Booklet from DEC for the Swiss computer market, 1982
Since the 1980s, computers have been increasingly used for office work. They arrived at the work places as PCs and were networked with each other. It was the first time that users who did not need to know anything about the technical features of computers came into direct contact with them. Using the example of the Swiss Federal Administration, the study discusses the history of digitisation processes that were set in motion with the introduction of personal computers and the establishment of digital networks and examines how PCs became regular office machines at the desks of civil servants.
In the 1980s and 1990s, microelectronic end devices and new networking technologies made it possible to shift less structured tasks such as office work into the digital space. However, for most of the new users to be able to work independently on computers, subtle disciplining, organisational precautions and a rigorous restriction of the scope for action on the computer were necessary. At the same time, the Federal Administration had to think about its own organisation and the functionality of its procedures and adapt them constantly. The organisational environment needed to be made compatible with a digital space that was expanding through networking. To this end, IT managers in the Federal Administration worked on the connectability between analogue and digital workflows. The functioning of administrative activities depended on ensuring that the frame of reference of analogue practices was not lost when new areas of work were transferred into the computer. Responsibilities and access rights had to be distributed, procedures for documentation and storage had to be negotiated and legal validity and security for actions in the digital space had to be guaranteed.
The study deals with this work at the interface between administrative reality and an increasingly ubiquitous and indispensable digital infrastructure. It draws on sources from the Swiss Federal Archives on the digitisation of the Federal Administration in the 1980s and 1990s, sources on the position of the trade union toward digitisation of the office work from the Swiss Social Archives, various journals and computer science works.
