The swinging sixties saw the launch of Computer Weekly. Computer
Weekly now looks back to the first issue
The first issue of Computer Weekly appeared on 22 September 1966
and was 16 pages long. It was mailed free to 10,000 IT
professionals. Subscriptions were excellent value at £4 4s (£4.20)
a year. In a letter of intent to readers, the editor JH Bonnett
declared, "Many in the computer world are interested in information
retrieval, we are interested in information dissemination." The
magazine aimed to, "Seek out the men with the ideas who are shaping
the future of the computer and encourage them to spread, via our
pages, the story of what they are doing." Everyone in the industry,
was part of an integrated team, he said, and Computer Weekly was to
be the link that brought them together.
In a guest opinion BZ de Ferranti, managing director of
International Computers and Tabulators, acknowledged that people's
understanding of software was increasing and said the launch of a
magazine such as Computer Weekly could only help to speed up the
process.
According to Ferranti, the magazine set out to achieve this in two
ways. "First, because it will be of real interest to those engaged
in the development of software and will help them feel that more
people are beginning to understand. Second, the world of the
non-specialist will have an opportunity to read in an intelligible
form about a field of activity that will have a profound impact on
the society in which we live," he said.
The lead story on the front page concerned the UK Atomic Energy
Authority's plan to set up a multi-access system based around an
IBM 360 at its offices in Harwell. Another front page story looked
at Liverpool City Council's £200,000 contract with Plessey
Automation for a traffic control system to ease congestion on the
approach to the Mersey Tunnel. The news pages were thick with
stories about organisations investing in room-sized IBM, ICT and
Honeywell computers.
The international section carried the news that Dutch electronics
firm Philips had chosen to stay out of the large computer market.
Meanwhile, the American Scene column commented on a report which
claimed that the use of computers in the US was changing from
routine functions such as payroll to more of a management position.
This trend was echoed elsewhere in the magazine in an article by
Arthur Tulip of Honeywell's Industrial Council, which looked at the
computer's role in solving management problems.
As well as features on the British Computer Society, training and
the problems of information storage and retrieval, UK computer
makers were being urged to "get into Europe". The article, stressed
the need for a strong export market to back up home sales. "The
creation of an integrated European community working towards common
aims with a common purpose and calling upon a fully developed
technology may still be beyond our present generation," it said.
"But its eventual creation is necessary if the individual nations
of Europe are to survive in any meaningful way, and some system
that allows for the free marketing of computer systems within
Europe is absolutely essential to the survival of the British
computer industry."
On a lighter note, the Interlude section, a precursor to today's
Computer Weekly Xtra!, reported on how a computer was being used by
the New South Wales Herd Production Improvements Scheme in
Australia to help match-make bulls with their ideal partners. And
in a twist on the "come back and take a look at my etchings"
chat-up line, readers were informed of how wily young programmers
were attracting girls to their swinging 1960s bachelor pads by
asking them if they wanted to come up and see their
sub-routines.
Events listed in the Diary Dates column included a talk on the
basic principles of hybrid computing systems at City University,
London, and the futuristically-titled Electronica 66 exhibition in
Munich.
Among the job vacancies advertised, candidates with experience of
024 punches and 056 verifiers were invited to apply for the role of
assistant punch room supervisor at supermarket chain J Sainsbury
for the princely sum of £1,200 per annum. And a whopping £1,770 to
£2,280 per annum was on offer for a senior computer assistant at
Cheshire County Council.
Before the introduction of DPM's diary and Downtime, the back page
of the magazine carried news stories, including one on the Olivetti
Programma 101 machine, which was only "a little larger than a
typewriter but with the capacity to store a program". And the Stop
Press column focused on plans to install a data link in Cornwall
between the County Council's ICT 1902 computer and local schools
and colleges to enable students to gain early advantage of computer
techniques.
One of the most striking things is how, 35 years on, so little has
changed. Computers have become smaller, and advances such as mobile
phones, the Internet and wireless technology are notable, but
issues such as storage, data retrieval, training, government policy
and the need for standardisation are as pressing as ever.