THE WORLD OF PERSONAL COMPUTERS

                               Clearly, the machine no longer belonged to its makers.

            

 TRACY KIDDER,

                                                                                                            

  The Soul of a New Machine

Computers have been around a lot longer than most of us would like to believe. As a matter of fact, the computer’s lineage can be traced back to 1642 when Blaise Pascal, a French mathematical genius, invented the first real calculating machine. Pascal’s machine used a combination of rotating wheels and gears to perform simple problems of addition and subtraction.

In 1833 Charles Babbage, an English inventor, designed the great-grandfather of modern computers with the introduction of his analytical engine a forerunner of which is pictured below in Figure 3. The engine was composed of five parts:

(1) A calculating unit (the mill),

(2) The store (memory),

(3) An input device,

(4) A control section, and

(5) A printer, the system was driven by punched cards that fed the basic information into the engine, where it could be processed. Babbage also fathered the basic principles on which the first adding machine was constructed.

In 1842, Lady Augusta Ada Lovelace, a friend of Babbage, wrote the first computer documentation in her paper ‘‘Observations of Mr. Babbage Analytical Machine.' A mathematical prodigy,

FIGURE 3.  Babbage’s differential machine, a forerunner of his analytical engine, marked a major step towards the future development of computers. Smithsonian Institution photo number 53190.

Ada established herself as the world’s first computer programmer and provided the software for Babbage’s engine. In recognition of her contributions, the U.S. Department of Defense named its so-called super language after her and Ada became a registered trademark of the U.S. government. The 1840s saw the publication of several papers and theses by the English mathematician George Boole. Boole’s theories detailed how logical problems can be solved like algebraic equations. Boolean logic set the stage for the advent of computer science. In 1890, the first electronic calculating machine was invented Known as the Hollerith tabulator, it used punched cards for the first time. The United States used the Hollerith tabulator (Figure 4) to compute the census, and completed the job in a mere six weeks. Up to that time, it had taken as long as 10 years to prepare the census calculations. The era of modern computing began in 1925 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, a team of engineers led by Vannevar Bush developed a large-scale analog calculator since it was capable of storing number values electronically; this is considered the advent of-all that was to follow.

Figure 4 .Hollerith's tabulator provided a taste of future computing power when first used in figuring the results at the 1890 United States Census. Smithsonian Institution photo number 64563.

The 1930s and 1940s saw a number of advances in computer development, with the development of two of the more famous systems: ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) in the United States, and Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, in England. Colossus was placed into operation to decipher the signals of Enigma, the German code machine. Colossus was credited with breaking Enigma’s code, which provided the necessary information to help the allies win the war. Colossus was SO secret that it was dismantled at the end of the war and only one piece is known to survive today. At the end of 1945 ENIAC arrived on the scene and solved its first problem in December of that year. The problem dealt with the hydrogen bomb, and is still considered a classified secret. The ENIAC, a portion of which is shown in Figure 5, was composed of 40 panels, each two feet wide and four feet deep, and housed some 18,000 vacuum tubes. It was capable of handling more than

FIGURE 5. ENIAC, one of the world’s first computers. Courtesy of International Business Machines.

One problem, although it had to be manually programmed by resetting switches, a process that could take up to two days.

Perhaps as a harbinger of things to come, ENIAC was obsolete almost as soon as it was running. A newer generation of stored program computers, which could be programmed electronically (instead of by recabling everything by hand), arrived in 1946 and quickly replaced ENIAC. For all its importance as one of the world’s first electronic computers, ENIAC had neither the power nor the speed of many of today’s hand-held calculators.

At that time, however, the sheer number of vacuum tubes needed to operate these early computers limited their use. Vacuum tubes were always burning out, so only short programs could be run. These machines literally filled entire rooms and were programmed at very low levels, often by a person setting and resetting row after row of switches and by recabling the system. Little wonder that a post-war government report saw little use for such machines and predicted that there might be a need for no more than three or four in the entire country. That might have been true, if the vacuum tube had remained the standard electronic core of a computer. The invention of the transistor in 1947 by Bell Laboratory scientists superseded the vacuum tube. The transistor was compact, used low voltages, and small amounts of power. It freed computers from the need be vacuum tubes and revolutionized the computer industry, setting the stage for today’s smaller computer systems. In 1951, the world’s first commercial computer, UNIVAC (Figure 6), was delivered to the Census Bureau. The UNIVAC set the trends for years to come and laid down standards that are followed even today. The original UNIVAC still blinks away at the Smithsonian Institute. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, improvements in the construction of transistors opened new doors for computer man- manufacturing. The first transistors gave way to the integrated circuit, in which a number of transistors and the wiring that connects them were constructed in a single piece. Integrated circuits, turn, led to the development of wafer—thin silicon chips on which thousands of transistors can be packed into an area about one quarter of an inch square as in Fig7.

FIGURE 6. UNIVAC, the world’s first commercial computer. Smithsonian Institution photo number 72-2616.

The development of transistors and microchips led to the creation of bigger and more powerful computers. It also allowed smaller and cheaper machines to come into existence... In short, these developments led to the evolution of several distinct families of computers, as well as to a continuing decrease in the cost of computing power. In fact, since the mid-1970s, the cost of computing power has dropped by an average of 50 percent per year. A comparison of computing power then and now can be seen in Figure 8.

FIGURE 7 .  Line drawing of a microchip. Illustration by Gina Bean .

 

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Fear oF Damaging The Computer

When they first begin working with a personal computer, many people hardly touched the keyboard for fear of doing something that would cause damage to the computer. People who don’t think twice about slamming down a telephone receiver, or driving their car to its very limits, suddenly grow passive when confronted with a keyboard. From secretaries to corporate executives to the folks down on the loading dock, there is something about a computer keyboard that can turn each into a shrinking violet.
There are two basic reasons for this initial passivity
1. The perception that despite their power, computers are extremely fragile devices.
2. The feeling that computers are on a somewhat different plane than other types of tools, the "gift of the God" syndrome.
Let's take a closer look at each of these observations. The first is a result of the day-to-day contacts that most people have with computers and the limited knowledge they possess about them. From the average person’s vantage point, computers are like newborn infants that need special handling and protection. Most people never see the large mainframe systems where they work. These computers are typically locked away behind security doors, in guarded environments with their own air conditioning, heating, electrical, and humidity control systems. From the outside looking in, it would appear that computers require a lot of care and attention. This particular point of view is often strengthened by day-today experiences that may often be punctuated by periods when the computer isn’t available. In the jargon of data processing, people are told of down time, system failure, or crashes, without any idea what those things might really relate to. Small wonder that when they suddenly come face to face with a personal computer some people are somewhat reluctant to touch it. After all, if the big ones come tumbling down from time to time, despite the care and attention of experts, what will happen when they start touching one? The second observation is that some people view computers in a somewhat different light than they do other office tools, maybe because of the sheltered environment that most people associate with the large systems. Computers operate in an almost mystical realm. Movies and popular works of fiction have pictured them as extending human powers beyond those of the body and mind. We think computers can solve complex problems almost in the blink of an eye. What could take a human hours, days, years, or even decades to work through might be processed in a matter of seconds or minutes by a computer. A mystique has grown up around not only the systems themselves, but also around the people who work with them. In a society that is growing increasingly dependent on technology, many who lack education or insight into computers look on those who can make them work in much the same way that ancient cultures viewed their high priests. As computers have become increasingly insulated, their operations cloaked in jargon and acronyms foreign to most people, many ascribe a certain reverence and awe to everything associated with them. Computers, and those who run them, have come to occupy a special niche beyond the province of the average person. With the arrival of the personal computer, all this is suddenly changing. Now individual workers are being given access to the same power and magic previously associated with the large systems. For some, this sharing of the technology can be likened to the Greek gods descending from the mountain top to share their secrets with their mortal followers. Against these backgrounds, it’s easy to understand why many men and women are apprehensive when it comes to touching a personal computer for the first time. As computers are extended through organizations, it is important for people to see them in the same light as they do other fixtures of the office, such as telephones and copiers. Some of this will certainly occur over time and with increased usage, and can be facilitated through introductory training programs that emphasize or demonstrate the difficulty actually damaging a system. The message that should come across is that while a lot of things. Can occur to the information they are working with, simply banging away on the keyboard won’t do much to actually harm the computer itself.

 

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COPYRIGHT VERSUS COPYING

No issue is as confusing, perplexing, or as potentially explosive as copying software. Since the inception of the Xerox machine our society has grown increasingly copy oriented. From making photocopies of books and magazines to taping record albums, live broadcasts, and movies, people have come to believe they have a right to reproduce things whenever they choose to. This same belief carries over to computer software, and personal computers make copying such materials an easy task. The copying of software is a gray area for Marty people and organizations, particularly for those just getting started. People sometimes confuse legal rulings that uphold the right to copy things in the public domain for private use with the right to copy and use software. The software industry itself adds to this uncertainty by pushing products that may or may not be copy-protected, and by the marketing of site licenses. The copyright law governing software is specific. Unless otherwise specified or agreed to by the developer or manufacturer, the purchaser is entitled to make one backup copy, or to copy the program onto a hard disk. While that might seem straightforward enough, illegal copying of software has developed into a problem of major proportions that is costing software manufacturers millions of dollars of lost revenues. The biggest culprits? Individual users in business, industry, and government. Copying software Is a fairly simple thing to do, particularly when using a dual disk-drive system. Just turn the system on, put the diskette containing the software to he copied in one drive, a blank formatted diskette in 11w other, and when the prompt appears (a>) type: ‘‘disk copy a: h:’’ and press the enter key. A few moments later you have an exact duplicate of the original. This is such an easy process that in half an hour one employee can probably make enough copies of a software package to meet the needs of 20 or 30 other people. In fact,, this is exactly what is happening in a lot of organizations. In many cases, employees are also making copies for their own private use. A study conducted by Future Computing and reported in the August 1965 Information Center Magazine suggests that there is one pirated copy of business software in use for every one authorized by the software developer. The study estimates that this cost manufacturers $1.3 billion in lost sales between 1981 and 1984. Other industry analysts believe this to be a conservative estimate, and set the rate of piracy considerably higher. Issues in Personal Computing, As might be expected, software companies are reacting strongly to this illegal use of their products, and rhetoric is giving way to action both in the courts and sometimes through the merchandise itself. In the latter case, some manufacturers are threatening to program “worms” into their software that would be activated if the original program diskette is copied more than once. When transferred to a pirated version, these worms randomly destroy whatever data they come into contact with. This is a very controversial step, and has drawn fire from many business and government quarters. These groups point out that a lot of things can happen to affect the original copy. It can, for example, be erased from a hard disk, copied over if stored on a diskette, or destroyed if the diskette isn’t properly handled. The prospect of not having a ready and reliable backup source doesn’t appeal to many of them. This leaves litigation as the most viable source of action, and many software companies are taking full advantage of the legal options afforded them.
For example:
Lotus Development Corporation sued the Rixon Corporation for $10 million in damages. Lotus charged Rixon with making at least 13 copies of their popular spreadsheet package and distributing them to branch offices. The case was settled out of court. Since this case, Lotus has brought suit against numerous other organizations, with several additional settlements. The Association for Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO) brought suit on behalf of several software manufacturers against American Brands and Wilson Jones Company for unauthorized copying. The tough stance taken by Lotus and ADAPSO can be expected to spread throughout the industry, and could cost offending companies a lot of money if their employees get caught making illegal copies. Ignorance of such activities is not holding up well as a defense either, as several courts have held management responsible for illegal copies made by employees, even though the companies had no knowledge of their employees’ activities. A number of civil penalties can be imposed in these cases, including judgments for lost sales, royalties, or profits. Additional damages, as well as court costs and attorney’s fees, can be added on top of the original judgment, and some states have enacted fines and penalties that can also be imposed. Criminal penalties may also be imposed for those making illegal copies for profit.
 Essentially, the courts are being asked to answer two questions:
I. What rights, and responsibilities do users have?
2. To what extent do users; have to follow the terms of the licensing agreements that come with most software packages?
As software developers push their cases in the courts, the general trend seems to be holding for allowing only one backup copy. The landmark Supreme Court case of Sony Corporation of America vs. Universal City Studios (457 U.S. 116), is often held up as a defense against litigation brought by developers. In that 1984 ruling, the court held that copying television programs for private home use was legal because it made “fair use” of copyrights. Lower courts have tended to discount this in cases involving Computer Software, because companies that make copies for their own internal use are generally involved in profit making activities, which could have an adverse effect on the overall market of liar software. The other words, it wouldn’t be a fair use of the software program. This places companies in a rather awkward situation as more and more personal computers are brought into the American workplace. Increased numbers means a greater risk of increased copying. One Houston-based company discovered that 80 of 120 systems it owned had software installed that wasn’t authorized for use. Their internal audit uncovered some 18 different software packages that had been purchased, installed, and copied by employees. By and large, however, most of these suits and other actions have don't little to curl’ software piracy. This has led to another approach by some developers, the use of site licenses. Essentially, a site license authorizes a user to make as many copies of a particular software product as are needed in return for one large copyright payment.
Employee education about the copyright protections extended to computer software is generally conceded to be an important starting place in the fight against piracy, and should certainly be included in training programs for every level of employee.
Many companies also require employees to sign statements that they are aware of the copyright provisions for software, and promise not to violate them. While these statements have yet to be tested in the courts, their use has been cited as evidence that companies are becoming more responsive to the problem.

 

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The Befuddling World oF Reference Manuals

While some software products are getting easier to handle, the manuals that accompany them are not keeping pace. User surly is frequently used to describe most reference works. Dense prose, poor use of English, and unexplained jargon are only some of the things that people encounter in the world of computer manuals. Some manuals neglect to include crucial information about the program, while others give incorrect instructions. Some use terms, such as “terminal,”“screen,”“ monitor,” and “display,” interchangeably without ever defining them.
Why are instructional manuals written so poorly? Among many reasons, three stand out:
1. Reference manuals are the last priority in the development process for hardware or software.
2. The manuals are often written by the engineers or technicians who designed the system or package.
3. Program or design changes often continue right up to the moment the product is released.
In the dog eat dog world of computers and software the bottom line is often getting to the marketplace first, or, failing that, getting there with a product that does more. The emphasis for the developers is on programming the product to do what they want it to and not necessarily on how easy it is for the consumer to figure out. For these reasons, seven or eight months might be How simple are the explanations and directions for reaching a specific goal? Are the vocabulary and sentence structure easy to follow? Is the use of terms consistent? Are all terms defined up front, and do the authors stick to the definitions? Is everything organized in a way that makes sense? Is there an explanation of what the product does and information on standard operations? Do the instructions follow the same steps a person using the program would? If illustrations are used, do they make sense and are they clearly labeled and relevant to their location in a manual? If special symbols are used in the program, are they clearly explained and consistently followed? Is there a complete table of contents and a thorough index? There’s no doubt that fear, from any of its many sources, can have a major impact on people’s use of personal computers. That fear can be overcome, however, with well planned strategies to introduce and train people on the systems. For those who believe that is sometimes an impossible task, consider the following quote:
I don’t see much use for these things in the majority of our lives. They will be too expensive for some, and too frightening for others. This is clearly an invention that is beyond the understanding and need of most common people. The year was 1905 and the writer, a newspaper columnist for the New York Herald, was describing the telephone.

 

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WHAT ARE PERSONAL COMPUTERS USED FOR IN THE WORKPLACE?

Despite all the advertising showing personal computers performing a multitude of tasks, most systems operating in businesses in the mid-1980s will not approach their full potential. It is estimated that up to 60 percent of all people who use a personal computer on the job work with only one or two specific applications. For the overwhelming majority this means a spreadsheet and word processing.There are a multitude of software packages to be found in most organizations, but people aren’t making full use of all the functions available to them. User experts, or gurus, who can make their systems all but dance across a desk and who push their programs to the absolute limits, can be found just about any place that uses computers. In most jobs, however, the role of the personal computer is limited by a lack of knowledge and experience as to exactly what to do with it. Most companies simply don’t have, or at least haven’t committed, the resources needed to support more than a few standard selections. In addition to the spreadsheet and word processing functions already mentioned, the standard choices usually include some form of data management program. Spreadsheets are far and away the most used programs run on personal computers. This is particularly true among managers who have accessed to a personal computer, and who have come to see the spreadsheet as having as almost magical qualities. When many people becoming talk about becoming computer literate, they really are thinking about learning how to use a spreadsheet. In— deed, most formal training found in business or industry is built not around the capabilities of the technology, hut around teaching people about spreadsheets. Arthur Young, a consulting firm, conducted a survey in 1984 of 453 companies that use personal computers. The survey which was reported in the July 1984 edition of Data Training Newspaper found that training in using personal computers ranked far below using specific software packages. Only 25 percent of the companies surveyed offered training of any kind. Of these, 80 percent trained users on spreadsheets and 49 percent included word processing.One major corporation that claims to have trained over 4000 of its employees on personal computers admits to a curriculum consisting solely of three hour courses in the use of spreadsheets. Given these statistics it’s not difficult to find individuals who believe that personal computers exist solely to run spreadsheets, or serve as very fancy typewriters. There are other reasons for the spreadsheet’s dominance. Statistics show the banking, accounting, and insurance industries are the leaders in acquiring personal computers. Most office workers can perform at least one part of their job on a spreadsheet. Many of the nation’s business schools have added spreadsheet preparation and analysis to their curriculums. Therefore, it is easy for people to relate to the spreadsheet concept during product demonstrations.

Most of the work done on personal computers is financial in nature. Among the most popular uses are:

Budgeting

Financial analysis

Cash flow management

Employee records

Mailing lists

Report writing

Presentation graphics

Inventories

Production scheduling

Economic projections

Accounts payable and receivable

Despite the best efforts of promoters to portray them as total business solutions, most personal computers remain single-purpose tools limited primarily to being report machines.

 

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WHO HAS ACCESS TO PERSONAL COMPUTERS?

As we study the history of how personal computers arrived and were placed in most organizations, we can see a pattern emerging that is more reflective of political considerations than anything else. 

Personal computers are more likely to be given to managers and executives before others receive them in any great number. Sometimes this is part of an overall strategy designed to win n1iIlagement approval before bringing computers into an organization. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, many systems arrive because they are seen as nothing more than the latest management status symbol. Statistics collected by International Data Corporation suggest that only about 15 percent of these placements are accompanied by training. For most of these recipients, the hardware is delivered and set up, and users are provided with one or more software packages. After that, they’re on their own. Those who do get training generally experience it in the form of a one-day seminar conducted by an outside consultant. Left to their own devices, and hampered by work schedules, it is estimated that less than 10 percent of all managers and executives who initially are given a personal computer ever really use it themselves. This raises an important point: The people given personal computers today are not always the people who will use them tomorrow. A lot of the personal computers originally placed with managers or executives are finding their way rather quickly to the desks of secretaries or subordinates as Figure 2 illustrates. It is these people, by and large, who are being given the responsibility for developing and maintaining applications and programs. This is not to say that managers and executives shouldn’t be given personal computers. There is no question that one of the best ways to introduce new ideas and tools to a workplace is by gaining the understanding and commitment of those at the very top. The problem is that while managers and executives need access to the type of information that personal computers can provide, they don’t necessarily need to be developing that information themselves. Most simply don’t have the time to invest in learning everything about a particular software package and in developing their own programs. These are all things that can easily be delegated to lower ranking staff. Managers will most likely use computers primarily to review, manipulate, and compare information, examine what-if situations, prepare budgets, reports, and forecasts, make projections, and communicate with others. All the programs and information needed to perform these tasks will probably be worked on by those who report to the managers. If we are to believe predictions that there will be a personal computer on the desk of every manager and white-collar professional by the mid-1990s, then we can expect to see the number of new users grow significantly in the coming years. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the white-collar work force will expand from 50.8 million to 62 million by the end of the decade. This translates into some 13 million managerial and 19 million professional positions. These people will not he the only ones working with personal computers. Many systems will be placed with secretaries or clerical staff, and their numbers are forecast to swell to 22 million. Not all of these individuals will work with personal computers, of course, but the demographics suggest that there will be any number of different audiences requiring different types of training and support. The number of personal computers placed in organizations in the United States today doesn’t indicate the number of people working on them or trying to learn about them. A study conducted by the market research firm Future Computing and reported in their 1985 Survey of Personal Computers in Business revealed that a quarter of all personal computers in businesses are shared by as many as 10 employees. Projections from several research studies indicate that as more systems are purchased, this ratio will drop. Still, by 1990, over 40 percent of all personal computers used in business are expected to be shared by at least two or more employees. The training implications of these numbers alone are staggering, and suggest that many organizations will be dealing with significant backlogs of people who will be waiting for personal computer education. In the meantime, a lot of employees will be left to train themselves. The progression of personal computers into organizations has been described this way: “They are arriving in waves. The first wave belonged to the explorers. The people who were curious to see what they were. The tinkerers and experimenters. The second wave  are the pioneers. These are the people who want r need to find out how they can make personal computers function, and how to make them productive. The third wave, which is about to reach most organizations, is composed of people who don’t have any choice in the matter. They must learn how to use computers. These are the people who will require all the time and effort.”

 

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