3 posts tagged with "1970s"

By Richard Mills, Technology Correspondent, Technical Publishing Weekly, 1979

Last week, I attended the bustling halls of the National Computer Conference (NCC) 1979 in New York. As a journalist covering the world of technical publishing, I expected to see the usual array of minicomputers, storage tapes, and a few optimistic software vendors. Instead, I found myself witnessing what may well be the dawn of a new era: the corporate information system.

Business in the 1970s is riding a transformative wave: the rise of office automation. With technology like electronic calculators, typewriters, dictation machines, and early computer terminals entering the corporate landscape, organizations are rethinking how work gets done. This emerging trend is rapidly altering traditional business processes—and laying the groundwork for the information age.

In the rapidly evolving world of business technology during the mid-1970s, one company stood out for its groundbreaking contributions to computing: Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Known for their innovative line of minicomputers, particularly the PDP series, DEC offered businesses a compelling alternative to the large and costly mainframe systems that dominated the market. The introduction of these more compact and economically viable machines marked a pivotal shift in how companies approached automation and data processing.