A Small Computer of Your OwnA Small Computer of Your Own

Some chapters of this presentation have shown the extent to which science and technology are working in electronic computers today. There was talk of translating machines, automata which study the market and lay down the course of rockets in advance. Electronic installations precalculate dimensions for designers of aircraft, power stations, bridges, atomic nuclear reactors and skyscrapers, they work out the weather, the tides, the size of heavy-duty engines and the positions of the stars. Given their cue, they are willing to draw up yardlong lists of books in a library, calculate the speeds of molecules, solve physical equations with two hundred unknown quantities, sort out and arrange thousands of separate geological observations into a total picture, and decipher Etruscan texts which have defied the brains of generations of sages. All these achievements are accomplished by very big computers - by those contrivances which are not to be had for a price of less than half or three-quarters of a million. But there are smaller machines, too, medium-sized computers. They are much used in scientific institutes. The "Z 22" which translates Latin and plays Bach on the organ is one of these. Then there are the small computers, "brainlets" for the home, so to speak, which can be bought for as little as $25,000 (£,9,000). These small calculators are adequate for many businesses which do not need either high computing speed or complicated mathematical operations. A great future is prophesied for the miniature computers. Possibly they will become cheaper too. The time may not be far distant when every wholesale business will have a small computer of its own.

Probably evolution will follow the assembled-unit system: users will buy the heart of a calculator - the control unit, pulse generator and control desk - first, and then additional parts as their desires and purses dictate: adder unit, rapid storages or drum storages, punched-card readers and a teleprinter or high-speed printer. Many companies have already developed assembled-unit system computers (though not yet in the small computer range) - Sperry-Rand, for example, the "Univac," Bull the "Series 300" and General Electric the "GE 225."

Some of the big machines are specially designed to be served from many different places by means of teleprinter lines. The "Univac 490" is also equipped with a number of electronic chronometers which make it possible for the exact time needed on each counting operation to be noted (a matter that may be important for flying safety and in banks) or to clear up special assignments within a previously fixed period.

Many computers are capable of carrying out several operations simultaneously, independently of one another. The "ER 56," for example, is fitted with a co-ordinating switch which can connect separate units of the computer with each other as desired, so that at one and the same time the core storage can co-operate with the adder unit, the tape storage with the counting apparatus, and the drum storage with the punched-card reader.

Many businesses which occasionally have to deal with large-scale computing assignments are unwilling to go to the expense of buying a big computer for themselves. They send the work to an outsider, to "computing headquarters." Many universities and private companies have these today. They have at their disposal a highly qualified computer (sometimes several of them), as well as a staff of mathematicians and technicians, and are hired by the hour or for entire projects. The hourly rent can reach $500 (£180).

There is yet another special group of computers-more in the nature of permanent combinations of mechanical devices and small electronic controlling gear with fixed programs. Most important of these are the aids used in orthopaedic medicine: apparatus to allow maimed persons to move consciously an artificial leg or arm, hand and fingers as if they were natural ones; apparatus which takes a picture of an environment, converts it into pulses in accordance with definite programs, and sends these pulses direct to the cerebral cortex of blind people; machines which influence the blood pressure and heart action of a patient according to definite external indications which they "know" how to accept and interpret. All these devices are still in the development stage, though there are already many wounded veterans who can walk and take hold of things with their electronically controlled limbs.

Electronic household appliances are already in a more advanced state of development, although they too are not yet mass-produced. But in the laboratories there are already vacuum cleaners which - on the principle of the electronic tortoise - find their own way through the home, describe elegant curves around the furniture and clean the floors. The work done, they return themselves to their storage places, empty their insides into the disposal, climb up on to the shelf and read the business pages of the "Times."

The experimental workshops of big companies even contain electronically controlled washing-machines, dishwashers and serving-trolleys which travel the route between kitchen and dining room without coming near the family Saluki on the hearth rug or the Dresden porcelain madonna on the sideboard. A recent discovery in this department is the electronic cooking machine, an electric range above which ingredients are arranged in their containers. A small computer, fed with recipes on punched cards, plays kitchen maid.

The designers imagine that it will be very practical if the housewife, at the hairdressers for the morning, rings up her own telephone number, dials a further series of index numbers, and thus starts the cooking machine working on the preparation of a meal. The relevant punched card is selected and read, and from the appropriate containers are poured out - in exactly measured quantities - the ingredients into the saucepans, etc.; meat drops out of the freezer into the frying pan, the stove switches itself on, a stirrer swings into action, thermostats keep the temperature right, chemical reagents check the salt, and in due course the meal is ready - the soup five minutes before the roast All the housewife needs to do is to arrive home punctually and pick up a knife, fork and spoon.

The housewife of the future may not be able to do without her electronic cook. She will no longer have any time to cook, because she will have to go to work to earn the money to pay the installments due on all her beautiful electronic appliances.

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© by PhiloPhax & Lauftext & Redaktion Lohberg
Kybernetik - Was ist das?

First printed in Germany: 1963

 

Cybernetic Computer and Electronic Brain


The fascinating story of how computers work in clear, non-mathematical language