Microsoft Word Hopper Grace oral history. 1980. 102702026. final doc

 

 

CHM Ref: 

X5142.2009

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Pantages:  

They are preaching it. They are talking about applications processors. 

Hopper:  

They are not there yet. I want everyone that has the big computer to gradually 

pull everything off and put it on small computers. And one of the biggest assists is going to be 

this database machine that just appeared. One was shown at NCC [National Computer 

Conference] and ADABAS had a whole article about it in Computerworld. [ADABAS, a Software 

AG product, was one of the earliest commercially available database products, first released in 

1970.] 

Pantages:  

Oh, the one they are doing with Magnuson.  

Hopper:  

There’s another one. I think we’ll hear something from Cullinane before long, I 

have a suspicion. But the whole point is you get an independent database on one, two or three 

computers and all the other computers can access it; there’s no longer a need for the big central 

processor.  So the concept of the database machine is just tremendous.  You know that came 

out in 1974 at Bell Labs – they had the paper in ACM Communications and they showed it cost 

less and went faster. It’s taken six years to get it across. 

Pantages:  

Well there isn’t much new out there that wasn’t discussed years ago.  

Hopper:  

It takes five to 10 years for a new idea to get across and get used. It seems so 

anyway. It did for the compilers, it did for COBOL... I see that in the future everyone isn’t going 

to have one big computer; they’ll have a whole mess of computers dedicated to specific 

functions. This will increase the speed of reaction on any file or any bunch of data, because you 

can specialize the software for that particular job. So it always goes faster. Speed is going to be 

the pressure. Storage you can buy. It’s trivial these days. The speed of response is why the 

[new communications system] is so terrific. 

Pantages:  

Which one, the distributed network…? 

Hopper:  

Yes. Travelers [Insurance] is going in that direction.  

Pantages:  

Citibank has had its starts and fits. 

Hopper:  

Chase is way ahead of Citibank. 

Pantages:  

How will the distribution and miniaturization of systems impact management and 

people? 

Hopper:  

Well, in the large companies I would expect that the thing would be managed just 

the same as at Southern Railway. Jack Jones is the vice president of information; he has all the 

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CHM Ref: 

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money. And he’s pushing them out to agents and stuff like that. Celanese is doing the same 

thing, Mike Samek.  

You’ll find them pushing them out to users and communicating with big databases and so on 

and so forth. It’s beginning to happen at almost all the big companies.  

Demand for Programmers and System Analysts 

The other big step that’s happening is with small users. And I’m finding as I go around the 

country, I’m finding a tremendous number of small local software houses, who would go with the 

small businessmen and help them select a computer. Help them get their programs written. And 

the small user is beginning to use high school graduates, not college graduates, because they 

can’t afford college graduate programmers.  

We’ve got to push computers into schools. They should be in every school, so kids can grow up 

with them. A lot of them don’t have them and don’t have counsel. If you watched a four-year-old 

with Little Professor, you can see a bunch of four-year-olds learn arithmetic. If you give a six-

year-old Speak and Spell, you’re going to get a generation that can spell again.  

They have no hesitation whatsoever using a calculator. They step right into a computer. You 

give them a computer to play games with and they get tired of it and pretty soon they’re 

programming it to do everything under the sun. They also are not afraid of making mistakes, 

they have no prestige to live on, and they have no fear of failure yet. That goes up to 17-year-

olds I get in here. They can afford to try anything. That’s why they are moving so fast. There’s 

no mystique.  

For a long time we’re going to have an acute shortage of systems people, who can look at a 

tremendous information system and identify the subsystems and sub-subsystems and the 

interfaces between them. 

We need more of that systems engineering analysis training. The same kind of engineering they 

did on a missile. They identified the nose cone and the payload and the guidance and the 

motor. They described each of those elements and interfaces between them. They were farmed 

out separately. 

We haven’t taken that systems design now, because we are going to have to look at the total 

flow of information joining an organization. And implement that information. You are not going to 

buy a computer for program time. They are going to look at the information flow first, and then 

they are going to select the computers.  

The Value and Cost of Information 

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