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Batch Processing

It is hard for modern people to put the PC experience aside in order to get into the minicomputers spirit. But even harder is to conceive a computational environment which is not interactive at all. Not being able to run a program by just entering its name as a command. Not entering data from the keyboard directly into the application's interface nor asking short question for getting immediate answers.

Computers, however, worked in "batch processing" for more than twenty years: from early 50s to long after UNIX were invented in 1972. Software and data were entered from files and results were obtained thought the printer after minutes (if not hours) of silent computing.

Today is hard to imagine such a work flow, specially while designing a homebrew minicomputer. It seems to be no excitement in writing programs that just read files and make printouts.

But that's precisely why I encounter "batch processing" to be a fascinating field for exploration. I consider it a mental challenge because it will require for me to rethink Computing all together up to the point that my current experience as a computer user is not use.