European Electronic Data Processing-A Report on the Industry and the State-of-the-Art

Information processing activities in Western Europe are developing at an increasingly rapid pace. Newly created companies and many of the established business machine and electronic firms are entering this burgeoning field. A first-hand tour of major industrial and academic groups in Western Europe reveals important progress in equipment design and manufacturing techniques, as well as significant advanced development work. The United States is ahead of Western Europe, due primarily to a greater over-all research and development effort. However, there is no national boundary for creative ideas; European laboratories are developing new techniques and products for the world market, ranging from peripheral equipment to complete information processing systems. The survey of European activities is presented in three parts: an introduction, details of some important technological developments under way, and a detailed review of the characteristics of European computing systems. The technological developments indlude fixed high-speed memories, magnetic thin films, random-access memories, pattern recognition, learning machines, hydraulic logic, and problem-oriented languages.