By Michael Motes

When she arrived to work at the Catholic Center, it was the dawning of a new era for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Her credentials were flawless and she was greeted the first day on the job with admiring glances and great awe at her secretarial and mathematical prowess.

But she is rather picky about her working conditions, an example being that she demands constant temperature control and also that the carpeting be kept completely free from "static electricity."

These are minor demands, however, as she does not object to working evenings and weekends and does not expect extra pay for these extra hours she puts in on her job.

Her name is Martha, and she is a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) 310 computer.

She was "adopted" by the Archdiocesan Comptroller, Joe Estafen, on July 1 and originally named Edgar. Joe comments however that he was out-voted in the naming process by the women in the Chancery Office.

"They said that anyone who works that hard must be a woman, and chose the name Martha after the biblical figure who wiped the feet of Christ," Estafen said.

He commented that the Archdiocese of Atlanta is one of very few small dioceses in the country to have a computer at work. In the southeast, only Pensacola and Birmingham have similar equipment. He hopes that Martha will become a model for other dioceses in the Province.

The best way to find out about Martha and what she does is to let her speak for herself. So, we interviewed her and here's what she had to say:

GB: Good morning, Martha. Have you ever been interviewed before?

MARTHA: No, but I've spit out a lot of numbers lately. I've had no direct personal interviews outside those with my friends Joe, who selected me, and Evelyn Grentzer who operates me most of the time.

GB: Let's start with some basic information, such as what kind of computer are you?

MARTHA: Well, actually I'm a mini-computer with a 16,000-character core memory. That means that I can utilize 16,000 letters, digits or symbols all at one time. The nice thing about it is that I can be expanded to use 64,000 characters at one time. So you see, I am rather flexible!

GB: Do you mean that you can expand yourself by four times?

MARTHA: That's right. Besides that, my dual floppy disc capacity allows me to use data from changeable discs as well.

GB: A floppy disc sounds serious. What is it and have you seen a doctor.

MARTHA: It's nothing medical. It's similar to a 45-rpm record with information stored on grooves. When inserted into my disc drives, the read heads (like a record player needle) can pick up whatever is stored on the discs.

GB: How long does that take?

MARTHA: I can find any record of information in the disc in 70 milliseconds, a millisecond being one one-thousandth of a second. To give you a better example of how fast I think, I can solve 11,200 multiplication problems in once second.

GB: That's fast!

MARTHA: Yes. I'm really only limited by the speed of the printer, which is 180 characters per second, or 2,160 words per minute.

GB: Is that without errors?

MARTHA: Yes.

GB: What initially will you be doing for the Archdiocese?

MARTHA: To start with, I have taken over all bookkeeping and accounting functions. That includes check writing, journals, accounts receivable, general ledger and budgetary reports. It's all part of the centralized accounting program launched on July 1 of this year.

GB: Anything else?

MARTHA: Yes, my mailing label program enables users to do a mass mailing in a jiff. I can do labels for all clergy of the Archdiocese in three to four minutes.

GB: Do you work alone?

MARTHA: Now, I have a new roommate -- WS202, a word processor.

GB: What does WS202 do?

MARTHA: That does not compute. You'll have to ask WS202.

GB: Perhaps another time. Thank you Martha.