Meg White - ComputerWorld 1975
Headlines
- IBM Cleared of Telex Monopoly Case Charges (Feb. 5 pg. 1)
- Privacy Act Will Change Agencies’ Data Policies (Feb. 5 pg. 6)
- Non-Bell Modems Equal Bell Performance, Reliability (Feb. 5 pg. 17)
- Centronics Printer Has Three Widths (Feb. 5 pg. 27)
- Firms Plan to Pursue Suits Against IBM (Feb. 5 pg. 31)
- HEW to Use DP Files to Hunt Down Strayed Parents (Apr. 23 pg. 1)
- Lack of Women Disgraces DP Field(Apr. 23 p.35)
- Telex Asks High Court to Review Decision in IBM Antitrust Case (Jun. 11 pg. 2)
- IBM Lawyers Ask Edelstein to Dismiss Antitrust Case (Jun. 11 pg. 6)
- Retail Scanning Era Three Years Away (Jun. 11 pg. 31)
- U.S. - IBM Reopens With Roar (Oct. 1 pg. 1)
- Age of Build it Yourself Micros Arrives at Wescon (Oct. 1 pg. 36)
- Discrimination Suit Focuses on DP Tapes (Dec. 24 pg. 2)
- ACM Resolution on Soviet DPer an Exercise in Futility (Dec. 24 pg. 8)
- User Adds Satellite Link Without Reconfiguring Net (Dec. 24 pg. 11)
- Device Reads Two Card Types (Dec. 24 pg. 13)
Lawsuits
- Telex vs. IBM: (The case of Telex v. IBM may be considered the most influential of the civil suits against `Big Blue.' As a result of Telex's initial victory, many other firms also filed cases against IBM. The Justice Department, likewise, amended its complaint to incorporate the issues successfully argued by Telex, in particular, the allegation that IBM's monopoly extended beyond the scope of the Justice Department's claim to embrace the “submarket” for plug-compatible peripheral devices. When the case was reversed on IBM's appeal, some of these issues continued to be pressed in U.S. v. IBM. url.
- U.S. vs. IBM: (The trial transcript provides a nearly complete record of the court proceedings extending from May 1975 through November 1981. The government's case spans May 19, 1975 through April 26, 1978 and the defense rested its case on June 1, 1981. - Eventually case was dropped. url.
- 1974 Privacy Act stripped, allowing companies legal avenues to maintain records on private citizens
- Plaintiff in discrimination suit requested database records to support her case, but was stonewalled
New Product Ads
- Data General Eclipse C/300 System with Fortran and INFOS for under $80,000 ($337,848.17 in 2011)
- PDP 11/70 advertised for under $100,000 ($422,310.21 in 2011)
- Rentable Terminal—Guess how many inquiries the ad in Computer World generated to win 3 months free rent on the terminal?
- Build-it-Yourself Microcomputers: Basic boards under $300 ($1,266.93 in 2011)
Job Opportunities
- Some job ads seek B.S. in Computer Science or related field (as opposed to B.S. in Science, Math, Engineering, etc.)
- Experience in sought in COBOL, Fortran, assembler, APL, BASIC, PL/1
- Advertised salaries up to $25,260 (equivalent to $106,684 in 2011).
Miscellaneous
- Early stages of UPCs. As of June 1975, only 80% of national brands had applied for codes and 20% of products in most stores were coded, but some of the codes were not scan able due to printing issues. Consumers also objected to the system (see letter to Santa in December)
- ACM voted to adopt an official position that Russian dissident computer scientist, Dr. Valentin Turchin, be allowed to accept a position as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, but the author feels that this resolution will not affect Russian policy regardless and is not within the purview of the ACM (Dec. 24 pg. 8)
- "Lack of Women Disgraces DP field": 19.5 % of professional DP jobs held by women (on par with banking). Only two fields, engineering and medicine, had a lower percentage of female professionals. (Apr. 23 pg. 35). According to the NY Times, even though in other science and engineering fields, women make up around 50% of graduates, rates of women graduating with computer science degrees continue to shrink: "When one looks at computer science in particular, however, the proportion of women has been falling. In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent. Data collected by the Computing Research Association showed even fewer women at research universities like M.I.T.: women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada granted in 2006-7 by Ph.D.-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2. Many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates." url.
- Letter to Santa: Same things that programmers are still asking for, EXCEPT "Please keep computers out of our Private Lives" (Dec. 24 pg. 6)