Thirty Years of Information Engines

Abstract

The era ofinformation engineering was initiated some thirty years' ago by the demonstration of the first stored program electronic computer. At that time there was intense innovative excitement among the pioneers which, however, became somewhat jaded in the subsequent decades as computers became a business and the business acquired its doctrinaire echelons of orthodox systems experts. · Mo~e re~ently, the.e~citement has begun to return as the triumphant progress of LSI technology has reopened the frontiers of systems engmeenng so that 1t 1s now appropnate to review the evolution of computers with the object of gaining an appreciation of where we are now by what route we arrived, and what can be expected to happen next. The paper includes brief reference to research into new system~ concepts, relevant to such a forecast that are now moving into the market place.