Development of Computer Technology 135 



Where do we go from here in computer sciences at Dahlgren? What do you see as our role 

 in future Navy R&Dl 



Well, interestingly enough, there's a lot of good things coming along in 

 computers. We always seem to think that the latest computers are the last major 

 construction in the field, but now we see computers in which the whole compu- 

 ter processor is as big as the end of your little finger with these large-scale 

 integrated circuits. They are called microprocessors. The industry has done a 

 good job in dropping the price down. A few years ago, a microprocessor cost 

 $200. Now you can buy some of them for $20. You see the results of some of 

 these things in pocket calculators, wristwatches, and things like that. The same 

 thing could be, we think, applied to Navy computers in the Fleet to make them 

 much smaller, much more reliable, and much more flexible. 



I think the next big push will be to take the modern technology and put it in 

 the Fleet. The Fleet, right now, is using computers designed in the mid-1960's 

 or maybe early 1960's. It hasn't gotten the modern technology into the comput- 

 er. That's the danger in standardizing. If you standardize on some computer, 

 it stays in the Fleet forever. When new things come along, you can't get them in 

 because they are not standard. I think there's a recognition now that we are at 

 the point where we should start applying the new technology in the Fleet 

 system. 



It's hard to tell, in general, how things will be. I think we are still going to have 

 big computers, but there's another mass of smaller computers that people are 

 using called minicomputers. They're cheaper and, in fact, a minicomputer 

 about as big as a desk can do as much as some of those like the early MARK II 

 computer that took up several rooms. That's how much they have miniaturized 

 everything. Part of it has been done through the Space Program and part of it 

 with research in semiconductors. There are predictions that everybody will 

 have his own computer, one in every house. The truth is probably somewhere 

 in between that extreme and the extreme that you would only have a central 

 computer. 



We have also seen, since 1970 at least, the third-generation computers. In 

 those, you have the ability to interrupt, electrically, what's going on and do 

 something else. This is called time-sharing. You can have a computer, and we 

 have this feature on the 6700 here, which has a console somewhere in another 

 building, and you dial over the telephone line and you get in the computer, do 

 some work, and get your answers back. That's a significant change over the 

 early computers. We can dial a computer in California that we have arrange- 

 ments with and can actually use their computer with our programs to do a 

 certain amount of work. Around here, we have about 20 remote consoles in 

 different parts of the Station, and the 6700 is downstairs. We also have people 

 at Yorktown using the 6700 some, as well as some contractors who work for the 

 government dialing in here and using the computer. Then we have a small 



