The efficiency of a mechanized data processing system is specially sensitive to the effectiveness with which input information is prepared for machine processing.
One of the major objectives of office automation is the reduction of clerical costs. An increase in the operative efficiency of an organisation by the use of higher quality information promises an even larger potential savings than that achieved through increased clerical productivity.
During recent times the productivity of the office worker, and advent of the electronic computer, however, should give the clerical staff the tools with which to compete effectively with the production worker who has had the benefit of increasingly powerful machinery over a period of years.
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The potential of the computer is much greater than routine, paperwork mechanisation, but its potential will only be attained through knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of the computer and better understanding of our problems so that we can create new techniques which use the capabilities of the computer to solve these problems.
The change from manual to a mechanized data processing system offers an obvious opportunity to approach data processing from a system wise viewpoint. It is highly desirable, for instance, to capture information in machine-process able form as early as possible so that, from this point onwards, all manipulation and communication can be accomplished through the use of machines.
Data processing starts with transactions, anyone of which may affect many of the end products of the data processing system. It is imperative, then, that the transaction system includes the information necessary to associate the quantitative information in the proper relationship with other transactions in order to produce all of the required end products.
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Computer programming has traversed a long way since the first general-purpose electronic computer – ENIAC came into being between 1943 and 1946, and the first stored program computer – EDVAC came into being between 1944 and 1952. This article gives us a comprehensive idea of how computer programs were written in the last decades of twentieth century.
