Computer report VII: The effervescent years: A retrospective: Behind the computer revolution lay the vision and perseverance of a handful of pioneers committed to open information exchange

The following alarm was sounded in 1950 by a prominent mathematician: “There is currently such a shortage of trained mathematicians required to operate the modern computing machine that these machines are not working full time. With the number of machines being built or projected it is probable that within ten years, two thousand persons will be required in this work.. this is a substantial fraction of all professional mathematicians in the country.”1 Eight years later, a RAND Corporation scientist told a computer conference that “Southern California is today generally regarded as a center of activity in high-speed computing, having perhaps the highest density of machines and active prominent people as any area in the world.” In support of this claim, he displayed a map of digital computers installed and operating in Greater Los Angeles. It revealed a grand total of 32 machines!