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

 

 

CHM Ref: 

X5142.2009

                    © 1980 Computer History Museum                           Page 

30

 of 54

 

 

 

 

Hopper:  

They want to sell you more hardware. They aren’t going to make any money in 

the long run… [as much] as from renting hardware. The more the program sprawls the better off 

IBM is.  

Pantages:  

Except they are starting to charge for the software now, but they are still getting 

away with those practices.  

Hopper:  

They don’t charge for the run time on the software. My aim was to cut run time.  I 

really think that the future holds more and more information that they need for faster and faster 

answers. The whole future looks that way, and that’s the direction you have to aim in. 

Pantages:  

When you talk about speed, I conceive of the need for speed for weather 

forecasting and other massive applications. 

Hopper:  

Suppose you have a salesman in Kansas City and he’s got a customer who calls 

you up and wants to know if you’ve got five large anchors on hand. You need speed. You’ve got 

to be able to get into inventory and find out if you have five large anchors and tell him so. You 

can’t afford to have a clunk, clunk, clunk program that’s going to keep him sitting quiet on the 

end of the phone for 10 minutes. Even inventory will have to go at a high rate of speed.  

Pantages:  

Don’t we have technology fast enough now to solve the vast majority of problems 

like that? 

Hopper:  

Yes, we’re beginning to get there. One of the things that Westinghouse tackled 

right off the bat was a close-to-online inventory. But they are slow compared to what we need 

today, and that of course is the reason I wanted to pull the inventory program off the mainframe 

and put it on its own computer.  And I finally realized that the only reason we put inventory and 

payroll on the same computer is because we only owned one computer. A logical common 

sense reason why they should be there. So let’s pull them apart and they go faster if you get 

them on their own computers.  

Plus the fact that the dollars are pushing in that direction – that a system of small computers 

could cost a lot less than a big computer and you could be rid of a lot of the overhead. Because 

each one could be dedicated to its own job, it didn’t have to be general purpose. 

So see all of these things are ending in the same direction: pointing toward individual computers 

for the individual job. 

Pantages:  

In the context of time – back then... 

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CHM Ref: 

X5142.2009

                    © 1980 Computer History Museum                           Page 

31

 of 54

 

 

 

 

Hopper:  

Back then the cost wasn’t one of the influencing factors. It wasn’t until we began 

to get the chips and the small computers that it became economical as well. But there was a 

question even then how much we were willing to pay for an instant answer. And some 

companies were beginning to become ready to – because it meant sales and all sorts of things.  

I think that too often we look at the computer separate from the rest of the company, and you 

have to look at it as integrated, as part of the company. And if the speed of the reaction of the 

computer helps sales, then you are going to go for it. If you only look at the computer all by 

itself, you may not pay any attention to that. But you have to look at it as supporting sales and 

shipments and everything under the sun. You can’t just leave it off in the machine room. It 

interacts – not just for processing data, but it interacts for speed and response and everything 

like that for the rest of the company, and the kind of the records you keep and everything else. 

Integrating Computers into “The Whole Company” 

Pantages:  

Where do you think we are now? 

Hopper:  

I’ve used the analogy of the Model T, which is what made a tremendous 

difference in the development of automobiles and transportation in this country. 

I think we have the Model T computers. By analogy we are at the beginning of what will be the 

world of computers. We’ve been sort of through a bunch of preliminaries. Now we are really 

ready to begin to use computers.  

Pantages: 

You are talking about end use and true integration through an organization 

Hopper:  

Where they become an integral part of the whole company. 

Pantages:  

You are saying that even though they have been talking about this, they haven’t 

really been doing it. 

Hopper:  

No. Well for one thing, there still aren’t enough people who can do that systems 

design, who can look at the total flow of information through a company and then design a 

method of implementing it. We began to get those real systems design methods when NASA 

started work. And their whole concept was that you took anything and broke it down into 

subsystems and defined the subsystems and the interfaces between them. It’s just what we 

need to do with the systems in the company. And it’s non-linear of course; things do happen in 

parallel in any given company. Sales is working the inventory at the same time Personnel is 

working.  

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