Slashdot Mirror
Dead At 92, Business Computing Pioneer David Caminer
Brooklyn Bob points out this fascinating obituary of David Caminer, the first systems analyst. "The tea company he worked for developed their own hardware and software — in 1951! Quoting New Scientist: 'In today's terms it would be like hearing that Pizza Hut had developed a new generation of microprocessor, or McDonald's had invented the Internet.'"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2188963/David-Caminer.html
And I'll say it again. The British take their tea very seriously. It should surprise nobody that a tea company would be working on microcomputers. After all, these are the same companies that started wars and colonized new lands.
And still no first post.
Strange isn't it. This is one of the brighter minds of Computer Science and still I, a computer geek, have never heard of him.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
âoeAmericans canâ(TM)t believe this,â Paul Ceruzzi, a historian of computing and curator at the National Air and Space Museum, said in an interview last week. âoeThey think youâ(TM)re making it up. It really was true.â
And we don't! AS our manufacturing and the rest of our economy is rotting away (Thanks for nothing corp America), we are constantly reassured that our talent as a country is creativity (at least that's what the economists say - everything is for the better!). The rest of the World doesn't have this talent. In other words, we are number one and no other can or has created anything. Why we invented the telephone, airplanes, radar, the steam catapult for aircraft carriers, democracy, republics, etc....
So there! And if this fact is proven wrong, then I will completely lose all hope of my country's economic future and my own.
Is it me or does it just a bit off-putting to use an analogy to equate some of the world's more innovative pioneers with the mc'nugget?
The first output was something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
rewriting history since 2109
The best solutions don't come from engineers sitting around brainstorming. It's almost exclusively domain-specific knowledge that only practitioners have that makes good systems good. Lyons needed account tracking software for their tea and bakery business, and it's likely that there was simply no idea at IBM or any other "computer" shop that such a need existed.
Engineers are pretty much replaceable cogs in software development. It's the people who have real world needs that require real world solutions that bring these things into existence.
... McDonald's had invented the Internet
In the Al Gore sense of "invent the Internet", perhaps. They commercialized someone else's invention.
The article said the company owned tea shops not that it was a tea company.
null
I love English tea, but the standard milk-and-sugar serving is just too much. Black, please.
like hearing that Pizza Hut had developed a new generation of microprocessor
You didn't see that commercial yet? It's the one where they also introduced the Extreme Cheesy-Cheesy Extreme Pepperoni Pizza. The microprocessor is in the crust!
Um, what?
From TFA: So it was only natural it would look at the electronic brains that scientists in the United States were developing for scientific and military purposes as a way to streamline its own empire
Why do Americans have this urge to claim the credit for everything?
The Germans built a computer during WWII, and the brits built Colossus computers to break German codes. The University of Manchester built their first computer in 1948, and another in 1949, even the aussies had built CSIRAC in 1949, two years before LEO, and yet the NY times has to claim the LEO was based on what 'American Scientists' were doing.
There's a whole big world out there, and America doesn't have a monopoly on innovation.
Deal with it.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
What sort of calculations could possibly be worth the expense of building an early computer to do them with? That's one thing I have wondered about : these machines had about as much memory as a sheet of notebook paper, and were glacially slow at calculations. What kind of tasks could be worth the expense of building one?
It's not about tea - but as the New Scientist says, the exact equivalent to Lyons is something like Pizza hut. Lyons were the absolute masters of logistics in their time - they ran a huge network of outlets to a consistent quality with a very large turnover. So, they were really an ideal company to experiment with this new technology. Lyon's logistical expertise was such that during the Second World War they ran one of the largest bomb making factories in the world, just a couple of miles from where I live. One in seven bombs dropped on Germany came from the Lyons factory at Elstow.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
I guess if you ignore Charles Babbage and Ada Augusta Lovelace? They too invented their own software and hardware long before 1951 aka the Analytical Engine, etc. While it didn't actually work right, IBM fixed the problems and made a working version later, and they can be considered Systems Analysts before that term was phrased.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Yes precisely this seriously:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain
The tea company he worked for developed their own hardware and software -- in 1951! Quoting New Scientist: 'In today's terms it would be like hearing that Pizza Hut had developed a new generation of microprocessor, or McDonald's had invented the Internet.'"
Uhhh...actually we didn't really need a redefinition in "today's terms." I mean, it's still like hearing a tea company developed their own hardware and software.
huh... 44 years old and never heard of him.
or McDonald's had invented the Internet.
McDonalds may not have invented the internet, but they did advance food networking...
Not only are two people in New York and Los Angeles testing the same flavor when they eat their hamburgers, they may have even come from the same cow.
This signature intentionally left unblank.
And never managed to maintain the loyalty of their colonies and ended up losing them all.
Another nitpick: LEOs were not exactly mini. See the pictures on this enthusiasts web site.
And we've been here before.
Is there a more useful Slashdot post than a simple link to the story w/out registration? I wish the editors would "correct" links that require registration before posting. I nearly always search for an alternate source or skip the story when faced with a registration form.
The book "A Computer Called Leo" by Georgina Ferry covers the story and is well worth a read. It's not so much about the technology of the computers themselves but that they were looking at the clerical work done by the business and how they could write unique software to make it more efficient.
It's quite a sad tale too - they had developed state of the art technology but because they had done so within an existing business they were forced to forgo some of the opportunities for expansion in favour of supporting the parent company.
"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Konrad Zuse (pronounced [ËkÉ"nÊat ËtsuËzÉ(TM)]; June 22, 1910 Berlin - December 18, 1995 Hünfeld) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, in 1941 (the program was stored on a punched tape)."
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
For slashdot now is yoda writing titles, hmm? Yes, hmmm.
First the historian says,
"Americans can't believe this," Paul Ceruzzi, a historian of computing and curator at the National Air and Space Museum, said in an interview last week. "They think you're making it up. It really was true."
Then the article says, .Lyons sent employees to the United States to study office automation, and American experts said they should go to the University of Cambridge, where Maurice Wilkes was developing an early computer.
Seems like the historian doesn't know the history and revealed a hint of anti-american sentiment. It is my experience that any American interested in the first systems analyst wouldn' care where he/she is from.
... were originally two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and a sesame seed bun.
Anybody want a peanut?
Yeah, just skip the story instead of using bugmenot. That'll show them!
Ya learn something new every day.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
And Apple would be so screwed if MacDonald's invented the Internet instead of Al Gore doing it.
Martin (fingers crossed): Systems analyst, systems analyst.
Dr. Pryor: Systems analyst.
Martin: All right!
Not sure why, but I got into TFA without any nags.
Furthermore, the other article isn't the same; for instance you missed this great quote:
Except for the "without complaining" part, I'd think they must be talking about Marvin.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
Ok , you wouldn't find a tea company today building its own hardware , but you may well find them writing their own software. Many many non tech companies still do this - banks, insurance , market research to name but a few. Possibly even McDonalds and pizza hut do too but I'm just guessing.
I actually work in a market research company and we DO design our own set top box and handheld hardware though obviously the actual manufacturing is outsourced because the functionality we need from it is simply not available commercially.
So don't be too surprised if you find non-tech companies poking their fingers in the techy pie occasionally.
In the 80s, Scottish hi-fi audio manufacturer Linn designed their own CPU to improve its manufacturing automation systems. It's a fascinating story. http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/rekursiv/rekursiv.txt
A much more significant invention.
Was he ever the systems analyst interviewed weekly in The Onion's American Voices feature?
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
The zealot-to-evidence ratio is sky high on the web.
Writers imply. Readers infer.