Electronic Abacus

yoey writes: "Blast from the past in an article at the Economist: There are those who do not believe in the desirability of introducing anything as esoteric as electronics into business routine at all. Others believe that there is a limited field for electronic methods, provided that they fit into, and do not disrupt, established business systems. But there is a third group ... who consider that a major revolution in office methods may be possible. This revolution would involve scrapping the greater part of the established punch card calculating routine and substituting a single 'electronic office' where the giant computor [sic] would perform internally all the calculations needed for a whole series of book-keeping operations, printing the final answer in and on whatever form was required."

Comments

Who could have predicted this nightmare

[bodland]

The intentions of business to increase productivity and reduce costs by utilizing electronic devices was wrough with good intentions in 1954. People were still agog with the value of the computers to tackle boring tasks during the war. (artillery trajectories) It only seemed natural to extend that to tasks in the business place that were always considered a royal pain in the ass...payroll...

What noone figured was the effect of personal computers on business. People still believe they increase productivity and decrease costs. This is the biggest lie out there. The use of the PC in the business has reached and passed the point of dimishing returns and really manay people could better serve companies by shoving the PC aside and getting out a good old pad of paper. We have so lost touch with reality. How many of you do nothing when you can't login or access the network?

Man was doing business for thouysands of years before computers and in reality much of business is still done without them. We (us folks with PC in our face) have experience in business without computing...shame on us.

the classic in this vein

[trb]

is As We May Think by Vannevar Bush, in Atlantic Magazine, July 1945. They have a web page Prophets of the Computer Age with more interesting flashbacks.

Technology enslaves man?

[JJ]

The articles mentions that when the computer broke down the employees might get very upset. The fastest way I know to push employees into panic mode is to screw up payroll. Thus, the employees would be slaves to the machine much more than any conventional bakery. Is this a wise direction for society to be heading?