Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
advent of integrated circuit machines and business computing in 1965 led to human factors studies
of data entry and a broad range of studies of information systems management. Research into pro-
grammer support was widespread in the 1970s; in the 1980s it shifted within CHI to a broad focus
on discretionary use.
1958-1965: IMAGINATION FREED FROM CONSTRAINT
Vacuum tube computers were maintenance challenges, energy hogs, enormous, and not very
capable. The first general-purpose electronic computer, ENIAC, was ten feet tall, covered a thou-
sand square feet, consumed as much energy as a small town, and in one year fifty burned-out
tubes needed to be found and replaced on an average day. With transistor-based computers, people
could envision technology uses that were unimaginable before.
The years following 1958 saw a singular outpouring of visionary HCI: descriptions of a future
of discretionary computer use by professionals and working prototypes of elements of such
visions. Licklider (1960; Licklider and Clark, 1962) identified requirements. Sutherland (1963)
illustrated iconic representations, constraints, and hierarchically defined objects. McCarthy pio-
neered time-sharing, an enabling technology that allowed many people to use a computer in ways
that only those who could commandeer extremely expensive machines could previously (Fano
and Corbato, 1966). Engelbart (1963; Engelbart and English, 1968) prototyped mice and other
input devices, word processing, and distributed computing. Nelson (1965, 1973) envisioned pow-
erful hypertext systems. Alan Kay (1969; Kay and Goldberg, 1977) helped build the first personal
computers as a step toward a vision of powerful portable personal computers. An inspiration to
many was the early writing of Vannevar Bush (1945) describing a powerful, if impractical,
mechanical device.
This burst of innovation is described in greater detail in Myers (1988), Baecker et al. (1995),
and Pew (2003). These visions of empowered professionals' “augmented intellect” were a radical
departure from the reality of the time, in which most hands-on use was the mundane assigned
work of computer operation and data entry. The visions inspired precisely because they differed
from experience.
Some of the ideas came to fruition soon, some after twenty or forty years, some not at all.
Assessing the contributions of visions and demonstrations is difficult. They inspired work that
eventually made some of them practical on a wide scale, although not always precisely as had been
envisioned. The relationship between early visions and later developments is further explored in
Grudin (2005).
1965-1975: THE BIRTHS OF MIS AND CSTG
In 1964 and 1965 Control Data and IBM launched the first powerful commercial computers, later
christened “mainframes.” Business computing had arrived. Operation, management, and pro-
gramming became professions.
About operation and data entry, Shackel (1997) wrote: “In the beginning, the computer was so
costly that it had to be kept gainfully occupied for every second; people were almost slaves to feed
it.” Following his early papers on consoles and displays, Shackel founded the HUSAT (Human
Sciences and Advanced Technology) research center in Loughborough in 1970. In 1972, the
Human Factors Society Computer Systems Technical Group (CSTG) formed and grew to be the
largest technical group, with a strong focus on hardware: packaging, arrangement of external
switches, buttons, tape mounts, and other controls, keyboards, consoles, and so on.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search