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

 

 

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I’ve also been having some arguments about what is the value of information in processing. I 

made up an extreme example in a chemical plant totally operated by computer. Two pieces of 

information come in simultaneously and one comes from a valve in the plant and says if you 

don’t open it, the plant’s going to blow up. You have less than a minute to act, 100 lives and 

$100 million plant. In the same instant comes information that Joe did two hours of overtime. 

Which is the most valuable piece of information and what are the criteria? 

Pantages:  

Now that one’s obvious.   

Hopper:  

It should be within an organization. I found out how priorities are assigned today: 

to the senior squeaky wheel, not to the most valuable information. And you can go on two 

curves. [Drawing.] Dollar’s here. Events here. Value of the information goes up quite sharply 

immediately after the event. But over time, it levels off, and eventually, it’s either replaced by a 

new piece of information, or you send it to the historical files and keep it for the IRS. So the 

value becomes something like that [diminishing line].  

What about the cost of that information? It’s very low at the time of the event.  The further you 

get away from the event, the more it costs to get more information, the more it costs to store 

and maintain it. There’s a crossover point there. That’s the point at which we should be getting it 

out of our on-line files and we are not doing it. Because we don’t know our value and our cost.  

And I am asking people to find out the value and cost of their information. Because all we are 

doing now is leaving stuff in the on-line files. And they are mushrooming. The more you leave it 

there, the more you slow it down. But the cost of those two curves when you get it out – no one 

is even looking at that. 

Pantages:  

Their vision is limited…. 

Hopper:  

Many people think they have virtual storage, but it was nothing but overlay. 

The Navy’s Dilemma: Micros and Software Creation  

[At this point, Richard Burdette, a Naval officer and in management within the Naval Data 

Automation Command, enters her office. and they discuss the problems being created by 

personnel who are acquiring their own computers and creating programs they need.] 

Hopper:  

Hey Burdette, come here and meet a friend of mine. You must have heard of 

Dick Burdette. He’s got some good ideas too. We’ve been working together since I came back 

from active duty in 1967.  

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Richard Burdette:   Hardware is cheaper than ever before, but software isn’t any cheaper. It’s 

getting very expensive, it’s labor intensive, and you have the problem of people reinventing the 

wheel.  

Hopper:  

But most of the stuff is Wang’s… they are using the software that comes with it. 

Wang’s are the friendliest things you’ve ever seen.  

Burdette:  

You are thinking of word processors. I’m thinking of the micros and minis, where 

people are innovating and doing their own things. And a lot of people are doing their own things 

which are the same as everyone else’s own things.  That’s the problem we’re having in the 

Navy that we are concerned with.  

Hopper:  

Most of them aren’t spending much for the software. 

Burdette:  

It’s now almost invisible as to what they are spending because the user himself is 

involved. You don’t call these people programmers anymore, but they are spending time 

generating programs. That might be good because now the user can be responsible for his own 

product.  

Hopper:  

I think that is good.   

Burdette:  

He knows what his requirements are. If he is educated enough to use a 

computer, we might get programmers replaced?  

Hopper:  

Making it easier for people to get training. This – they are pushing – not to limit 

the use of computers, but to get people into here and let them find out what they should require 

and what they should know, etc. and then let them out on their own. 

Burdette:  

What do you think about what’s happening at Norfolk with the micro group? 

Hopper:  

What are they doing? 

Burdette:  

We set up a Center of Excellence for micros, for people to become extremely 

knowledgeable in the technology. Act as consultants to the rest of the Navy, those people who 

fall below the $10,000 threshold, who can go out and buy computers without permission.  

Hopper:  

She wants to put a $2,500 limit. 

Burdette:  

Ah so. The problem there is that none of these computers – if people did this 

totally on their own – would be able to talk to each other. There is no standardization. The 

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concept of the Center of Excellence – the group that we hope will be consulting to those who 

don’t know much about computers – will provide an ad hoc type of standardization. Will give 

them general guidance, so they can within a certain framework go out and get a certain kind of 

machine that will talk to each other: Standard microprocessors that will handle the same 

software, the same operating systems. And then we can share programs. If programs are 

developed in one place or another place, one ship another ship, we can start to throw these 

programs in a big library through the Center of Excellence hopefully. Then they will get to know 

what’s available and people can come in and say, “Hey I want to do something but before I go 

ahead and do it, do you have something?” We would be able to say yes we do, we have 

systems-compatible machines. That’s a de facto standard at this point. But it’s not a real 

standard because we have allowed these people to go out, under that threshold, carte blanche, 

and get what they want.  

I guess that’s why this gal from DOD is trying to put the clamps on it.  Is that Scarlet Curry?  

Hopper:  

That’s the one. I’m trying to get her to soften it up. She’s writing it.  

Pantages:  

How do you solve that programming problem? 

Hopper:  

Most of them are doing something local, quick and dirty. If they aren’t going to 

use it anywhere else, you don’t need it anywhere else. 

Pantages:  

Isn’t that a definition that has to be made before anyone gets uptight about it – 

what information you don’t care about? 

Hopper:   

It’s a problem when you try to go in with an overall thing. The Philadelphia Naval 

shipyard and San Diego shipyard were just totally different, because they were working on 

different types of ships. The Newport one was even more different because they were the only 

ones that had submarines to work with. So people were different, parts were different, 

everything was different. So you were either going to make one huge mess or you were going to 

specify it to the particular installation.  

Pantages:  

What about standard reporting? 

Hopper:  

It didn’t matter what they did to begin with as long as the reporting set was 

coming. You can pull that off later anyway. That’s a separate program.  

You’ve got these engineers getting these small computers, one step up from programmable 

calculators. These aren’t going to be used anywhere else. They’re using it for what they do at 

the moment. If you put everything in, you’ll have a colossal thing that no one can make use of. 

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