The Days Forward

West Point Class of 1969

Archives for November 2019

Predicting Year 2000 – 1989

Recently, I was looking for something, rummaging through some storage boxes in the basement. Before I found what I was looking for, I ran across an old work folder from the ‘80s. One of the items in the folder caught my eye, an internal corporate newsletter, dated 4th Quarter, 1989. In it was an opinion article written by me, which I had long since forgotten.

At the time, I was the manager of an internal computer consulting department for The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta. In those days, computers were still being deployed to desktops. We had not yet reached the point where a computer was considered an essential part of every professional employee job role. The department’s mission was to promote and assist in increasing employee and company productivity through increased use of computers. The newsletter was actually produced by my department and focused on computer topics for the edification of employees.

The article began with a perspective on the amazing growth of computer technology in the ‘80s. Then, it looked toward the new millennium – only 10 years away. What might it have in store for us? So, in the rest of the article I made some predictions regarding what we might expect in the way of computing technology advancements by the year 2000.

In re-reading the article I found myself drifting into a somewhat retrospective state and I began to reflect back to the beginning of my career interest in computers. That took me all the way back to Cow Year at West Point. One of my courses that year was titled “Computer Science Fundamentals”.

Cadet Keying Program
Cadet keying program into punch cards

I think it was an elective course, but it may have been one of the core courses that we all had to take, can’t remember. It basically consisted of learning FORTRAN language programming, although the Academy referred to it as “CADETRAN”. Anyway, I really liked it and found that I had some talent for it. I made a mental note that the computer field might be something to pursue after an Army career.

Fortran Computer System 1970s
Computer punch card of the 1970’s

My next encounter with computing technology was in 1970, at Fort Carson, Co., during my first Field Artillery assignment. Our 8-inch self-propelled howitzer unit was involved in field testing “FADAC” (Field Artillery Digital Automatic Computer). Classmate cannoneers reading this may also have encountered it. FADAC was a metal, olive drab box, containing a specialized computer, with a built-in keyboard and small screen. Its’ purpose was to calculate artillery fire direction values such as azimuth, charge, elevation, etc., based on feedback from the Forward Observer. In our tests we ran FADAC in parallel with our manual calculations. I recall that in just about every case the manual calculations team completed and had new fire direction values ready well ahead of the FADAC team. In those early days of computing technology capability and speed, I guess FADAC was not ready for prime time.

FADAC

In 1974, at the end of my service obligation, I decided to change direction from an Army career and join the civilian world. Pondering “what next?”, I thought back to that “CADETRAN” course and decided to begin work toward an MS Computer Science degree at Virginia Tech. This was at a time when computing technology was still quite primitive. There weren’t any PC’s, the internet was years away, and no one had a cell phone. Most computers were behemoths that filled large room(s). Students still had to use punch cards to read programs into the computer. Remember those?

Degree completion took me into my corporate career in information technology. After a few years at Shell Oil, I moved on to Coca-Cola, where I spent the majority of my career. After 10 years at Coca-Cola, that brings us up to 1989 and that newsletter article. So, what did I predict in 1989 for the state of computing technology in year 2000?

  1. A graphic user interface (Windows, MAC) becomes the universal PC standard (at the time there were numerous PC’s still using a DOS interface).
  2. Standalone PC’s (which was mostly the case then) become fully networked.
  3. Fingerprint scanning becomes the PC identity and logon standard.
  4. Voice commands become the standard for PC control.
  5. Email use explodes and becomes ubiquitous (email was very limited in 1989 and mostly on internal company mainframes).
  6. Video files will be watchable on a PC and sent to others via email.
  7. The rolodex becomes obsolete, along with significant reduction in paper filing.
What do old computers look like
PC 1981

                             

How’d I do? Blew #’s 3 & 4 but did reasonably well on the rest. However, even those two were still correct in one sense. They occurred a decade or so later than 2000 and for a different device – the cell phone. Both of those capabilities are now in use on cell phones, but have never become commonplace on PC’s.

Military iPhone
IPhone

There are numerous other key computing technology achievements in the last 30 years that I would not have even conceived of in 1989.

A few examples:

  • The Internet
  • Cell phones as computers, cameras, GPS units
  • The degree of advancement in AI sophistication
  • Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, Map routing and a myriad of other useful applications
  • Flat monitors
  • Thumb drives
  • Broadband everywhere

Now, we’re in the 4th quarter of 2019, so, what do I predict for 2030 and beyond? Nope, not going there! Let me share 3 historical predictions by noted experts that were spectacularly wrong:

  • “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home” – Ken Olson (Founder, Digital Equipment Corporation) – 1977
  • “I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse” – Robert Metcalf (Inventor of Ethernet) – 1995
  • “There is no chance that the IPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” – Steve Ballmer (Former Microsoft CEO) – 2007

If the CEO of the world’s premier software company can botch a prediction that badly, I think I’ll just rest on the partial success of my 1989 predictions. Plus, I always keep in mind Yogi Berra’s wisdom, when he once said: “Predictions are hard, especially when they’re about the future”.

Gary Steele, Tight End – 2008

On 12 October 1968, a Saturday, Army hosted Cal-Berkeley at West Point.  Rain and cold had cancelled the regular Saturday morning full-dress parade on the Plain.  The weather was not what the favored Cal team (ranked 16th) was accustomed to.

For some reason that I’ve forgotten, I was invited to help man the chain gang at Michie Stadium1

Move the chains football
Work of a football “chain gang”

I had never done that before, so all my senses went into high gear.  “Don’t screw this up!” Seeing the game up close is quite different from standing in row 35.  You get an intimate sense for how tremendously kinetic the Division 1 game is, and how phenomenally athletic the best players are.

 

The foul weather and good defense on both sides kept it a low-scoring game.  Somewhere in the third quarter, Army had the ball and was moving toward the Cal goal line, at the south end of Michie.  I was holding my first down pole on the east side of the field, around the Cal 30, when the ball snapped and our big tight end Gary Steele exploded off the line, heading straight for me.  He was flying, a lot faster than he looked from the stands, and his defender matched him stride for stride.

As the play developed, Steve Lindell 2 threw a pass toward Gary.  From my unique perspective, it was obvious that the pass was long and too high.  Gary couldn’t possibly reach it. It would go incomplete.  Too bad.

Gary Army
Gary (82) in action on October 12, 1968

 

Wrong!  Gary kept on at full tilt, and at the uniquely perfect instant, jumped what looked like ten feet off the ground, a good two feet over his defender.  He hauled in that pass and got two feet in just before momentum took him out of bounds, a couple feet from me. Wow – Unbelievable catch!  First down!  A couple plays later, Army scored our only touchdown, and ultimately upset Cal, 10-7.  Grateful plebes fell out at tables all over the Corps.3

That was our senior year, and Gary’s best.  He caught 27 passes for 496 yards and three touchdowns. Against 4th-ranked Penn State, possibly our toughest opponent that year, he caught eight passes for 156 yards, breaking the Army single-game record set by “Lonely End” Bill Carpenter, Class of ‘60.  Gary was a huge contributor and a big part of our memorable 7 and 3 season, including beating Navy, again.  He was hugely respected, and much loved in our class.

Michie Stadium West Point
Gary at work in Michie Stadium, West Point, NY

Decades later, at the 2008 Founders Day dinner at Fort Lewis, a tableful of classmates reminisced about how much that football team had meant to us.  Gary’s name came up.

 

 

“Great athlete.”  “Great guy.”  People nodded.  One of my classmates said, “You know, Gary was the first African-American ever to play football for Army.”  Everyone emphatically protested.  That couldn’t possibly be true, we argued.  For one thing, we had come to West Point in 1965, and African-American players in Division 1 weren’t exactly a novelty by then.  For another, well, we just all would have known about it, if that had been the case.  Gary was such a seamless part of the team, and of the class, we would surely have known that.

West Point Founders Day Dinner
West Point Founders Day Dinner

Someone took out his smart phone and looked it up.  Sure enough, Gary had in fact been Army’s first African-American varsity football letter- man.  And even as well-known as he was in our class, most of us didn’t even know it decades later.  We were stunned. But that’s exactly what kind of classmate Gary was, and what kind of man he became.

 

Gary Steel Army Team
Gary Steele, Army Football

 

Footnotes:

  1. Michie Stadium (MIKE-ey) is West Point’s football stadium, named for Dennis Michie, USMA 1893, who played football at West Point and was Army’s first football coach. He was killed in the Spanish American War in Cuba in 1898, aged 28.
  2. Steve Lindell, USMA ’69, was Army’s starting quarterback.
  3. Until the mid-1970s, plebes were required to eat their meals sitting at an exaggerated position of attention – “bracing” – and in silence. For special occasions, the plebe class could be temporarily excused from bracing at meals, which was known as “falling out”.  Winning an important football game would often get the plebes a “fallout” for the week following the game.