Episode 156 - RPG, a Different Paradigm?

How do you make a computer act less like a computer? It sounds like some kind of riddle, but in the early 1960s it was an actual problem. As IBM customers transitioned from tabulators to computers they ran into all sorts of practical issues. Programmers became a hot commodity. But how do you find a programmer in 1959? And how can you even afford such a luxury? Wouldn't it be better if you could just use your new computer as a tabulator? Well, with RPG, all that and more was possible.