[SIGCIS-Members] Automation bibliography

[Andrew Meade McGee]

Another cultural suggestion to pair with the *Desk Set* is the May 1964
episode of *The Twilight Zone*, "The Brain Center at Whipple's." One of
those Rod Serlingesque accounts of an efficiency expert who completely
automates a factory, laying off all the assembly line workers, until his
job too is replaced with a robot. Not the most profound account, but
reflective of period anxieties.


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Andrew Meade McGee
Corcoran Department of History
University of Virginia
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 5:53 PM, McMillan, William W <
william.mcmillan at cuaa.edu> wrote:

> Don't forget Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Desk Set (1957)!
>
> ________________________________
> From: Members [members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of James
> Cortada [jcortada at umn.edu]
> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 4:03 PM
> To: Paul McJones
> Cc: members at sigcis.org
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Automation bibliography
>
> I devote attention to the subject as it related to manufacturing in the
> USA, with lots of bibliography, in The Digital Hand: How Computers Changed
> the Work of American Manufacturing, Transportation, and Retail Industries
> (Oxford U Press, 2004).
>
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Paul McJones <paul at mcjones.org<mailto:
> paul at mcjones.org>> wrote:
> Paul,
>
> Burt Grad described the creation of GE’s first applications for the UNIVAC
> I in this article:
>
> The First Commercial Computer Application at General Electric
> By: Burton Grad, December 2006
>
> http://ethw.org/First-Hand:The_First_Commercial_Computer_Application_at_General_Electric
>
> He said a large team was assigned the task of writing a payroll system for
> the Washer and Dryer Department, while he was assigned the task of writing
> a manufacturing control system for the Dishwasher and Disposer Department.
> It took him about six months, and his programs "operational long before the
> payroll system was completed.”
>
> I’m not sure exactly what manufacturing control referred to, but I suspect
> it involved scheduling and tracking the movement of parts and
> subassemblies, but not actually performing real-time control of any
> machinery.
>
>
> Paul McJones
>
>
> On Jun 15, 2015, at 11:32 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP at si.edu<mailto:
> CeruzziP at si.edu>> wrote:
>
> ... When GE installed one of the first commercial UNIVACs at their
> Louisville, KY appliance plant, they were concerned with the topic of
> automation eliminating jobs and its possible bad publicity. ...
>
> All that from the installation of a vacuum-tube computer with very
> primitive, by modern standards, computing power. A further irony is that
> the UNIVAC, as far as I could tell, did not have anything to do with
> automating production on the factory floor.
>
>
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>
> --
> James W. Cortada
> Senior Research Fellow
> Charles Babbage Institute
> University of Minnesota
> jcortada at umn.edu<mailto:jcortada at umn.edu>
> 608-274-6382
> _______________________________________________
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