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Show Just Between You And Me Look outl They are going to turn on you. And when they do, it's going to be the worst mess you've ever seen. We're talking about the machinery revolution. Ever since the invention of the wheel, man has been caught up in the revolution. But the wheel, gasoline engine, en-gine, even the airplane were tools that could to some extent, ex-tent, be controlled by man. That is, they we re under control con-trol until the advent of the computer. - 0 - Computers control everything. every-thing. And It seems as if their operators are helpless to do anything. Take for Instance your motel reservation. It used to be you could make a reservation res-ervation and upon arrival, the clerk shuffled through a few cards and came up with your reservation. Now he scans the computer as you add aliases for him to check hoping somehow, that weird little box has a little com -passion for a tired traveler. Finally after all that waiting, wait-ing, the clerk gives you a vacant va-cant room, and you wonder why you made the reservation reserva-tion in the first place. 0 - And did the computer ever screw up the billing on your credit card or some other account? It may take months, if you ever get it straightened straight-ened out. And all customer service can tell you is someone some-one programmed the computer com-puter wrong. But the real confusion comes when a small company com-pany tries to computerize. Take the industrial photo supplier we do business with. The whole shebang used to be run by a gal named Olive.. Sure, she had a couple of part time college kids who helped unpackage freight and stock shelves. But Olive knew everything in stock and had it right on the tip of her tongue. She could give you advice on film, paper, equipment and almost anything, right over the telephone. If you phoned in an order, she had it shipped within a few minutes. min-utes. Always the same day. Call the same outfit today, to-day, and the first thing they have to do is go to the computer com-puter to see what we are talking about. That done, they check to see if it's in stock, still on the computer. But if the computer says yes, they still have to go to the warehouse to see if It really is, then wait for the warehouseman to find it, show on his computer that the item is being taken out of stock. Finally back to the sales counter, you'd think we could consumate the sale, and I could leave. No, they must gg back to the computer for the price; or If they had to substitute the Item, cross check to see what the new numbers are. By the time you get out with the mTrchandise you've blown from an hour to an hour and a half. (Continued on Page 2) n "nrpi iWTrl'Yi'nffiWiMiiliiiliii " """ HERE'S MORE ABOUT Just Bet ween Now we always figured to spend 30 minutes when we visited Olive. That's 10 minutes handling the transaction, trans-action, and 20 minutes visiting visit-ing with Olive, discussing new products or photo problems. prob-lems. Now we twiddle our thumbs while the clerk talks to the computer. And if we've got a question, it's rare that either the clerk or computer comput-er can answer it. - 0 - Now, printers should be more aclimated to machines machin-es than other people. Anyone Any-one who ever mastered a linotype or an automatic press should not be awed by anything. But still cams, pa wls,heat, suction and air blowers were not too far removed from the wheel. If you took the trouble to follow the mechanism mech-anism through from power to delivery, you could figure out why every thing worked like it did, when it did. And if something got out of adjustment, you could fix it yourself. - 0 -But what are you going to do with a computer chip? That little one half inch square, one sixteenth inch thick piece of plastic that we're told is the heart, brains and soul of a computer. comput-er. You can't cuss It, kick it, break it or repair it. You can't even get mad at it. All you can do is replace it. If you replace the right one, the computer works, if not, you replace another one, and another one until fe v .... it works. The problem is, which one or ones were bad? Before you know it you wind up with a whole drawer full of computer chips that may or may not be good. You can't even throw them away. - 0 - There is no doubt that in the not too distant future, everything will be run by computer. They've already invaded almost every sanctuary sanc-tuary known to man. And what happens if one day we get those computer chips all mixed up and the computer gains the capacity to think? With all that memory, and capability to analyze, man wouldn't have a chance. The only thing left is to go fishing. I defy that little computer chip to outsmart a big fish on a light line. |
