Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 08/88 - checked

August 1988

Sometimes I wonder why I write this column. After all, this is a magazine for people who are interested in computers, and more and more I seem to be finding myself in the negative on the subject.

It has nothing to do with the boxes themselves, of course. Like motor cars, the are completely useless piles of plastic and metal until someone comes along and starts them up. Only then does the mayhem commence.

The underlying problem that I have with computers, therefore, is the people who exploit them. To some extent this can mean the design of them, either of the hardware or the software. Sometimes it can mean the people who use them and the purposes for which they are employed.

I'll give you an example. The other month I went to a couple of press events. In one a company called Certacom was launching a new, German-designed financial dealer board. In the other a well-known software company called Lotus was telling the assembled multitudes from the fourth estate about the latest additions to their spreadsheet programs. (Did you know that I always manage to type Lotus as 'Louts', I wonder if this proves something).

In both cases, the object of the exercise was to speed up and assist people in the manipulation and accumulation of numbers. This is, of course, one of the world's great pointless tasks unless the numbers mean something.

In both cases the numbers refered to something particularly specific - dosh, mazuma, gelt...money.

It was then that a thought occurred to me. When numbers become as important as the thing they represent, then we get divorced from what they represent. The numbers actually take on more importance, and that has the potential to be a bad thing.

For example, when numbers represent money, they are being used to represent a fairly formalised means of barter. Yet barter is a purely relative and subjective experience. For example, answer the following question twice: is half a pint of two-day old vegetable soup worth more than three office desks and a bicycle wheel. First time, answer it when you have just eaten a meal at your favourite restaurant. Second time, answer it when you haven't eaten for a month.

Everything, and bartering more than most, is relative, and systems which make the associated numbers more important, more 'concrete' than the bartering itself seem to me to be removing the human race one step further from anything to do with reality.

This could be seen at both the press events I mentioned. At the Louts, sorry, Lotus event for example, there was increasing evidence of what can only be termed 'spreadspeak'. This is a subset of the English language, the latest incarnation of Yuppiespeak, I suppose; language used to show how clever the speaker is, rather than what they have to say.

Now, it has always seemed to me that 1-2-3 is an excellent program. I thought that spreadsheets were a good idea long before it appeared, in fact. The original Visicalc, which ran on the early Apple IIs, was the trailblazer that showed well what the beasts were for. They are, essentially, thinkers tools. That is why spreadsheets are so popular in marketing departments. Anyone who has ever had to make a decision has also wanted to play the 'what if..' game. If the factors involved can be quantified, then something like a spreadsheet is an excellent tool through which to play.

Change a number here; modify a cell there; multiply it by the number you first thought of and see what the answer looks like. It is an excellent way of getting a 'range', a sighting on a problem and defining which of a number of potential solutions look tenable, and which look absolutely stupid.

Yet there was the Lotus staff giving us a demonstration of spatial gymnastics through multi-dimensional, multiple-accessed, occasionally consolidated worksheets with linked dynamic graphing and complex macros that were, one suddenly realised, actually more important than the reason for their existence. The manipulation of numbers for its (or their) own sake has become an end in itself, divorced from reality or, dare one suggest it, humanity.

The Certacom announcement was of a piece with this view. Here was an interesting application of computer technology, if you like that sort of thing. Dealer boards, for the uninitiated in Mammonism, are the high-tech equivalent of the High Altar.

At these desks sit the ultimate money manipulators. Following on from 'Big Bang', when the financial institutions became computerised, and 'Black Monday', when the Mammonists learned just what fun playing with a computer can be, these individuals sit at purpose-built desks which contain the most amazing array of computers, screens and communications links. Each one would be a hacker's dream Christmas present.

Here they buy and sell numbers, often they sell before they have bought, though sometimes they buy in the hope that it was a good idea. Most of the time, they shout at each other in Spreadspeak. They decide to do something, or not, with the numbers they have just bought, or sold, on the basis of what other numbers are doing, or not. It is all extremely significant.

The trouble is, it often is significant, for somewhere around this planet, someone's (or some animal's) lifestyle (or life) will hang in the balance of the decision made.

These boards make it possible for the Mammonists to perform their mystical rites that much faster. And herein lies a glimmer of hope. With any luck, the computer may at last prove to be of real service to the rest of us.

The Certacom system, which is produced in Germany by Telenorma Bosch, has as one of its key improvements much more effective communications capabilities, making it possible for the Mammonists to manipulate their numbers even faster. This leads to the following thought.

Things like exchange rates are already set, for practical, real work, on a daily basis, even though they may fluctuate wildly on the markets during that time. With ever-faster communications it might be possible to let the Mammonists build up a huge head of manipulative steam, where they are making 'important decisions' at the speed of light. Then, we will be able to shut the door and forget all about them, for they will be changing things so fast, so furiously, that it will all average out in the end. Nothing will change, and the rest of us can get back to real life.

end