Many times, of course, change is for the better: We all recognize that change can also mean an enhancement to a current process or product, or sometimes even a promising new direction for a successful company or department.

As an example, take the handheld electronic calculator, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Today you can go to any discount store and purchase one for less than $5. Now many of us take this device for granted, but remember what it used to be like to double-check stress predictions without one?

There has been no end to the parade of new devices designed to perform such calculations faster and more reliably. Even today's high-tech computers grew out of the need to develop more powerful calculating machines. As I write this on a computer powered by a potent chip, I would be remiss if I didn't pay homage to the 1967 Texas Instruments calculator that played a key role as a precursor to today's machines.

This calculator itself represented an improvement over the 1946 Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), which relied on thousands of vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors, and switches to work. One of its predecessors, the difference engine invented in 1833 by Charles Babbage, showed how calculations more complex than addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division could be handled mechanically. Unfortunately, Babbage didn't live to fully execute his ambitious design.

Babbage himself took up the torch from Blaise Pascal, who invented the first mechanical calculator in 1642. It used gears to add a column of up to eight figures.

Even before sophisticated mechanical calculators was the slide rule. William Oughtred created the device in 1621 when he placed two Gunther rules—which plotted a number of logarithms—side by side. The slide rule remained popular well into the 1960s and even into the early 1970s.

The mother of all calculators was the abacus, invented between 2300 B.C. and 500 B.C. The origin of the archetypal calculator is uncertain, but its use and impact are certainly well documented. Russian engineers used the abacus to perform some calculations as late as the launch of Sputnik in 1957.

Not all changes represent such dramatic paradigm shifts, however.

Here at Mechanical Engineering, we've undergone a change of our own. Dan Deitz, who has splendidly covered the computing industry for this magazine, has been promoted to managing editor. Dan will continue to keep his hand on the pulse of the computing field, but he will also assist in developing the magazine's long-range strategy.

Beginning next year, you can look forward to more changes, such as new features and new departments aimed at better helping you keep on top of the profession. On the electronic front, our home page on the World Wide Web, at www.memagazine.org, will also see some changes. Using the strength of the electronic medium, we will provide greater amounts of timely information online and present more electronic information on the stories we bring you in print.

The moves we make won't be akin to reinventing the abacus. Rather, they will help us—and, by extension, our readers—harness high-end computing technology to do our job faster and more reliably into the next millennium.

Email your comments or questions to: falcionij@asme.org

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