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Centralized Computer: Since 1985, small desktop computers have been used increasingly to handle all aspects of hotel operations, including communication with centralized computer reservations systems.
Backup is an important procedure in the computer environment. All machines, including computers, are subject to mechanical or electrical malfunction, resulting in downtime— periods when the computer cannot be used.
Potential applications of the computer made possible by microelectronics include a small computer in every home or a pocket computer terminal that 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.
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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