MAN AND THE COMPUTER
By JohnG. Kemeny. New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1972. 151 pp. $6.95.
This book is about you and the computer. Most likely your relationship with computers has been second hand and vaguely threatening, receiving bills by mail on IBM cards. John Kemeny dispels the very human fears that arise from the widespread ignorance of computers. No plodding pedagogy here, but one evening of lucid absorbing reading for the intelligent layman.
The message is communication. Between you and the computer. You can afford to operate a personal automobile? Then you can afford your own computer terminal. That's the going price. Today. That's the beauty of time-shared computers, a mode of operation in which Dartmouth pioneered in the early 1960's. With two one-hour lectures and a 30-page manual you could start computing on Dartmouth time-sharing. Today.
The best relationships are blessed with rapport, with empathy, with mutual understanding. Computers are no exception. John Kemeny knows computers and he shares his experience, distilled to a fine essence. You see 25 years' history in perspective. You learn the meaning of "digital," "memory," "program," "batch processing," "time-sharing." You learn what the computer is, how it works, its capabilities and its limitations. But these are the mechanics. Automated bookkeeping is easy to understand. Everyone did arithmetic in grade school. Conventional computerized accounting merely speeds up what a human being would do. Similarly with most scientific calculations. The computer provides greater power but no qualitative difference. No mystery nor inspiration.
Kemeny's inspiration is symbiosis: man collaborating with the computer to mutual benefit, each doing his own thing. Clearly man's world should become more human, satisfying and enjoyable as a result. The story is the more convincing because it entails no radical assumptions about computers. Each modest extrapolation makes eminent sense as explained, no more than a continuing evolution of general-purpose digital computers (i.e., IBM's bread and butter) to make the dream come true. A computer could be in every home by 1990 for the cost of a present-day black and white T.V., connected to a national time-sharing network requiring only nine mainframe computers. The implications would be profound. People need no longer crowd into cities to transact business. At their fingertips, individuals would have news, shopping, education, entertainment, and much more.
What will be required to make the dream come true? Computers are clearly not the weak link. Today's technological frontier lies in information transmission, storage and retrieval, in switching messages from one person to the right destination, in printing and delivering copies. This is the province of the post office and the telephone company, of cable T.V. and copy machines. It remains to be seen whether man will organize society to develop these technologies and thereby harness the power' of the computer. But with this book, anyone can understand the potential and savor the prospect. And that's a lot from one evening's reading.
In writing his dissertation under thedirection of former Dean Myron Tribus, Mr.Turner made constant use of a computer andis the first man to earn a Ph.D. at theThayer School. He resigned from the facultyof the University of London to accept aposition with du Pont and is now anexecutive with the Xerox Corporation.
