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Man And The Computer
In computers the past is prologue
The Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry's new Real World Computing Program aims to improve human communication and make further progress in scientific technology. The goal is to build a highly advanced information society.
In Europe, a similar initiative is called High Performance Computing Initiative. Carlo Rubbia head of CERN (Conseil Européen Pour la Recherche Nucleáire) in Geneva, Switzerland is in charge of the project.
In the U.S. the effort is called the High Performance Computing & Communications Act of 1991, passed by the U.S. congress in December of 1991. The basic ingredients in all three are a supercomputer and high-speed network.
John G. Kemeny, then president of Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H. saw this vision of an information society 20 years ago. He foretold it in his book Man and the Computer, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1972.
In some ways only a government could create such a massive computer and communications infrastructure. However, the fact that the U.S. government acted is nothing short of a miracle according to George Lindamood vice president and director of Gartner group Stamford, Conn.
First, this obvious form of industrial policy was backed by a laissez faire Republican president. Secondly, it passed both houses of congress with little trouble. If there was one possible snafu, says Lindamood, it was over who should get credit for the bill, the White House or Congress. Ironically, it is known as the Gore Bill after Senator Gore.
Third, and most surprizing of all, Lindamood exclaims, a committee of bureaucrats thought up the whole idea and their agencies are helping to fund it. It began as a conference at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico several years ago.
Senior federal managers from Darpa, Nasa, National Science Foundation, etc. met and formed the Federal Coordinating Committee. on Science and Technology, or FCCST. They specified the system and asked the Congress and White House to build it.
Like the bureaucrats who formed the U.S. initiative, the man who foresaw the information age was heavily involved in creating it. In the 1970s, students learning introductory computer programming were taught the Basic language. Many entered their programs on a terminal tied to a time-shared PDP minicomputer from Digital Equipment Corp. of Maynard, Mass.
John Kemeny co-authored the Basic language and helped develop the time sharing system. Besides being president, he was also chairman of Dartmouth's mathematics department for twelve years and was a research assistant to Albert Einstein.
In his book, he made the following observations. "I have argued that in high-speed computers man has acquired an important symbiotic partner. We can help computers evolve by combining them with modern means of communications into national or world-wide computer networks."
The last sentence of the book reads, "therefore we must look to the coming of a new man-computer partnership to provide the means which, combined with sufficient concern by men for their fellowmen and for future generations, can hopefully bring about a new golden age for mankind."
Visionary ideas for the early 1970s and still true today.
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