Computers—the machines we think with

by D. S. Halacy

As an example of the complexity a large airline faces in its maintenance, TWA stocks 8,000 different replaceable items. When such parts are needed, they must be on hand where they are needed, but overstocking can lead to financial ruin. To match increasing competition, airlines find it necessary to resort to the laws of probability and other sophisticated statistical techniques in stocking parts. Fed such equations, the computer can match ten to twelve man-years of work in three hours, and mean the difference between an oversupply of parts in New York with outages in Los Angeles, and properly balanced stocks.

The ramifications of the computer in the airplane industry are far-reaching. For example, Boeing has recorded the lessons it learned on its Bomarc missile program in computers so that it can retain and apply them on its Minuteman and Dyna-Soar programs. The computer will thus keep track of men and their projects and warn them of previous mistakes. Modern management techniques such as PERT and PEP, favored by the government, make good use of the computer.

The McDonnell Aircraft Corporation is primarily a builder of planes and space vehicles, but it has found itself in the computer business too as a data-processing center. Installing computers for its own engineering and business uses, McDonnell soon began selling computer time in off hours to banks and other businesses. It now has a computer valuation of about $10 million and operates around the clock.

The Designing Computer

It seems strange that the computer was a bookkeeper and clerk for years before anyone seriously considered that it might be an engineer as well, yet the men who themselves designed the computer were loath to use it in their other work. Part of this resistance stems from the high premium placed on the creativity of research and design work. The engineer uses science in his work, to be sure, but he professes to use it as an artist, or with the personal touch of, say, a brewmaster. There is another possible reason for the lag in computer use by the men who should appreciate its ability the most. In the early days of the computer, it clacked away all week figuring payrolls, and perhaps writing checks. That’s what it was ordered for, and that’s where the money was—in the businessman’s application of the computer.

To be sure, the military was using the computer for other purposes, but the average scientist or engineer not employed by Uncle Sam had access to an electronic computer only on Sunday, if at all, when the big machine had done its primary work and could take a breathing spell. To further compound excuses for the foot-dragging engineer, there was a difference in needs in payroll computation and scientific mathematical calculation. Commercial computers are designed for a high rate of input and output, with a relatively slow arithmetic going on inside. The engineer, on the other hand, might need only several minutes of computer time, but it could take him a couple of days to put the problem into a form the machine could digest.

Slowly, however, enough engineers fought the battle of translation and forewent Sunday pursuits like church, picnics, and golf to learn haltingly how to use the electronic monster. It took courage, in addition to sacrifice, because the computer was pooh-poohed by some sharp scientific brains as an idiot savant at best. Behind the inertia there could have been a touch of concern too—concern that the machine just might not be as stupid as everybody kept saying it was.

Heavy industry made use of the machines. The steel plants, petroleum and chemical plants, and even the designers of highways were among the early users of computer techniques. There was of course good reason for this phenomenon. Faced with problems involving many variables and requiring statistical and probabilistic approaches, these people could make the best use of machines designed for repetitive computations. The refiner with a new plant in mind could simulate it in the computer and get an idea of how, or if, it would work before building his pilot plant. Today the notion of dispensing with even the pilot plant is getting serious consideration.

One program used by a gasoline producer analyzed thirty-seven variables and thirty-seven restrictions, a matrix that could never be evaluated by ordinary methods. Textile fiber research is another example, with thread tests run on dozens of samples and averaged statistically for valid conclusions. B. F. Goodrich put the computer to work in its laboratories at such tasks as multiple-regression studies of past production of processes like polymerization and the running of a batch of new material on the computer.

These applications were accomplishing a two-fold benefit. First, years were being telescoped into weeks or even days; second, complete investigation rather than sketchy sampling was possible. Optimum solutions took the place of the guesswork once necessary because of the lack of sufficient brainpower to run down all the possibilities. Still there were scientists and designers in other fields who shook their heads loftily and said, “Not for me, thanks.” The computer was but a diligent clerk, they held, relieving the engineer of some onerous chores. It could do nothing really creative; that must be left to man and his brain.