September, 1963 ~.' . .... ...-- ~~ : : :.: :. : .. : : : . ____ .E U3 .4800 7300 ORIG -'" • 5/ 62 ~ .. Western Europe and Computers / L----------" ,) YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY AWORD to send great masses of business data to any location by telephone. New Bell System DATA-PHONE service is the reason why. Machines do the talking - 16 times faster than people can talk. Almost any kind of word or figure data in any amount can be transmitted immediately any time you want-at regular telephone rates. There's no faster, safer and more economical way to ship data than by DATA-PHONE service. Have a talk with one of our 'Communications Consultants about it. Just BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM call your Bell Telephone Business Office and ask for him. Circle No. 1 on Readers Service Card The front cover shows number 0/ computers installed per million 0/ the working population (adjusted) on January 1, 1962. Arti~les and features relating to computers in Western Europe appear ill this isme all pages 5, 6, JO, 16, and 20. ©@CFLFUCQJl10f0~~~ mU-U@ m(1~\0@u-liLlC!J\0D @U-U SEPTEMBER, 1963 Vol. XII, No.9 computers and data processors: the design, applications, editor and publisher and implications 0/ EDMUND C. BERKELEY in/ormation processing systems. assistant editors MOSES M. BERLIN NEIL D. MACDONALD LINDA LADD LOVETT liz This Isstle 10 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPUTER MARKET IN EUROPE (Part 1) by W. K. de Bruijn, A. B. Frelink, and B. Scheepmaker contributing editors ANDREW D. BOOTH 16 THE CURRENT STATE OF THE COMPUTER FIELD IN BRITAIN NED CHAPIN by R. H. Williams JOHN W. CARR, III 20 A SURVEY OF NEW WEST·EUROPEAN DIGITAL COMPUTERS (Part 1) ALSTON S. HOUSEHOLDER by Joseph L. F. De Kerf PETER KUGEL 26 DESIGN OF A REAL·TIME PROGRAMMING SYSTEM by R. J. Coyle and J. K. Stewart advisory committee 35 ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (Part 2) T. E. CHEATHAM, JR. by Stanislaw M. Ulam GEORGE E. FORSYTHE RICHARD W. HAMMING ALSTON S. HOUSEHOLDER In Every Issue HERBERT F. MITCHELL, JR. across the editor's desk 41 COMPUTING AND DATA PROCESSING NEWSLETTER associate publisher PATRICK J. MCGOVERN editorial Number of Computers Per Million Persons production manager 5 ANN B. BAKER readers' and editor's /OI'IIJ1i art director 6 Magnetic Ink Character Recognition in Europe N. DORF 6 "Information Processing in the Nation's Capital" - One-Day Sympo- sium, October 17, 1963, College Park, Md. circulation manager VIRGINIA A. NELSON, 815 Washington St. 7 Call for Papers Newtonville 60, Mass., DEcatur 2-5453 7 Correction 7 Changing from Eleven to Twelve Issues Per Year advertising representatives 7 Communication to the subscription Department New York 18, BERNARD LANE 7 Basic Programming Language 37 West 39 St., BRyant 9-7281 51 Calendar of Coming Events Chicago II, COLE, MASON AND DEMING 737 N. Michigan Ave., SU 7-6558 reference information Los Angeles 5, WENTWORTH F. GREEN 52 Monthly Computer Census 300 S. Kenmore Ave., DUnkirk 7-8135 57 Books and Other Publications, by Moses M. Berlin San Francisco 5, A. S. BABCOCK 58 New Patents, by Raymond S. Skolnick 605 Market St., YUkon 2-3954 Elsewhere, THE PUBLISHER index of notices Who's Who in the Computer Field 815 Washington St., DEcatur 2-5453 54 Newtonville 60, Mass. 58 Advertising Index COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 815 WASHINGTON ST., NEWTONVILLE 60, MASS., IIY BERKELEY ENTERPRISES, INC. PRINTED IN U.S.A. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: UNITED STATES, $15.00 FOR 1 YEAR, $29.00 FOR 2 YEARS, INCLUDING THE JUNE DIRECTORY ISSUE; CANADA, ADD SOc A YEAR FOR POSTAGE; FOREIGN, ADD $1.50 A YEAR FOR POSTAGE. ADDRESS ALL EDITORIAL AND SUBSCRIPTION MAIL TO BERKELEY ENTERPRISES, INC., 815 WASHINGTON ST., NEWTONVILLE 60, MASS. SECOND CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT BOSTON, MASS. POSTMASTER: PLEASE SEND ALL FORMS 3579 TO BERKELEY ENTERPRISES, INC., 815 WASHINGTON ST., NEWTONVILLE 60, MASS. © COPYRIGHT, 1963, BY BERKelEY ENTERPRISES, INC. CHANGE OF AD­ DRESS: IF YOUR ADDRESS CHANGES, PLEASE SEND US BOTH YOUR NEW ADDRESS AND YOUR OLD ADDRESS (AS IT APPEARS ON THE MAGAZINE ADDRESS IMPRINT), AND ALLOW THREE WEEKS FOR THE CHANGE TO BE MADE. COMPUTERS AND AUTOMATION, FOR SEPHMBER, 1963 "We've found Extra Length Computer Audiotape definitely superior" says Kenneth Sassaman, Data Processing Manager for Blue Shield Medical Service Association of Pennsylvania With 41/2 million subscriberswe process thousands of claims everyweek. Beforewe used Extra Length Computer Audiotape we frequently had to interrupt our claims payment runs to change reels because our program requirements exceeded 2400-ft. tape lengths. These frequent reel changes often caused print-out errors. But now we process all our claims on Extra Length Computer Audiotape and save time with less reel mounting and dismounting. With 50% more tape on the same size reels we require fewer tapes to store ,the same amount of information. As a result, we have less dollar value tied up in tape. We put the new tapes into operation in an existing program without making any modifications. In over six months of heavy use we haven't had a single permanent read-w~ite failure. We've had no problems with the tape. We've found Extra Length Computer Audiotape definitely superior. Extra Length Computer AUdiotape uses a l-mil "Tempered Mylar"* base instead of conventionall.5-mil polyester film. As a result you get 1800 ft. on 8Yz-inchreels, 3600 ft. on 1 OYz-inch reels. Although thinner, the new tape is slightly stronger than 1.5-mil tapes. Like all Computer Audiotape, the new tape is 100% certified against defects and is offered with certification of 556 and 800 bits per track-inch. For addi­ tional information on Extra Length Computer Audiotape and regular Computer Audiotape, in Standard and Heavy Duty types, contact your local representative or write to Audio Devices,Dept. ·OUPONT TRADEMARK FOR ITS POLYESTER FILM. AUDIO DEVICES, INC. 444 Madison Avenue. New York 22. N.Y. c&a EDITORIAL Number of Computers Per Millioll Persolls Elsewhere in this issue is an interesting report to the All these factors will greatly increase the number of European Economic Community by three Netherlanders, computers, certainly by a factor of 10, probably by a fac­ W. K. de Bruijn, A. B. Frelink, and B. Scheepmaker, tor of 100, and perhaps by a factor of 1000. on behalf of the Netherlands Automatic Information Pro­ cessing Research Centre in Amsterdam. In this report, Even in our own small business which publishes among other ideas, is the statistic or index: number of "Computers and Automation," in which we employ twenty computers per million persons of the working population people full-time and part-time, we have two applications (with or without agricultural and fishery workers). The for computers: about 50 hours of clerical work per month index at the end of 1961 varies from about 18 in Austria, dealing with figures, and about 300 hours of clerical work to about 36 in Germany, Belgium, and France, to about per month dealing wi th subscriptions. These small quanti­ 68 in SWitzerland, and 118 in the United states. ties of work to be done by a computer do not at present justify paying to get the problems into machine language Of course this index suffers from the lack of an and the results back out of machine language. But it is agreed and comparable definition of "computer." But clear that these are temporary obstacles, and they may even so, the figure is interesting, and gives rise to sev­ well disappear in the next 10 years; almost certainly, eral questions. they will disappear in the next 30 years. The cheaper that computing power becomes, including the costs of going into a computer and coming back out of a computer, the more sensible it will be for one to use a How high is this index now in the United States? computer. The computer will be either in one's own prem­ ises or at a neighboring service bureau. The Monthly Computer Census published in "Compu­ ters and Automation" shows total installations of compu­ Just as electrical power permeates all advanced civi­ ters for the manufacturers there reported; but it is not lizations today, so will computing power. subdivided according to the country where the computer is installed. Suppose we estimate that 80% of the 15, 000 In fact, I would estimate that the index of number of installations reported there are in the United States. Sup­ computers per million persons will change to an index of pose the applicable working population of the United States number of computers per thousand persons, and in the is taken as about 67 million. Then this index for the Uni­ United States by the end of the next 30 years, will be on ted States currently is about 180 computers per million the order of 100 to 200 computers per thousand persons. persons. In other words, by the end of the next 30 years, I would estimate that the index should multiply by 1000. If we think over. similar technological developments in the last 100 years, there come to mind telephones, auto­ How high will this index go in the future? mobiles, radios, and TV. Probably something like 40 million cars are on the roads in the United States, cor­ The future is a long time. Perhaps we had better related with a working population of some 70 million. Or talk about the next 30 years. one car for every two persons working. Individual com­ puters, it seems to me, are not likely to become quite as In the next 30 years (a period 50 percent longer than frequent as this, but computing power will become acces­ the 20 years that have seen the existing development of sible to almost everyone.