A Computer Science Reader: Selections from ABACUS

454 Pages·1988·10.11 MB·English

A Computer Science Reader
A Computer Science Reader
SelectÎons from ABACUS
Edited by
Eric A. Weiss
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Eric A. Weiss
AssoCÎate Editor, ABACUS
Springer-Verlag New York
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010, USA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A computer science reader.
lnc1udes index.
1. Electronic data processing. 2. Computers
1. Weiss, Eric A. II. Abacus (New York, N.Y.)
QA76.24.C658 1987 004 87-9804
© 1988 by Springer Science+Business Media New York
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988
Originally published by Springer-Verlag New York lnc. in 1988
Ali rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without
the written permission ofthe publisher (Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New
York 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis.
Use in connection with any form ofinformation storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation,
computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed
is forbidden.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication,
even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names,
as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used
freely by anyone.
Typeset by David Seham Associates, Metuchen, New Jersey.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 978-1-4612-6458-3 ISBN 978-1-4419-8726-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-8726-6
Dedication
On 22 December 1986, while this book was being prepared, Walter Kauf
mann-Buhler, Mathematics Editor at Springer-Verlag in New York, died
suddenly at the age of 42. The founding and survival of ABACUS are due
more to him and his enthusiasm than to any other person," and it was at
his suggestion and with his support and encouragement that this collection
was put together. His most untimely death was a great loss to everyone
associated with ABACUS and especially to the editor of this book, which
is here dedicated to Walter's memory.
Preface
These selections from the first 3Y2 years of ABACUS, the computing
professional's international quarterly, represent the best of what we have
published. They are grouped into the magazine's established categories:
Editorials, Articles, Departments, Reports from Correspondents, and
Features. Letters to the Editor, ordinarily in a separate section, have been
appended to their subjects or objects, as the case may be. The selection
of our best has yielded samples from all these categories, including at
least one contribution from every regular columnist. In short, what you
see here is what an ABACUS subscriber gets.
To make room for the wide variety of material needed to truly represent
ABACUS, some ofthe longer articles have been slightly shortened. In each
case, the complete original article can be obtained by using the back-issue
order information at the end of this book. Readers who want to continue
the ABACUS experience may subscribe for future issues with the subscrip
tion information included with this book.
Contents
Dedication ............................................................. v
Preface ........................... ,.................................... vii
Introduction ........................................................... xiii
Credits........................................................ ......... xv
EDITORIALS
Who Reads ABACUS? Eric A. Weiss ................................. 3
Star Wars: What 1& the Professional Responsibility
of Computer Sci~ntists? Anthony Ralston ........................ 6
Less than Meets the Eye. Anthony Ralston ........................ 9
Babel and NewspeaJ< in 1984. Anthony Ralston .................... 12
Don't Shoot, They Are Your Children! Eric A. Weiss............. 14
ARTICLES
Who Invented the First Electronic Digital Computer?
Nancy Stern ........................................................ 19
Does John Atanasoff deserve as much credit as
Eckert and Mauchly for the invention of ENIAC?
Letter: Who Owned the ENIACIUNIV AC Interest
in the 1950s? Herbert Freeman ........ .................... ....... 34
Programmers: The Amateur vs. the Professional.
Henry Ledgard ..................................................... 35
Are many professional programmers really amateurs
in disguise?
Letter: On Software Development. George Y. Cherlin .......... 46
x Contents
Japanese Word Processing: Interfacing with the
Inscrutable. Neil K. Friedman .................................... 48
Coping with the disadvantages of Oriental languages.
Letter: Should the Japanese Language Be Reformed?
David Isles and Tadatoshi Akiba ................................. 68
Author's Response................................................. 71
Living with a New Mathematical Species.
Lynn Arthur Steen ................................................. 73
The impact of computing on mathematics.
Foretelling the Future by Adaptive Modeling.
Ian H. Witten and John G. Cleary................................ 86
Compressing data to an average of 2.2 bits per character.
Automating Reasoning. Larry Wos .................................. 110
AR programs can help solve problems logically.
The Composer and the Computer. Lejaren Hiller .................. 138
Composing serious music with algorithms.
Mathematical Modeling with Spreadsheets.
Deane E. Arganbright ............................................. 167
Examples and problems in spreadsheet modeling.
U.S. versus IBM: An Exercise in Futility?
Robert P. Bigelow.................................................. 180
Lessons of the longest antitrust suit in U.S. history.
In Quest of a Pangram. Lee C.F. Sallows .......................... 200
Having serious fun with a word puzzle.
Microcomputing in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Ross Alan Stapleton and Seymour Goodman.................... 221
It lags the West in every way.
Chess Computers. Danny Kopec.................................... 241
A critical survey of commercial products.
DEPARTMENTS
Book Reviews
Books for Every Professional. Eric A. Weiss....................... 261
The Fifth Generation: Banzai or Pie-in-the-Sky?
Eric A. Weiss....................................................... 263
Letter to the Editor: More on the Fifth Generation.
John R. Pierce...................................................... 280
Contents xi
In the Art of Programming, Knuth Is First; There Is
No Second. Eric A. Weiss......................................... 282
The Permanent Software Crisis. Eric A. Weiss..................... 292
IBM and Its Way. Eric A. Weiss 304
Problems and Puzzles
Computer-Assisted Problem Solving. Richard V. Andree 317
Computers and the Law
Who's Liable When the Computer's Wrong?
Michael Gemignani ................................................ 338
Personal Computing
Is There Such a Thing as a Personal Computer? Larry Press..... 343
The Computer Press
Specialization in the Computer Press. Anne A. Armstrong........ 348
Computing and the Citizen
SOl: A Violation of Professional Responsibility.
David Lorge Parnas ......................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Reports from Correspondents
Report from Europe:
France's Information Needs: Reality or Alibi? Rex Malik......... 367
Report from the Pacific:
Tokyo: Fifth-Generation Reasoning. Rex Malik .................... 375
Report from Europe:
Data Protection: Has the Tide Turned? Andrew Lloyd............ 384
Report from Anaheim:
ABACUS Goes to the 1983 National Computer Conference.
Eric A. Weiss....................................................... 388
Report from Washington:
MCC: One U.S. Answer to the Japanese. Edith Holmes .......... 396
FEATURES
ABACUS Competition #1: Old and New Computing Aphorisms... 401
The Editors of ABACUS Present Their Forecast for the Coming
Decade in Computing .............................................. 402
xii Contents
Results of ABACUS Competition #1: Old and New Computing
Aphorisms .......................................................... 404
THE FIRST FOURTEEN ISSUES OF ABACUS
Contents ............................................................ 405
Index ................................................................ 420
VOLUME INDEX ....................................................... 430
Introduction
It is all Tony Ralston's fault.
For years, he dreamt of starting a popular computer magazine com
parable with Scientific American in editorial quality which, as he said,
"would make explicit in clear and objective language the most important
technical developments and events in computing." It would be aimed at
the informed public, and it was to become a general and technical forum
for the computing profession. Computing specialists would read it to keep
up with what their peers were up to in other specialties. Computing gen
eralists would read it for its insightful philosophical overviews. Important
decision-makers in govenment and industry would be readers and con
tributors.
In 1976, while president of the American Federation of Information
Processing Societies (AFIPS), after a lot of high-level wrangling, he per
suaded the leaders of that then financially bloated body to consider spon
soring such a public service magazine, dubbed ABACUS. AFIPS made a
full-dress study, issued a prospectus, edited and printed copies of a colorful
sample issue, and sought financial backing from the industry.
Then, as far as I, at the time an outside bemused observer, could see,
the roof fell in. The AFIPS Board of Directors, stampeded into pusillan
imous action by a notorious few shortsighted, cautious, and anti-everything
representatives of the constituent AFIPS societies, ended its lukewarm
support of Tony's dream. The excuse for abandonment was that since the
myopic captains of our industry would not kick in, the magazine would
cost AFIPS money that would reduce the flow of cash from the then golden
National Computer Conference to the constituent societies. The AFIPS
ABACUS had hit ABORT.
Tony kept the ABACUS vision alive in his mind until, in 1981, he laid
the scheme on the late Walter Kaufmann-BOhler, the mathematician-editor
of the Mathematical Intelligencer. He and Tony persuaded Walter's em
ployer, Springer-Verlag, a privately owned German publishing house, to