Paper: Timesharing Its Place In The Working Engineers Lineup of Tools

Computers aid the engineer in that they make available sophisticated solution procedures, take the drudgery out of computation and provide accuracy in number handling. One of the most recent innovations in computing is the timesharing system. This system brings the computer face-to-face with the engineer and gives immediate online answers, but is this tool a panacea or a Pandora box, a money maker or a dollar drain; severely limited or unlimited; to be welcomed or resisted? The authors will relate their experience discussing suitable and unsuitable timesharing applications, those programs currently available and those known to be under development, and will show basic timesharing costs together with the economics compared to other computing methods. A basis is presented for placing a dollar value on the shorter "turn-around" time obtained by timesharing.