 1974)
B205/220
1/54;10/58
B300 Series
7/65
B700 Series
3/73
B1700 Series
8/72
B2500
2/67
B2700
8/72
B3500
5/67
B3700
11/72
B4500/4700
10/71
B5500
3/63
B5700
12/70
2/68;8/72
B6500/6700
R7500
4/69
B7700
2/72
B8500
8/67
Computer Automation, Inc.
108/208/808
6/68
Newport, Calif.
116/216/816
3/69
(R) (April 1971)
Consu1tronics, Inc.
DCT-132
5/69
Dallas, Texas
(A) (April 1973)
Control Data Corp.
G15,G20
7/55;4/61
Minneapolis, Minn.
LGP-21, LGP-30
12/62;9/56
(R) (liar. 1974)
M1000
RPC4000
1/61
636/136/046 Series
160/8090 Series
5/60
921/924-A
8/61
1604/A/B
1/60
1700 Series
5/66
3100/3150/3170
5/64-10/70
3200
5/64
3300
9/65
3400
11/64
3500
8/68
3600
6/63
3800
1/66
6200/6400/6500
8/64
6600
8/64
6700
6/67
7600
12/68
40

AVERAGE OR RANr,E
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
S (000)

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

X

100-300
100-300
30-50

(S)
(S)
(S)

X
X

40-200
40-250
200-600
60-400
50-400
100-1000
100-1000

(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)

X
X
X
X
X
X

23.0

X

0.7

3
12
0
0
0
0

35
28
0
0
30
6

8
37
7
17
2
16
12
160
79
15
18
19
19

0
15
0
12
1
0
0

8
52
7
29
3
16
12

1141

677

42

4

1818
500
46

32
78
277
33
569
17
78
152
27
51

13
26
123
16
300
6
26
47
8
25

43
104
400
49
869
23
104
199
35
76

1
1
165
215

10
20

1
1
175
235

75

65

135

X

2
3
2
X
X

X
X
X

X
X

(S)

2.8-10.0
5.0
7.0
1.0-2.3
2-10
4-10
4.5-10.0
5.3-15.0
12.5-30.0
14.0-90.0
23.5-34.0
12-32
18-30
44.0
50-150
200.0
5.0
8.0

32
16
0
0
30
6

NUlIBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS

(S)
(S)

X

13
4
110
225

X
X

315
487

X
X

X

75
29
610
29
59
479
158
93
206
17
20
40
20
140
89
5
12

X
X
X

X
X
X

3.8-4.0
3-18
13.0
20-38
18.0
12-30
52.0
53.0
41-66
115.0
130.9
235.0

100
51
106
6
5
23
17
77
56
3
8

58
42
100
11

15
17
3
63
33
2
4

X
X

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

-

NAME OF
HANUFACTURER
Control Data (cont.)

Data General Corp.
Sou thboro, Mass.
(A) (Feb. 1974)

NAME OF
COMPUTER
Cyber 70/72
Cyber 70/73
Cyber 70/74
Cyber 70/76
Cyber 1000
Nova
Supernova
Nova 1200
Nova 800
Nova 820
Nova 1210/1220

DATE OF
FIPST
INSTALLATION
11/71
3/72
12/71
12/71
1/73
2/69
5/70
12/71
3/71
4/72
2/72

AVERAGE OR RANGE
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
$(000)
28-47
34-49
41-100
82-150
250-1!200
9.2
9.6
5.4
6.9
6.4
4.2;5.2

NUtIBER OF INSTALLATIONS
In
Outside
In
U.S.A.
U.S.A.
World
15
6
21
11
17
6
3
5
2
2
3
5
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
Total:

Datacrnft Corp.
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
(A) (Feb. 1974)

Datapoint Corp.
San Antonio, Texas
(A) (Feb. 1974)
Digiac Corp.
Smithtown, N.Y.
(A) (Feb. 1974)
. Digital Computer Controls, Inc.
Fairfield, N.J.
(A) (Feb. 1974)
Digital Equipment Corp.
Maynard, Mass.
(A) (Sept. 1973)

Electronic Associates Inc.
West Long Branch, N.J.
(A) (SeEt. 1973)
General Automation, Inc.
Anaheim, Calif.
(A) (Mar. 197 Lf)
General Electric
(Process Control Computers)
see Hone~e11
Hewlett Packard
Cupertino, Calif.
(A) (Mar. 1974)

Honeywell Information Systems
Wellesley Hills, Mass.
(R) (Mar. 1974)

6024/1
6024/3
6024/4
6024/5
6024/5R
Datapoint 2200

5/69
2/70
8/73
5/72
2/73
2/71

52-300
33-200
19.9
11-80
30-60
151-292

Digiac 3060
Digiac CT-10
Digiac 3090
D-112
D-116

1/70

9.0
9.0
4.6
0.12
0.1

2/74
8/70
1/72

PDP-1
PDP-4
PDP-5
PDP-6
PDP-7
PDP-8
PDP-8/1
PDP-8/S
PDP-8/L
PDP-8/E, 8/M, 8/F
PDP-9
PDP-9L
DECSystem-10
PDP-11/10,11/20/11R20,
11/40
PDP-11/05,11/15
PDP-11/45
PDP-12
PDP-15
LINC-8
640
8400
PACER 100
SPC-12
SPC-16
Sys tern 18/30

11/60
8/62
9/63
10/64
11/64
4/65
3/68
9/66
11/68
5/72
12/66
11/68
12/67

2114A, 2114B
2115A
2116A, 2116B, 2116C
2100A, 2100S
3000
Series 50: G53,G55
G58
Series 100: G105
G115
G118/A,/B
G120
G128
G130

10/68
11/67
11/66
9/71
11/72

X
X
X

3/71
6/69
4/66

0.7-6.0
0.9-1.4
2.2

3/69

2.9

9/69
2/61
9/66
4/67
7/67
7/72
1/68
5/70
7/69

(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)
(S)

18
119
11
115
3

0
26
3
2
0

(S)

80
21
4
840
1306

0
0
0
184
119

80
21
4
1024
1425

7
0
0

48
40
90

2
5
10

50
45
100
23
100
1402
3127
918
3699
9150
436
40
300
3280

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

(s)

(S)

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

3.9-4.9

(S)

X
X

700-3000
10.8-13.8

(S)
(S)

10.8

(S)

17.0

(5)

0
0

0
0

110
21
50

61
8
45

X

1.2
12.0
1.0

12/68

4.5

4/69
4/66
4/69
4/69
8/68
6/70
1/66
12/67
3/64
2/71
2/66
7/68
1/71
1/66
2/70
8/68
12/68
2/73
1/73
4/72
4/72
4/72
5/72
4/72
3/71
7/71

1.5
3.3
6.9
1.7
2.7
3.5
4.8
7.0
7.5
8.5
9.8
12.0
13.4
18.0
24.0
32.5
50.0
2.1
2.1
3.1
4.3
7.0-66.0
12.0-66.0
27.0-55.0
20.0
20.0-60.0

C
C
C
C
C
C
9205
18
145
14
117
3
4000

NUMBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS

3170
650
725
625
200
171
29
95
2750
3000
500

0
6
10
30
1

X
X

X

0
0
25

1210
342
1446
6000
50
6
6
400

1
680

7
6
1080

r,138

5
10
15
Series 200: 105
110
115,/2
120
125
200
1015
1200
1250
2015
2200
3200
4200
8200
Series 2000: 2020
2030,/A
2040,/A
2050,/A
2060
2070
2088
Series 6000: 6025
6030/6040

COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April, 1974

180
30
800
150
803

93
160
220
275

273
30
960
370
1078

230
129
4
125
40
18
12
49
11
86
50
25
20
2

90
55
59
25
2
3
6
3
23
20
8
1
1

320
184
4
184
65
20
15
55
14
109
70
33
21
3

1

11

12

41

NAME OF
MANUFACTURER
Honeywell (cont.)

NAME OF
COI'1PUTER
6050/6060
6070/6080/6180
G405/410
(:415/420
G425/430
G435/440
G615
G625
G635
400/600
G205/210/215
G225-275
1400/1800
DDP19,21,24
DDP112,116,124
DDP224,290
DDP316
DDP324
DDP416
DDP516
632
716
1602
1642
1644
1646
1648,/A
GE-PAC 3010
GE-PAC 4010
GE-PAC 4020
GE-PAC 4040
GE-PAC 4050
GE-PAC 4060

AVERACiE OR RANCiE
DATE OF
OF MONTHLY RENTAL
FIRST
$ (000)
INSTALLATION
20.0-60.0
7/71
20.0-100.0
7/71
5.5-10.0
2/68
7.3-23.0
5/64
9.6-17.0
6/64
14.0-25.0
9/65
32.0
3/69
X
4/65
47.0-100.0
5/65
X
12/60
X
9/63-6/64
4/61-11/68
X
X
1/64
X
5/61
X
4/65
3/65
X
6/69
0.6
7/68
4.0
X
6/67
9/66
1.2
12/68
3.2
0.8
6/72

11/68
5/70
10/70
2/67
8/64
12/66
6/65

NUMBER OF INSTALLATIONS
Outside
In
In
U.S.A.
World
U.S.A.
44
6
50
1
2
3
38
5
43
300
148
448
75
168
93
31
86
55
11
14
3
3
26
23
3
41
44
103
55
138
101
26
127
288
62
350
11
19
30
14
89
93
124
376
500
7
57
64
45
408
453
0
7
7
168
182
350
131
900
769
4
8
12
0
3
3

12.0
X

6.0
X
X
X
X

25
30
200
45
23
18

1
4
60
20
2
2

20
26
34
260
65
25
20

NUHBER OF
UNFILLED
ORDERS

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X

,

¥

X

32
X
X
X
X

I'

L
"

GAMES AND PUZZLES - Continued from page 27

WUNSILLABO
Another kind of exercise or puzzle in the direction of
making words and text understandable by computers is to
convert a passage entirely into one-syllable words. There
are some exceptions: (1) additional syllables produced by
one of the endings "s, es, d, ed, ing, ly" are allowed; (2)
figures in digits and symbols such as $25 are allowed.
This kind of puzzle has been named WUNSILLABO.
Here is the current one:
WUNSI LLABO PUZZLE 744

(1) According to information reaching me from Jones,
he has been engaged in a long continued effort to instruct
Smith in culinary arts and activities. (2) No candidate for
the position of master of culinary arts, Jones reported to
me, has ever been more difficult for Jones to educate. (3)
Jones assertyd vehemently that he would surely discontinue his efforts at instructing because of certain failure
in the future. (4) Jones confirmed that Smith was an excellent dishwasher, but that he (Jones) was convinced that
dishwashing represented the outermost limits of Smith's
mental powers and practical capabilities.
WUNSI LLABO PUZZLE 743 - A SOLUTION
(If better solutions are received, we plan to publish them.)

1. I do not trust rule by a king, and have felt so at all
times in the past.
2. In his long boring talk there were lots of thoughts that
were wrong.
3. Brown is sending Smith a load of spices and putting
them in Smith's care to sell and· pay for.
4. Smith said that the earth in Maine was shaking a great
deal and in a lot of places.
5. These old Scotch firms that make thick jam from the
pulp of fruits have ways of making good jam that
42

have been handed down for long years, and for all
these years they and no one else sell such good jams.
6. The sharp drop down the ice cliff in the great stream of
hard yet broken ice was so much in the way for
Clark that he could not go past it and go on.
7. Your bill shows that you owe us $179. Please send us
this sum as soon as you can.
8. Please tell me if you are searching in the mail that comes
in for any pieces that you want and need fast. As
soon as the mail comes in and 'is slit, I will be glad to
look at it and bring you at once any kinds of mail
that you tell me of and may wish to see.

Comment. The only reason for success in these efforts
to express the given eight sentences in one-syllable words
is that no words like "Alabama" (four syllables) and "before"
(two syllables) having no one-syllable equivalents were used
in the original language to be paraphrased.
This raises an interesting question, and one worth lOOking into:
What minimum additional vocabulary of words of
more than one syllable must be allowed or granted
in order that an adequate paraphrase for any sentence may be expressed?
Our thanks to the following individuals for submitting
their solutions to - Naymandij Puzzle 742: A. Orsava,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Naymandij Puzzle 741-1:
Stephen K. Kelleher, Pennfield, N.Y. - Numble 742:
Edward A. Bruno, Daytona Beach, Fla.; T. P. Finn, Indianapolis, Ind.; A. Orsava, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Numble 741: Harry E. Easton, Richmond, Va.; T. P.
Finn, Indianapolis, Ind. - Numble 7312: Nihan LloydThurston, S. Nutfield, Surrey, England
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

jl

t

,i

.,

t

CALENDAR OF COMING EVENTS

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
1

...

,

May 1-3, 1974: ADAPSO 40th Management Conference, Ceasar's
Palace, Las Vegas, Nev. / contact: ADAPSO, 551 Fifth Ave.,
New York, NY 10017

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May 2-3, 1974: 10th Annual National Information Retrieval Colloquium, Holiday Inn, Philadelphia, Penna. / contact: NIRC,
P.O. Box 15847, Philadelphia, PA 19103

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May 5-8, 1974: 4th Annual Federation of NCR Users' Meeting,
Netherlands Hilton Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio / contact: Federation of NCR Users', The National Cash Register Co., Dayton, OH
45479
May 6-8, 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
Conference, New York Hilton, New York, N.Y. / contact:
Joseph E. Nove, BOCES II, 201 Sunrise Highway, Patchogue,
NY 11772
May 13-17, 1974: European Computing Congress (EUROCOMP),
Brunei Univ., Uxbridge, Middlesex, England / contact: Online,
Brunei Univ., Uxbridge, Middlesex, England
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
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
May 20-24, 1974: Computer Week IV: DPMA, ASM, ACM, TlMS,
SCYL, Statler Hilton Hotel, Buffalo, N.Y. / contact: William P.
Hanley, Erie County Department of Health, Buffalo, NY 14202
June 4-6, 1974: Symposium: Simulation of Computer Systems,
National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Md. / contact:
Paul F. Roth, National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Dept. of
Commerce, Room A265-Technology Bldg., Washington, DC
20234
June 11-13, 1974: 1st Annual Automotive Electronics Conference
and Exposition, Cabo Hall, Detroit, Mich. / contact: Robert D.
Rankin, Rankin Exposition Management, 5544 E. La Palma
Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807
June 17-19, 1974: Design Automation Workshop, Holiday Inn,
Denver, Colo. / contact: Nitta P. Dooner, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, P.O. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
June 23-26, 1974: 1974 DPMA INFO/EXPO (22ns Annual Data
Processing Conference and Business Exposition), Auditorium &
Convention Hall, Minneapolis, Minn. / contact: Data Processing
Management Assoc., 505 Busse Highway, Park Ridge, I L 60068
COMPUTERS and PEOPLE for April. 1974

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
June 24-26, 1974: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
1974 Annual Meeting', California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. / contact: SIAM, 33 S. 17th St., Philadelphia, PA
19103
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
lEE, Savoy Pl., London WC2R OBL, England
/ contact:
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
July 29-Aug_ 1, 1974: 2nd Jerusalem Conference on Information
Technology, Jerusalem, Israel/contact: Prof. C. C. Gotlieb,
Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada M5S1 A 7
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. Call., POB 100, Halifax, N.S., Canada
Sept. 8-10, 1974: 6th International Conference on Urban Transportation, Pittsburgh, Penna. / contact: John W. Besanceney,
Pittsburgh Convention & Visttors Bureau, P.O. Box 2149,
Pittsburgh, PA 15230

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/ page 44
THE NOTEBOOK ON COMMON SENSE, ELEMENTARY
AND ADVANCED / published by Berkeley Enterprises,
Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, MA 02160 /
page 2
RIDE THE EAST WIND: Parables of Yesterday and Today, published by Quadrangle/New York Times Book
Co. / Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington St.,
Newtonville, MA 02160 / page 3
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
permission) we need to know those you think might be
interested in also reading Computers and People.

cut here and tuck in flap

r--------------------------,

,
,

TO: R. A. Sykes, Circulation Mgr.
Computers and People

:

I suggest you send information on Computers and People \

,

to ... (attach list if you like)

,

* '*' * '*'

:

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01-Computer Manufacturer
02-Aerospace Aircraft
Manufacturer
03-0ther Manufacturing
O~-Raw Materials Processing;
(chemical, primary metal,
petroleum, food, etc,)
OS-Mining and Construction
OS-Computing & Consulting
07-Finance, Insurance, Pub!.,
and Service Organizations
OS-Transportation Companies
09-Public Utilities
10-Research
I1-Wholesale, Retail, Sales,
and Marketing Firms
12-Educational; (College,
University, or School)
13-Government and Military
1~-libraries

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To SPEED (he processing of your order, please chC'ck the one best
de,uiptor in cath of the two r.1!l)~O[lCS below. (ThIs IOformallon
\\ill he used for st.lll'tltal purposes only.)

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JOB FUNCTION
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