IVIV Aunt Reet

[János Székely]

Hi John,

I'm not an expert on IT history but I have the impression that
transistorized  computers (definitely not user-fiendly, but not
room-sized either, served by 'priests', in Monte's words, who knew
FORTRAN or COBOL) were quite widely used in the U.S. in scientific,
technological, _and_ corporate fields, especially in aerospace. Theres
is this efficiency expert in COL 49, who has been replaced by an IBM
7904. And there is a remark in GR about corporate programmers who can
cover up Their  tracks; I just don't remember at which point (maybe
around the "drug-epistemologies" passage).

János

John Carvill<johncarvill at gmail.com> írta (2009. augusztus 30. 10:54):
> Hi Janos
>
> Definitely an intriguing line of enquriy.
>
>> The offline computer industry ("information machinery")  was already
>> in full bloom in the mid-60s to the early 70s, when Pynchon wrote COL
>> 49 and most of GR.
>
> But how full was that bloom in 1969 or 1970? How much of a presence in
> general office life were computers then? Even in California? Big
> difference between a company having 'a computer', i.e. a big gnarly
> machine taking up its own room, attended to by boffins, and the really
> big wave of 'Information Technology' which we're all stiff surfin'
> today.
>
> Cheers
> J
>