Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Santiago: it consisted of an IBM 360/50 machine and a Burroughs 3500 ma-
chine” (252). The remaining technical problem was to connect plants all over
the country up to Santiago. This was to be accomplished by requisitioning telex
machines, augmented by microwave and radio links whenever necessary.
“The plan allowed just four months for this to be accomplished (and it was)”
(252). This national information system was known as Cybernet; the data it
brought to Santiago were processed there “and examined for any kind of im-
portant signal. . . . If there were any sort of warning implied by the data, then
an alerting signal would be sent back to the managers of the plant concerned”
(253). Beer himself took two tasks back to England with him (256): “I had to
originate a computer program capable of studying tens of thousands of indices
a day, and of evaluating them for the importance of any crucial information
which their movements implied. . . . I had done this kind of system building
many times before. . . . Secondly, I should need to investigate prospects for a
simulation system in the operations room that could accept the input of real-
time data. This would be a completely novel development in operational re-
search technique.” The basic blueprint and timetable for Cybersyn were thus
set. Beer's own account covers subsequent developments in some detail; we
can review some of the main features.
As indicated above, the Cybernet national information system was indeed
established by the deadline of March 1972. The first computer program men-
tioned in the above quotation took longer than hoped to construct, partly
because of the incorporation of very new OR techniques in forecasting. A
temporary version was indeed implemented in March 1972, but the perma-
nent version only became operational in November that year. By that time
“something like seventy percent of the socio-industrial economy was operat-
ing within this system, involving about four hundred enterprises” (Beer 1981,
262, 264).
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These “Cyberstride” programs sat at the system 3 level, contributing to
the homeostasis of the 1-2-3 economic assemblage while at the same time
filtering data upward into the 3-4-5 system. A key element of the latter was
a computer model of the Chilean economy and its national and global envi-
ronment. This was to be the centerpiece of system 4 planning, intended to
enable future projections according to different inputs and assumptions. This
program was also Beer's responsibility. Lacking time to design such a model
afresh, Beer announced in a January 1972 report that he had decided “to make
use of the immediately available DYNAMO compiler extensively developed
by J. W. Forrester of MIT. I have directed three projects in the past using this
compiler, and have found it a powerful and flexible tool” (266). Forrester's
