
What the Engineer Should Know About Programming (1957) [pdf] - luu
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/k-8-pdf/k-8-u2776-How-to-Consider-Computer.pdf
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jwise0
Some of it is amusing, when considered in modern terms -- for instance, the
discussion of writing in higher-level languages presenting a fifty-fold
advantage in productivity over writing in assembly.

But the bit that I found the most prescient was the following:

 _Assuming the availability of practical micro-wave communication systems, it
is conceivable that one or several computers, much larger than anything
presently contemplated, could service a multitude of users. They would no
longer rent a computer as such; instead they would rent input-output
equipment, although as far as the operation will be concerned they would not
be able to tell the difference._

In this fragment, Bemer was almost certainly referring to something like
MULTICS, in which the model was that there would be one mainframe per city,
and that computing time would be billed like electricity, water, gas, or any
other utility.

But, I can't help but to think of a Chromebook when I read this. A Chromebook
communicates wirelessly (even the lowest of the bands that it might speak on,
700MHz, is still well and truly considered microwave), and although it is
technically a computer of its own, it serves more than anything else as an
input-output node for rental time on Google's services or AWS.

Indeed, everything old is new again -- but hearing it from this article put it
in a different light for me.

~~~
fosk
On a broader picture he predicted the Cloud revolution.

------
enf
By Bob Bemer, later the "father of ASCII"

------
AustinDev
This was written 3 years after the invention of the first silicon transistors
at bell labs. Why doesn't the Future computers section make any mention of
computers becoming smaller? It even goes the opposite way and suggests one
giant computer over multiple computers.

~~~
tbrownaw
_On September 27, 1960, using the ideas of Noyce and Hoerni, a group of Jay
Last 's at Fairchild Semiconductor created the first operational semiconductor
IC._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_integrated_cir...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_integrated_circuit)

I'd guess it's because 1957 was a few years too early for ICs, which is where
the real shrinkage came from. More powerful computers require more switches,
and without ICs that takes more space (and power & cooling).

