In this last century, we have moved rapidly from pen and
quill to steel nibs dipped in ink and carefully followed by
the use of blotting paper to the new invention of typewriters
and then, as the century changed, to the world of
computers.
The introduction of computers to our world can be compared to
the introduction of the printing press in the fifteenth
century. When books had to be written by hand, then only the
wealthy could afford them. When books were churned out by a
printing press, then many more people could go out and
purchase a book and take it home.
To me, the introduction of computers opened a new career:
journalism. My writing created trouble for me from the moment
I started school. Try as I would, I could not produce the
finely curved even lines of script that seemed to come so
easily to the rest of the class. I was always in trouble, not
about the content of the work, but the appearance. As soon as
I left school, I did a typing course but found that typing
skill seemed to elude me. I was too careless to complete a
whole page without an error. The letters were alternately
dark and light on the page, depending on the force with which
I hit the keys. Letters were an ordeal to me. What would the
recipient think of me? Would they judge me by the state of
the appearance of the letter?
Then computers entered my life, and Hey, Presto, everthing
changed as if a magician had waved a magic wand. Mistakes
were easily corrected and not noticeable. The print was clear
and even. First I wrote letters, no longer worrying about how
they looked. Then I began to write and submit articles and
stories, knowing that the content was up to par, if not the
appearance. So for me, computers mean satisfaction.
Then, last week I went to the telephone company. As I was
about to pay my bill, the computers all shut down. The women
tapped furiously at the keyboard. They switched the computers
off and attempted to switch them on again. The customers sat
and waited at the desks. The people waiting in the line
became restive. Eventually, it became clear that no business
would be done until the fault in the system was rectified,
and a sullen silence settled down over the entire place.
So there we sat, workers and customers, people from all walks
of life, some patient, some not, but all of us caught up in
the same problem. The workers were more than willing to help
us but they were quite powerless. The machines had let them
down and nothing at all could be done to coax them back to
life.
The foolishness of the situation hit me; all of us so
dependent on the whims of a machine. The previous system of a
clerk slowly filling in forms in triplicate (remember carbon
paper?) and then sending them to different departments and
placing them in bulging files did have drawbacks, but none as
dramatic as this total inability to do any work at all.
Half an hour later, one machine made a beeping sound and was
switched on. Then, one after the other, the whole operation
swung into working mode.
Walking home, I pondered on this reliance on computers. They
do help in innumerable ways, but just as a computer itself
has a back-up system, should there not be a human non-
electronic back-up system in all walks of business life so
that things not come to a standstill because of an electronic
quirk or power failure?
The wait at the phone company was not long, but other
systems, from electricity to transport, are computer
dependent. What if a major fault developed in such a
system?
We are told not to put our trust in princes. I wonder how
clever it is to put our trust so completely into small
electronic chips.
