Real Time Computing
One of my stories is about my Masters degree in Computer Science. It dates from 1975, which I think was about a year before they announced the discovery of silicon chips.
I studied at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. There was one computer in a tower basement. It had remote teletype terminals. Mostly we programmed using punch cards and our output was via a line printer. There were a few on-screen terminals, all hard-wired to the computer. There was one computer game I remember which was a dungeon exploration game. I don’t remember anyone ever finished it!
The operating system had, we they said, a million errors. Every month they received a disc with corrections to the operating systems errors. The disc itself contained a thousand errors.
There were limits to computing. If the Newcastle University computer were the size of an orange, they would have to keep it in liquid nitrogen because it would overheat. I suspect a decent mobile phone today is more powerful than that old computer.
The main difference between then and now is certainly communications. We had lectures looking ahead to IT and communications convergence and even some stuff about network theory, which nobody understood. Although we didn’t rate it as particularly important.
We had loads of languages to choose from and learning languages was very much the core of using computers. These days you need know nothing about languages. My favourite was called Simula, based on queuing theory and Algol 60. I enjoyed it because thinking in Simula opened up new insights. You could visualise things you could not see without it.
Still Relevant
Which brings me to the main similarity between then and now, Real Time Computing. Sometimes we called it Systems Analysis. This was about the interface between machines and people. Our course focused a lot on languages and how to program computers. But their power is in their interaction with human systems. I’m sure the manufacturers of hardware and software understand this. I suspect many people don’t.
Computers are entirely dependent on humanity. They have no purpose without us. To allow hardware or software to determine our behaviour is to allow others to decide our lives. We would resist it in other walks of life and so we should when using ICT. There are loads of options available and it is our responsibility to choose how we use them.