One-Man Show

In the 1950's, in American industry, there was a job description called "calculator." Calculators were generally young, poorly-paid women with some mathematical training, who would perform tedious arithmetical calculations for teams of engineers.

The advent of the electronic computer was seen as a tremendous leap forward. The computer was said to be capable of doing the work of a "stadium full of calculators."

It soon became clear that computers were vulnerable to error. Their machinations were only as good as the programs and the people used to run them. They could do the work of a stadium full of calculators, but they could make more mistakes than a stadium full of calculators ever could.

Jumping forward, I remember a computer class I took in the spring of 1975. I was calculating the trajectory of motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel over a fanciful representation of the Snake River Canyon, using the college mainframe computer. Instead of calculating a nice parabola over the canyon, however, I ended up instead with two interlocked disjoint arcs. "Congratulations, you've made it across the Canyon!" the printed text mockingly informed me. Disgusted, I threw the computer output away, only to find, later that evening, the same computer output hung on the dorm room wall of one of my best college friends, who thought it hysterical. Computer errors might be inevitable, but in any event, they could certainly be entertaining!

Jumping forward, on Saturday, April 22, 2006, there was a small glitch regarding the eight pages of cast biographies included in DMTC's "Wizard of Oz" program. All audience members received this program. No biographies were included, however, and instead of pictures of the cast, there were eight pages of a grinning Steve Isaacson, posing with a can of Diet Coke.....