40 years ago today: Computer Weekly January 24 1974
Companies like Aviva and First Direct may think they are ahead of the time with pay per mile style car insurance that track telemtry data and driving habits. In1974 researchers in Canada built a small computer into a car to find out how people interacted with road signs. Here's an extract from the article:
Research is concentrated on the interaction between driver and car in highway traffic. Their aim is to shed light on how best to appraise driver performance under various road and traffic conditions.
The experiments involve making precise measurements of vehicle motions without affecting the driver’s performance.
This necessitates a vehicle equipped with instruments capable of automatic recording of time, speed, distance travelled, steering wheel position, accelerator position and several other parameters — with the driver being unaware of the equipment.
The vehicle used in the project looks entirely normal, with V-8 engine, power steering and brakes, radio and so on. But the springs and shock absorbers have been altered to help offset any feeling that 500 pounds (227 KG ) of additional equipment, including a computer, are hidden in the boot.
The National Museum of Computing has a full copy of every print edition of Computer Weekly since our first in September 1966, and is now digitising the archive.
The final slide in this10 page look at at Computer Weekly's 24 January 1974 edition, is a snapshot of one of our job vacancy pages. How much were IT people paid back then?
More articles from the Computer Weekly archive
- What was happening in the IT world in July 1969 when Apollo 11 achieved its goal of putting a man on the moon?
- The first edition of Computer Weekly: September 22 1966