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That Old Black Magic

The use of computers in business has transformed not only the way we do business, it also has transformed the way we regard and use computers. The first generation of business computers--early mainfram

By Paul Rolich | Updated on January 31, 2009

The use of computers in business has transformed not only the way we do business, it also has transformed the way we regard and use computers. The first generation of business computers–early mainframes–were nothing but numbers crunchers. Back then we called what we did “data processing.” We took raw data–sales numbers, hours worked, mortality statistics–and used that data to tabulate results we then were able to apply to business processes. The programming languages we used on those mainframes–COBOL and FORTRAN–simply processed data.

I remember writing a payroll program in COBOL. It consisted of a couple thousand punch cards of code, followed by a few cards with tax rates, followed by a couple hundred cards with information on the people getting paid. The output was three or four pages of printed green bar that accounting would use to manually type payroll checks. The computer was doing nothing an individual couldn’t have done manually. And COBOL wasn’t much fun.

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