November 15, 2007
Then and now: So, was there a terminal in your future?
This school year, University Week, the UW campus newspaper for faculty and staff, turns 25. To note the occasion, throughout the year we’ll revisit some stories from our past, in no particular chronological order, and then provide a brief update on how things have changed over our quarter-century.
THEN: The University Week editors really tapped a trend in the Nov. 10, 1983, edition — just the sixth issue ever — where they asked, “Is there a terminal in your future?”
The story begins, “So you want to purchase a word processor for your department to increase the productivity of your office? To save time, money, effort and peace of mind, there are computer experts on campus who can usher you carefully into this strange, new, and expensive, state-of-the-art world of high technology.”
It continues, “They’ll tantalize you with video terminals, keyboards, central processing units, printers, system disks, archive diskettes, daisy print wheels and other exotic hardware. And their expertise comes free of charge.”
On the next page, another story offering training on computers began, “By year’s end, there will be one electronic keyboard for every three U.S. white collar workers,” and tells about training opportunities coming on campus.”
NOW: Of course, the computer world has expanded exponentially since then. The folks at Computing & Communications have perhaps the best view of how much computer use has risen in the last quarter century. Cindy Brown, C&C communications director, dug up some numbers that tell the tale.
Tracking the number of IP devices is one way to come to a guesstimate. IP devices include everything attached to the network, including PCs, servers, printers, smart phones, building access control computers — even vending machines. Back in July of 1992, the first year for which they have records, there were 6,098 such devices on campus. Watch the numbers grow: By January of 1993 there were 10,068; by January of 1998 there were 35,455; by January of 2002 there were 64,454 and at last count, this September, there were 104,387. (The number hit its high mark in January of 2007, with 131,081 devices connected to the network.)
And as for the offer of computer training and help, what started as a unique offer of help has since become a regular way of working. C&C gives advice and hands-on help to computer-users campuswide and has for many years. During the 2006-07 school year, for example, C&C handled 37,900 separate calls for help.
Brown also located some statistics on the amazingly extensive use of e-mail on campus, and the extent of spam. From the start of the year through Oct. 7, “C&C has processed more than a billion e-mail messages, which is more than was processed in 2003, 2004 and 2005 combined.” She said that of the e-mails processed since January, fully 80 percent have been marked as spam, while in October that rose to 90 percent.
