Data entry, future tense

Abstract

When one contrasts the keypunch with some of the devices being marketed today, the Virginia Slims commercial comes to mind. Indeed, we've "come a long way." The products now available are sophisticated and diverse elaborations of the basic data entry device. And yet, they constitute only new responses to a basic requirement for computer technology. Computers do not yet talk as men do and the data entry industry has evolved from the need to translate human-sensible information into machine-sensible data. Up to now the accent has been on making the man conform.