2008 A2 Back To The Future - a presentation looking back at where we came from (computer-wise that is)

2008 HEEP Area II Meeting Atlanta, Georgia June 8-11

Back From the Future

A look back at an issue of today from 1973

A presentation

by Rande Robinson


The Opinions (no matter how well thought out they are) expressed in this presentation are my own and do not represent the views or policies of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, HEEP or any other government agency, foreign, domestic or extraterrestrial.

(the fine print - Although they should)

THE LEGAL STUFF(The stuff my “bosses” make me add.)


35 years ago almost to the day a paper was presented at the 14th

Annual Area 2 meeting in Charleston, South Carolina

Does anyone here remember it?


Engineer In Data Processing

By Randall A. Estes, P.E.

Alabama DOT

Before we get to it

It was


Where were you in 1973?

Put picture here

I had just turned 13


Some things that happen in 73

Miami Dolphins win the super bowl VII for a perfect season

Richard Nixon begins 2nd term

Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is released

Paramount’s Carowinds opens

LexisNexis computered legal research service begins

World Trade Center is opened

Federal Express begins operations

Secretariat wins the triple crown

Watergate Begins

Yom Kippur war

Arab oil embargo and the Energy Crisis

Endangered Species Act is passed

Bosporus Bridge open connecting Europe & Asia for the first time

O.J. Simpson rushes for 2000 yards


It was not unlike Today

War

Political “unrest”

Oil issues

And a interconnected world


Back to Mr. Estes Paper


Data Processing in 1973

Mainframes and the high priesthood

FORTRAN, COBAL dominate

PC is still a dream

Slide rule is dying


Robert Metcalfe devised the Ethernet method of network connection at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He wrote: "On May 22, 1973, using my Selectric typewriter ... I wrote ... "Ether Acquisition" ... heavy with handwritten annotations — one of which was "ETHER!" — and with hand-drawn diagrams — one of which showed `boosters´ interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and ratio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."

Robert M. Metcalfe, "How Ethernet Was Invented", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 16, No. 4, Winter 1994, p. 84.

IMSAI is founded. In 1973, Bill Millard left his regular job in management to found the consulting firm Information Management Services or IMS. The following year, while he was working on a client’s project, he developed a small computing system using the then-new Intel 8080 microprocessor. He realized this computer might attract other buyers and so placed an advertisement in the hobbyist magazine “Popular Electronics,” offering it in kit form. The IMSAI 8080, as it was known, sold briskly and eventually about 20,000 units were shipped. The company was eventually purchased by one of its dealers and is today a division of the Fischer-Freitas Company, which still offers reproductions of the original for sale to hobbyists.

The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software. Truong, founder and president of the French company R2E, created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn´t require high performance. Selling for $1,750, the Micral never penetrated the U.S. market. In 1979, Truong sold Micral to Bull.


No. Some people consider the HP 65, introduced in 1973, a mere calculator, but it was fully programmable; you could even play games on it. HP even called it a personal computer in their introductory article in the HP Journal, but it wasn't the first.

Slide rule is quickly becoming extinct.

PONG is state of the art


The Paper had Three main parts

1. Overview of Engineering

2. ALDOT’s EETP

3. Engineer, Computer DP Manager Relationship


Funny how the names change but the problem remains

(it’s IT now, not DP)


Mr. Estes points out

That the engineer through education and experience approaches problems by some systematic approach. That he works closely with others and is constantly under a deadline. Constrained by his management, legislature, FHWA, AASHTO to name a few.

Some thing never change


“When the engineer has encountered the same problem enough times he develops a standard drawing to fit a limited number of situations. And when he has the available the resources and understands a recurring mathematical or statistical problem well enough his standard drawing becomes a computer program.”

Isn’t that a security risk?


“Unlike the engineers working shoulder to shoulder, in one large semi-public office, his request and problem statement is turned over to a coder or programmer hidden away for months at a time in an isolated cubby-hole in some lyabyrth of hallways, with humming, snorting, blinking and card chewing machinery. At best his request is handled by someone whose knowledge of engineering is summed up in what uncle Albert once told him about the Panama Canal or cousin Bills trip through the Lincoln tunnel.

Now comes the part I love

Panama Canal didn’t we own that once?


“This ought not to be the case and in fact should be made illegal by legislative action. But since data processing shops seem to become in some states political footballs, they have not yet reached their peak of organization and efficiency.”

He goes on

Politics in Transportation give me break


He suggests two…

So what’s Mr. Estes solution?


Engineering Liaison

Employed by and responsible to the engineering section but with organizational and physical access to the facilities of the data processing shop.

Solution #1


Direct organizational of official line of communication between DP and Engineering

And accomplish this by having engineering classifications of either or both operation and management included in the DP Shop

Solution #2


…to compensate a good and deserving employee for years of faithful service in engineering or technical position he must be moved to into a supervisor or manager slot in order to get a higher salary. This usually happens in total disregard to his ability or inability to handle or deal with his co-workers on a supervisory basis.

But the biggest problem is


2. Data Processing is an indispensable tool in today's world of engineering, science and finance.

The conclusions in 1973 where

1. Engineers & DP Professionals are necessary, important and integral parts of our and all other highly advanced societies.

3. In highway departments and similarly related fields, engineer-data processing teams are essential in extending the usefulness and economy of the department and of adding to the welfare of the public we serve.


I left the engineering to solve these problems (although at the time I had higher ideals) but we haven’t.

It is funny

It is the 21st century maybe it’s time we leave the 19th century and re-evalutate the way we do business.


Where does Engineering begin and Computer End?

And can we continue to have this Engineering vs. Information Technology debate?

To update this paper to the 21st Century


•Politics

•Education

•Organizations

•Professions

•The fabric of society

Think about it It is effecting everything from

Can let it go on for another 35 years?


Difference in Supervisors & Managers

One last Point

•A Supervisor is more worker than supervisor.

•Should think like a worker, have interest and concerns of a worker and associate with his workers more than with management

•A Supervisor who operate as management is probably the most inefficient worker in the organizaton

•He gets paid more and produces less than the employees under him (on a unit cost basis a very expensive employee)


Their interest should lie in

• Time management & organization

• Delegation & Decision making

• People skills

And must have a personal attribute of

Motivation and Action

While

Managers are not supervisors


Thank You for Your Attention.

• Any Questions, Comments or Derogatory Statements?


Feel free to contact me via email at either

[email protected] or

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If you enjoyed this presentation and would like to download it or see what other

random thoughts, I come up with check out my blog at:

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