办公自动化系统-业论文外文翻译.docxVIP

Appendix 1Office Automation SystemOffice Automation is a general term that includes a wide range of applications of computer, communication and information technologies in office environments. Though automation is in a continual state of flux, the size of the market is huge, with annual investments measured in billions of dollars. Automation has altered not only our work environment, but our very concept of work. The technology we see today had its start in the 1960s, when 3 clearly identifiable streams of development became evident. The first was computing, where the earliest applications were automated payroll and inventory-control systems. Other applications were also limited to the processing of numerical data. These systems were usually operated only by programmers in the data-processing division of the organization, who jealously guarded their computers and the power their knowledge of the computer gave them. Nevertheless, the applications of computers in organizational settings grew to include more and more kinds of data processing. The second stream of technological development was in the area of text processing. In the mid-1970s IBM introduced a product called the MCST - Magnetic Card Selectric Typewriter. This device had a box crammed with electronic equipment. The operator would insert a specially coated card the size and shape of a standard IBM punch card into a slot on the top of the box and would type on the attached typewriter as usual. The card served as a memory device, on which the text would be written in a code based on magnetized spots. Once it was entered, the text could be edited and played back, causing a new copy to be typed out on the attached typewriter. Compared to current word-processing systems, this one was primitive, but it worked. While the first 2 streams were centered around the processing of information in the office, the third, COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, focused on the movement of information from one place to another. A wi