Fit curves to data by translating numerical information into graphs.
Locate an error in a program designed to process psychological data.
These “simple” problems required but three minutes of the computer’s time. A larger task, something like solving 350 mathematical logic theorems from Principia Mathematica, takes a bit longer—eight and a half minutes, to be exact.
Despite this versatility, it is generally possible to break the computer’s capabilities down into broad classifications. First we can say that it does either simple data-processing, or scientific computations. Each of these can then be further subdivided ad infinitum. Examples will be seen as we describe uses of computers on the following pages. Since the government was the first user of computers, beginning back in 1890 with Hollerith’s punched-card machines, we would do well to see what other work it has put the computer to in the years that have elapsed.
The Computer in Washington
An inventory of electronic computers installed in the Federal Government by the end of 1961 totaled 800, with 200 more on order. These figures are exclusive of those for tactical and classified use by the Department of Defense. Some 45,000 people are engaged in computer operations in the government, and a total expenditure of about $1.5 billion is estimated. An indication of the importance accorded the computer by Washington is the Interagency Data Processing Committee, concerned with questions of sharing of computers in geographic areas, setting up of a “library” of applications, and assurance of continued computer operation in the event of attack or other emergency. Users of computers, in addition to the Department of Defense, are the Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Commerce, National Aeronautics and Space Agency, Federal Aviation Agency, Post Office Department, and others for a total of 43 agencies. The Peace Corps, for example, recently announced that it would acquire a computer for use in its work.
Red tape is not the only output from Washington, D.C. Not long ago the Hoover Commission estimated that our Federal Government also produces 25 billion pieces of paper each year! Someone else converted this already impressive statistic into the more startling information that placed end to end these papers would reach the moon four times—in triplicate, of course! Data-processing, then, the handling of information, would seem to be the major part of the computer’s work for Uncle Sam.
The Census Bureau was the first government user of the computer, and it continues to handle its work in this way. In 1951 the government procured a UNIVAC I to take over this onerous chore from its predecessors. Beginning with the 1950 census, the computer has been in operation practically twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In its first ten years it performed more than 510 billion mathematical operations in keeping pace with our exploding population. We are producing more than paperwork, it seems. The 1950 census required four years to process. With newer computers the 1960 count will take only half as long despite the population explosion.
Information-handling computers make possible another important phase of the government’s work. In 1936, machines began to process Social Security records, which are becoming a monumental pile of paperwork themselves with close to 100 million accounts that must be kept up to date. Social Security numbers recently turned up in government computers handling another job—that of income-tax bookkeeping.
The U.S. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Mortimer Caplin, put a pilot system of computer accounting of tax records into operation in January of 1962 in the Atlanta region. In 1963, the Philadelphia Center will follow suit, and by 1966 all income-tax accounting will whiz through tape reels into computers. The figures on tax greenbacks laid end to end are not available, but it is known that 400 miles of magnetic tape will be needed to hold all the records.