READING the article “The rise of the machines” (The Press, March7) took me back to the late 1950s when, as a teenager working for Caterpillar Tractor Co, in Birtley, Co Durham, they introduced IBM (international business machines) and I, with another three girls, was chosen to learn how to use them.

It was the punched cards system with a keyboard very much like a typewriter, but with the numerals down the right side not along the top.

There was the sorting machine and a huge calculating machine which had to be programmed for all the different jobs done on it.

Nobody then knew how technology would advance the way it has and taken over so many jobs, but Richard Hind also says in the article something similar to what a friend of mine has said for years: “How long before we start chipping ourselves?”

Then Big Brother sadly will have taken over completely.

Maureen Robinson, Broadway, York.