Automate or not automate?

The time and location I write of in this column will reveal why this was yet to be a concern in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.I was a student of Purdue University from 1959 to 1963. Purdue owned one large mainframe computer that was fed a diet of 80-column Hollerith cards. Widespread use of computers was viewed as a distant “maybe.” Heavy industry and manufacturing relied on m...