Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 09/87 - checked

September 1987

For reasons that are quite beyond me and my acumen with anything numerical, I recently got sent a copy of the Economic Progress Report from HM Treasury. They, if anyone hasn't worked it out yet, claim to be good with numbers in a way that is diametrically opposed to my own avowed skills with the damned things. The Progress Report is a cunning device sent out by them to try and prove the point beyond doubt.

As I don't really understand any of it anyway, there seemed little point in sending me a copy of the report. It was all graphs, statistics and bar charts (funny, I had always thought that a bar chart was a map of the pubs of Central London). Still, I studied the Report's contents personfully for.....well.....thirty-five seconds at least, but there was no hope; the thing was full of gibberish which proved conclusively that the Nation was doing absolutely splendidly, or not, as the case may be.

In the end, I found the whole thing fairly depressing reading, but then a thought struck me. I ducked too late and it caught me right between the eyes. This was unfortunate, for it took me a second or two to see what the thought had been driving at. If I didn't understand a word or graph of what was in the report, why did I find it depressing? I have never been one to want to be a smart-ass at things numerical, so it seemed an odd reaction on my part.

The answer appeared at the top of the report, where it was stated that the thing had been reproduced by a well-known combination of snazzy word processor and pretty-pictures graph-producer. That was it, how could I have missed it before? The thing was dull beyond belief; not just in content, that goes without saying. But it was also excruciatingly dull to look at.

It has come to my attention over the last six months or so that there is something happening to the world of the published written word. That something is the combination of the laser printer with a desktop publishing set-up of some description, be it the grandest all-bells-and-whistles package, or a straight word processor (which some dirty dealers try and pass off as DTP systems). The `thing' in question can be broadly categorised as `the same'. It doesn't seem to matter what DTP system is used or what make or type of laser printer. Everything comes out looking `the same' as everything else that comes out of a desktop publishing system and laser printer.

There are two possible reasons for this, one of which I must admit to finding quite disturbing. The first, and not so disturbing one, is that nobody yet really understands how to use the things. This is quite possible, for the packages are designed to bring all the arts and crafts of publishing and layout to the average individual, and the average individual is not necessarily going to be any good at all at being arty and crafty. Numbers, yes; but arty layouts and typography? Well its horses for courses, isn't it.

The more disturbing possibility, however, fits into a horrid little theory that has been growing in my turbid brain over the last year or so. You can call it paranoia if you like - go on, you know you're dying to - but I am becoming slightly suspicious of some aspects of the application of computers to the real world. Desktop publishing is just one example. The manufacturers in their advertising and literature wax lyrical about the capabilities of their products. Even if they don't use the actual words, one is left with the impression that one can achieve just about anything with these packages, make information appear in any conceivable form.

Well. I suppose you can if you are willing to pay the real price of having all the right gizmos built in to make such things happen. Even then I doubt it. Even then I suspect that it would not be possible to reproduce the work of a good artist and a real printer on any DTP and laser printer set-up.

Somehow, though the word `flexible' is often seen bandied about in computer advertisements, the actual effect of the application of computer technology is to create an inflexible uniformity. Like I say, most DTP documents have a `sameness' that is instantly recognisable.

My horrid little theory takes this idea a stage further. Wearing a different one of my many writing hats, I have recently been involved in scribing about factory automation systems. I have even got to see IBM's Personal System/2 Model 50 being made, but that is another story.

In this work, another thought has struck me. (This time I didn't even bother ducking). There are companies out there which are spending Zillions of greenbacks on investments in automated manufacturing facilities. This makes it possible, or so they say, to be far more flexible in what they manufacture, 'cos the machinery is clever enough to be quickly reprogrammed to make it.

True, but only up to a point. The machines can only manufacture what they are physically capable of handling. A car parts assembly line can only make things that are roughly the same size and shape as car parts, otherwise more massive investment is required to make the changeover to something different. So, as they make their investment in `flexibility', so they become increasingly inflexible. Having spent Zillions on one line of automated manufacturing, they are honour and bank manager-bound to make sure it gets utilised to the full.

That way leads inevitably to fewer innovations and new product developments, because such efforts might result in something that won't fit the production line. It will better to stick to something safe, and readily saleable.

To some extent, the results can be seen in our high street shops already. You can buy plastic bomber jackets in 350 different shades of pink, but underneath they are all exactly the same. I fear that, with computers, the word `flexibility' is doomed to become synonymous with your own `personal choice' of the colour pink (from a Palette of however many it is that graphics systems can now offer). It won't be allowed to mean much else.

end