If the Irish author, who grew up in China, had known that punch card machines reached there long before WWII, he might have got a kickstart in his career right on the spot instead of chancing upon the world of sorters and tabulators years later when he reached the West.
And this is the ad he should not have missed in the 1930s China Press
AUTOMATION
PRECISION
SPEED
an amazing 120 cards per minute!
A year in the life of a management consultant, and the year is 1966: the Vietnam war in full swing, and the consultant, an American computer specialist, recently arrived in Canada, is torn by President Johnson's call to arms, his bounden duty to his firm, and the allure of a fellow consultant of the opposing sex. He knows all about wearying airport vigils and white-knuckle flights that criss-cross the continent, but what an eye-opener, the foibles, vanities, and affectations of clients and professionals alike that confront him at every turn!
This fast-paced yarn is spun with a wonderful sense of the comic by Robin Maxwell who himself served in the trenches in the thick of the computer revolution when hardware at the cutting edge of technology one day was good only for the scrapheap the next.
ISBN 0969412223
Paperback
235 pages.
US$19.00, Can$21.00, UK£12.00, Aus$25.00, Euro15.00
Pangli Imprint, 1582 Rena Crescent,
West Vancouver BC, Canada V7V 2Z3
