The Personal Computer as an Information Medium

Computers have long been used in the administration work of large companies and public authorities for handling vast quantities of generally standardised data. Personal details, financial information and stock levels are all suitable ‘number‐cruncher’ material, no longer being paid much attention. For some time now, personal computers have slowly been infiltrating those areas which were until recently the preserve of mainframes, and a quiet change of attitude has been observed in people who still have to process by hand the comparatively large volumes of varied data that land on their desks. New, extremely flexible and powerful user programs are now making it possible for individual data banks and full text retrievals to be installed on desk tops.