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That Computer Responses: Potential applications of the computer made possible by microelectronics include a small computer in every home or a pocket computer terminal that computer responses can be connected to a powerful central computer 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.
In an attempt to develop an analytical citizenry, high school students in Woodside, Calif., were enrolled in a brief program designed to promote tolerance to nonconformity by comparing their responses to a questionnaire with the responses obtained from a cross section of the adult population. In analyzing and comparing these responses, the students became aware of their own and other people's prejudices.
And what of the computer? Olof Johannesson's 1966 novel, The Tale of the Big Computer (which first appeared in an American edition in 1968), offers a history of the development of computers as told by an advanced computer of the future. In an unemotional, utterly convincing essay, it describes the gradual obsolescence and disappearance of its creator, man.
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