Computers

The statement that computers increased productivity is often heard but sometimes a simple example can best explain. I was doing retirement planning for people back in the 1970's and to illustrate what things would look like in the future I had to do a year by year calculation which took several hours on each case. At that time companies made their main frame computers available to people in the field and I could send in the data to our New York office and they would print out a nice neat program for me to present to the client. It was about a two week turn around to get this information. A few years later the district office got a computer and I sent things to Fargo which meant a three day turn around. In 1982 I purchased a Osborne computer for $1,200 and a engineering student at the local university set up some soft ware for me so I could to these calculation in my office in less than one hour but I couldn't print them out so I had the secretary type things out for me. Finally in the 1990's personal computers became available and I could to a complete program for a client in about one hour including printing and putting in a nice folder. What used to take several hours and several weeks could now be completed in one hour.