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Computer -assisted: Potential applications of the computer -assisted made possible by microelectronics include a small computer -assisted in every home or a pocket computer -assisted terminal that can be connected to a powerful central computer -assisted via the telephone. Such devices may be used to solve our numerical problems (e.g., income tax, or our bank balance) or as a creative tool to relate our knowledge and experiences to our future actions.
One special application of the solid-fuel rocket, which came into use during World War II and has since proved useful in peacetime, had been predicted from about 1927. It is the rocket-assisted takeoff for aircraft of virtually any size and type. Such takeoff rockets—known as JATO or RATO, for jet-assisted (or rocket-assisted) takeoff—are used when the runway is short (as on an aircraft carrier) or located at a high altitude (as at Mexico City), or when the plane is overloaded.
And what of the computer -assisted? Olof Johannesson's 1966 novel, The Tale of the Big computer -assisted (which first appeared in an American edition in 1968), offers a history of the development of computer -assisteds as told by an advanced computer -assisted of the future. In an unemotional, utterly convincing essay, it describes the gradual obsolescence and disappearance of its creator, man.
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