An Awkward System.

At the beginning of the 1960s, computers were expensive and difficult to operate. Because of the expense, most computers served up information to multiple clients or users from a central location. Information was input on machines capable only of punching holes in cards. The computer processed the information recorded on the cards and ran programs written by highly trained programmers. Reports were generated and returned in the form of hard copy to whomever requested them. It was an awkward system.

Making Computers Practical.

In the early 1960s John Kemeny, chairman of mathematics at Dartmouth University, started working with Thomas Kurtz, director of Dartmouth's Kiewit Computer Center, on ways to make computer use practical for most of their general college students, not just the engineering, math, and physics graduate students. They got a grant from the National Science Foundation to...