Did the invention of the pc change your life?

[+ FreshFluff]

Thanks for the interesting run-downs, guys.

 

Some people never get the concept of the Boolean operator.

 

I've noticed that too. Google has made them unnecessary for most searches, but they are still extremely useful on some occasions.

[rvwnsd]

...At that time, The Literature was indexed in the Index Medicus. Each YEAR of the Index Medicus was something like twelve or 14 volumes, and about three feet wide, when placed front to back. One had to choose one's keywords carefully, so as to cover as much of the topic as necessary, but to stray from random, non-relavent literature...

 

I clerked for a CPA while in college. One of my jobs was to update the CCH (Commerce Clearing House) GAAP (Generally-Accepted Accounting Principals) and UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) binders. The things took up an entire room in the office suite. When something needed to be researched, it was usually me who did it. There I'd go, flipping through binder after binder after binder, cross-referencing topic after topic. Now, research is conducted by entering some keywords into a search engine.

[unsub2O17]

Loved playing PacMan on my old TI--kind of like chemotherapy chopping down on cancer cells--sorry one track mind at present.

[+ Charlie]

A quick retrospective, gentlemen:

 

 

Did it make life easier? Oh, yes. Did it make people smarter? Oh, no. Some people never get the concept of the Boolean operator.

 

Here endeth the reminiscence.

Gallahad, I felt your pain, because I taught a course on how to do academic research for many years. I stopped teaching just about the time search engines like Google began to make the process much easier for students to FIND the materials. Unfortunately, it didn't help them to evaluate their worth. I was recently asked to critique a dissertation that referenced numerous sources, many of which would not have been found in the past, but the writer seemed to have no sense of what was quality and what was trash. I have been told by others that this is quite common in academic institutions nowadays.

[Rudynate]

A quick retrospective, gentlemen:

 

When I began my Residency at a [then] Prestigious Harvard Hospital, all the Residents attended a Resident lecture every Monday after ICU rounds. All of this I dreaded in the depths of my heart. One would be given a topic - a few of my favourites were "Resuscitator bags," "Gate theory of pain," and "Neurologic sequelae of Cardiac Arrest."

 

Generally, these required at least a five-year literature search. No texts. Go dig it up.

 

At that time, The Literature was indexed in the Index Medicus. Each YEAR of the Index Medicus was something like twelve or 14 volumes, and about three feet wide, when placed front to back. One had to choose one's keywords carefully, so as to cover as much of the topic as necessary, but to stray from random, non-relavent literature.

 

So one would repeat this process four, five times. The CURRENT year's literature was covered in monthly installments. A February lecture was great, as the previous Years' edition had already come out, and January wasn't usually indexed by then. December and January lectures were horrid, as one had an additional 11 or 12 volumes of index to research in addition to the four or five annual versions.

 

This was JUST FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHY. Getting the actually papers cited was another exercise in journal hauling. [i still have boxes upon boxes of Xeroxes from that time period. Never had the time to go through them and toss everything.]

 

Around that time, Beth Israel Hospital of the Harvard Medical School brought up a system called PAPERCHASE (not to be confused with the TV Series of the same name, which was Harvard LAW school). ONe could do these same searches with a computer. Oh joy! Oh rapture!

 

But one still needed access to a computer, and terminals were still relatively rare beasts.

 

Cut forward about 15 to 20 years. ANY PC could access MEDLINE and do the same Searches [i still prefer "keywords" over "subjects": So much more comprehensive]. Another five years, and Abstracts were available. Add another five, and *.pdf files of the actual paper would come up.

 

Did it make life easier? Oh, yes. Did it make people smarter? Oh, no. Some people never get the concept of the Boolean operator.

 

Here endeth the reminiscence.

 

The most thorough search methodologies used both descriptor (subject) and text (key word) searching. I was an expert at searching DIALOG - I had had extensive formal training on the DIALOG search engine. Using the various indices, keywords, descriptors, date ranges, source types, languages, etc. one could search with surgical precision. Patrons were dumbfounded at what a skilled searcher could extract from a database.

 

Back then, since you were paying for database access by the minute, before you ever went online, it was important to have a well-formulated search strategy.

 

I became very good at structure searching in Chem Abstracts. I think I remember that the fee for a single structure was ~$100.00.

[+ friendofsheila]

I think it lead to the dumbing down of secretaries because people started writing their own letters/memos.

 

Consequently, secretaries (like I was) stopped learning how to do a proper letter, higher-ups stopped trusting them to know how, and some of my work dried up.