Throwback Thursday - koalas and magnetographics
"ISO 2382 was initially based mainly on the usage to be found in the Vocabulary of Information Processing which was established and published by the International Federation for Information Processing and the International Computation Centre, and in the American National Dictionary for Information Processing Systems and its earlier editions published by the American National Standards Institute (formerly known as the American Standards Association). Published and Draft International Standards relating to information technology of other international organizations (such as the International Telecommunication Union and the International Electrotechnical Commission) as well as published and draft national standards have also been considered."
I say "IT" but it was originally "computing" and "data processing", sometimes "automatic data processing" as in "systematic performance of operations upon data". So there you go. "Information Technology" features as the name of the ISO/IEC JTC1 committee, and merits just one brief mention in a definition of another term.
Back then it was evidently important to explain the meaning of "click" and "scroll". And also, oddly enough, "sound" and "speech", plus "computer vision", not to be confused with "machine vision", oh no. Nevertheless, computer scientists sure played a mean pinball.
Although WAN and MAN are each mentioned just once and PAN not at all, there were LANs ... which had modems and stations ... which had to deal with collisions and wayward network devices spewing data tokens into the ring or star. Polling helped, apparently. Masters and slaves got along famously. Spidernet disappeared without trace, leaving behind Web and internet based technologies by 2008.
Aside from "telex", "teletex" and "teletext", "videotext" and "viewdata", "electronic mail" (abbreviated to "E mail" or "e-mail", mind you) was defined as "correspondence in the form of messages transmitted between user terminals over a computer network". Messages were sent from "Originators" to "Recipients", so the obscure "O/R address" appears a few times and reminds me of the trouble we had with unique usernames Way Back. A "mail exploder" sounds ominous but turns out to mean "functional unit that replicates a message as required and routes the resulting copies to various recipients indicated by a distribution list". I've always known them as "reflectors" but kids today are probably more familiar with "groups" and "socials".
I have no recollection of the "koala pad" - not, it seems, the skin of a koala's palm but some sort of graphics tablet.
There was an impressive range of calculators, some "with program-controlled and keyboard-controlled addressable storage", no less. Evidently, it was necessary to explain that calculators could be mains-powered, or mains/battery powered. Or, yes, battery-powered and dependent on "a chemical, solar, or rechargeable battery".
Printers and plotters were big then, before the introduction of the paperless office (I'm still waiting patiently ...), with numerous innovative technologies for printing and paper transport. There were print drums, wheels, even chains. I'd love to see a magnetographic printer: I wonder if it managed "Near Letter Quality"? Page layout was a concern, so word wrapping, hyphens and "no-break spaces" were all the rage as word processors (or rather "text processors") burst onto the scene.
Lots of things were "computer-aided" (partially automated), and "jabber control" might be useful today (I see you nodding, sagely).
"Error/bug/fault seeding" intrigues me. I guess the "process of intentionally adding known faults in a program for the purpose of monitoring the rate of detection and removal, and estimating the number of unknown faults remaining in the program" has become mainstream today, although nobody would admit it.
It's a shame that "hexadecimal" overtook "sexadecimal". Just imagine the fun for tabloid headline-writers.
There were "disk packs", "disk combs" and "diskettes". Magnetic drums were still a thing, along with punch cards and punched tape, tabulators, mainframes, minicomputers and microcomputers, even supercomputers ("any of the class of computers that have the highest processing speeds available at a given time for solving scientific and engineering problems").
I suspect the "multilayered perceptron" was quietly slipped in there by Drs. Who or Spock but a gent slightly older and far wiser than me says it was an advanced form of perceptron/artificial neuron that could learn. See if you recognise this: "expert system - knowledge-based system that provides for solving problems in a particular domain or application area by drawing inferences from a knowledge base developed from human expertise. [Notes] The term "expert system" is sometimes used synonymously with "knowledge-based system", but should be taken to emphasize expert knowledge. Some expert systems are able to improve their knowledge base and develop new inference rules based on their experience with previous problems." Whatever happend to "explanation facility - component of a knowledge-based system that explains how solutions were derived and justifies the steps used in reaching them"? I'm quite surprised at the number of times learning systems and artifical neurons or synapses are mentioned, along with "speech recognition", "interactive voice response" and "machine vision". <artificial intelligence> was already acknowledged as a field of study. Seems today's new-fangled isn't so new, after all. Now, where did I put my "neurocomputer"?
OT made appearances in the form of "process computer system", "computer numerical control", "manipulating industrial robot" and the odd mention of potentioner-controlled analogue computing. For those who hadn't even read about them in science fiction, a robot was a "mechanical device, usually programmable, designed to perform tasks of manipulation or locomotion under automatic control". I can almost picture the smoky room full of ISO gentlemen wearing suits and ties earnestly debating that.
I'm surprised to see "virtual machine" defined, right next to "virtual pushbutton" (if you're wondering: a "pushbutton simulated on a screen area which can be activated by a pointing device").
To some readers, mobile technology presumbably meant "can be moved to a new site by road, on a transporter" - oh wait, no, "laptop computer - battery powered portable computer small and light enough to be operated on a person's lap" suggests otherwise. The price and power of such a laptop isn't mentioned though. No cellphones, of course.
"Information security" was missing from the lingo, while penetration testing was defined as "examining the functions of a data processing system to find a means of circumventing computer security".
There was already conflict over the true meaning of "hacker", defined as both "technically sophisticated computer enthusiast" and "technically sophisticated computer enthusiast who uses his or her knowledge and means to gain unauthorized access to protected resources".
The operation of a "nonreceipt notification - interpersonal notification that reports to the originator a failure to receive, a failure to accept, or a delay in reception of an interpersonal message" intrigues me. Do please let me know if you don't get this - maybe you'll hear back from my "obsoleting indication service".