Collected Papers
Over the years I wrote many papers on many subjects. Broadly, the papers were divided into internal company papers/aides memoirs and papers for public purposes such as magazine articles and conference papers.
In the internal category which also included Manuals and the ‘How To’ series of booklets, virtually nothing remains. A copy of the ‘How To Plan’ booklet was found and included in the ‘Human Factors’ section of the Archive. There were also about 20 Manuals ranging from ‘Personnel’ to ‘Decisions in Force’ to ‘Sales’, ‘Support’ and ‘Software’ manuals that were training and management reference works. Over time some of these may surface and they will be put into the Archive.
The external or public papers consist of the items found with the provenance where known. The magazine articles and op-eds for the technology press are presumed to have been published as written. The conference papers were the pieces that went into the Proceedings and only rarely the pieces actually delivered at the Conferences. In the main this was because I found it extremely difficult to read from a script and I often wanted to pursue points delivered by previous speakers. Normally I would memorise four or five points, take off my wristwatch and put it on the podium, speak for the allotted time without notes and develop themes and arguments. Except for highly technical subjects I rarely used visual aids. I had spent many years doing technical presentations with Overhead Projection Transparencies and 35mm slides, which were fine for the classroom, but I was no enthusiast for them.
The papers in this section are not always easy to shoehorn into the Archive’s sectional structure. They are therefore listed by year. Nothing has been omitted and nothing changed. Eventually they will be sorted into Archive sections wherever relevant. Very little has survived of the 1977-1980 period.
The main use of the Collected Papers is probably illustrative of the range of issues and topics in the IT industry of the 1980s as experienced by one person. The topics range from blue sky wired societies to RSI injuries in the workplace. I do not remember writing any of these papers nor do I remember any of the individual conferences. When re-reading the papers I was struck by the predictions of what would happen but noted that the eventual technical implementation was usually different to the forecast. I found this delightful. There will always be a better way as long as there is human ingenuity.
