History of Computing: Discovering Interactivity

History of Computing: Discovering Interactivity

When that data needed processing – for example, to compute the revenue numbers for the sales department’s quarterly report – the relevant cards could then be brought to a  data center and be queued to be run through the necessary machines to produce a set of output data on cards or printed paper. Most radically, they concluded that the best means to automate the director would be via digital electronic computers, which could substitute for several areas of human judgment: analyzing incoming threats, directing weapons against those threats (calculating intercept courses and transmitting them to fighters in the air), and perhaps even strategizing about optimal response patterns. At the time there existed exactly three functioning electronic computers in the entire United States, none of which came close to meeting the reliability requirements of a military system upon which millions of lives might hinge.

Source: technicshistory.wordpress.com