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Well the drug dealers were certainly there first, etymonline.com has this to say of "user": Of narcotics, from 1935; of computers, from 1967." I am struggling
by jazzyjackson 5y ago
Well the drug dealers were certainly there first, etymonline.com has this to say of "user": Of narcotics, from 1935; of computers, from 1967."
I am struggling to find a source for who first called users "users" back in 1967 - Actually I see it being used in the 1965 "Multics" papers [0] and the 1964 article in The Atlantic "Computers of Tomorrow" [1], as if it was already a term-of-art.
[0] https://multicians.org/history.html https://multicians.org/history.html
[1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~traister/greenbf.html https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~traister/greenbf.html
- jarpadat 5y agoOED gives the following usages, the first of which suggest users predate computers: 1950 Science 112 732/1 Analog machines..are enthusiastically supported by their users. 1959 E. M. McCormick Digital Computer Primer x. 139 The number of instructions which can be executed by a computer represents a compromise between the designer's and user's requirements.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoThanks for a good reference! It makes sense that "users of a service" or "user of a machine" slipped its way into computer jargon, no need to be coined or anything. I'm tempted to pick up a copy of Digital Computer Primer on ebay, I love the old explanations of what these machines even are.