The Computer Museum in Marlborough, Massachusetts houses old and not-so-old calculators, famous old computers and parts of computers, photographs and assorted memorabilia, computer-generated murals, and even a computer made of Tinkertoys that plays tick-tack-toe. The development of the museum and selected exhibits is described. (Author/JN)

Describes the hardware, software, applications, and current proliferation of personal computers (microcomputers). Includes discussions of microprocessors, memory, output (including printers), application programs, the microcomputer industry, and major microcomputer manufacturers (Apple, Radio Shack, Commodore, and IBM). (JN)

Methods to make computer searching as simple and efficient as possible have led to the development of various data structures. Data structures specify the items involved in searching and what can be done to them. The nature and advantages of using "self-adjusting" data structures (self-adjusting binary search trees) are discussed. (JN)

Mathematical modeling problems encountered in many disciplines are discussed in terms of the modeling process and applications of models. The models are classified according to three types of abstraction: continuous-space-continuous-time, discrete-space-continuous-time, and discrete-space-discrete-time. Limitations in different kinds of modeling…

Administrators at small colleges are devising innovative policies to compete with recruiters from corporations and large universities to attract computer-science professors and hold on to them. Williams College offers higher salaries, while Middlebury College pays computer-science instructors as administrators on 11-month contracts. (MLW)

GLISP is a high-level computer language (based on Lisp and including Lisp as a sublanguage) which is compiled into Lisp. GLISP programs are compiled relative to a knowledge base of object descriptions, a form of abstract datatypes. A primary goal of the use of abstract datatypes in GLISP is to allow program code to be written in terms of objects,…

The genesis of individual computing devices, some of their applications, and the market for personal computers are reviewed, including discussions of electronic mail and computerized music. (JN)

The controversy over whether or not machines can think has attracted the attention of philosophers, psychologists, neurologists, computer scientists, and writers of science fiction. Various topics and issues related to this controversy are discussed, including turing machines and the relationship between computer history and mathematical…

Describes the use of computer technology in the graphics communication industry. Areas that are examined include typesetting, color scanners, communications satellites, page make-up systems, and the business office. (CT)

Presents a summary of nine research reports from a National Educational Computing Conference research workshop whose purpose was to bring together researchers who have been conducting gender-related research in computer science education. Three subgroups discussed the issues of exposure, attraction, and retention of women to computer science. (MDH)

To determine how hard it is for computers to solve problems, researchers have classified groups of problems (polynomial hierarchy) according to how much time they seem to require for their solutions. A difficult and complex proof is offered which shows that a combinatorial approach (using Boolean circuits) may resolve the problem. (JN)

Presents two examples which illustrate the usefulness of ideas from cellular automata. First, Lee's algorithm is recalled and its cellular nature shown. Then a problem from digraphs, which has arisen from analyzing predecessing configurations in the famous Conway's "game of life," is considered. (Author/JN)

In an attempt to specify in some canonical terms what many heuristic programs known as "expert systems" do, an analysis was made of ten rule-based systems. It was found that these programs proceed through easily identifiable phases of data abstraction, heuristic mapping onto a hierarchy of pre-enumerated solutions, and refinement within this…

Scientists feel that progress in artificial intelligence and the availability of thousands of experimental results make this the right time to build and test theories on how people think and learn, using the computer to model minds. (MSE)

Describes (in separate articles) 25 developments in science, technology, and medicine that have potential impact on the near future. They include discoveries related to space butterflies, drugs, twenty-first century software, experimental mathematics, brain drugs, egg development, ultrasmall microchips, the biology of birth, cancer-causing genes,…