smaller, memory capacity increased, and metropolises and their suburban cities began to introduce computers in earnest.
The main purpose of introducing computers for those cities at that time was to improve and rationalize office work.
(2) Mid-1960s to Mid-1970s
In this period, technological innovations in the field of data processing, including computers, progressed further. Computers equipped with IC chips were launched on the market in 1965 and computers with LSI chips in 1970. Such innovations resulted in improved cost performance as well as facilitating operation.
Local governments introduced more and more computers in order to deal with increased and more complicated demands due to rapid economic growth. Computers, therefore, spread not only to major cities and their surrounding regions, but to other municipalities all over Japan, and greatly contributed to making office work more speedy and efficient and to modernizing administrative operations.
Furthermore, using the adoption of computers in progressive organizations as reference, many local governments at this time studied the use of computers and drew up plans for their introduction in Cooperation with computer manufacturers. Not only did the use of computers spread to individual administrative work, but they came to be used throughout whole government offices as a comprehensive administrative information system. They even expanded into administrative fields directly linked to citizens, such as conservation of the living environment. It is evident that most of the basic structures of the various data processing systems currently used in each area of local administration were established in the early 1960s.
In this connection, the Local Government Information Centre was established in 1970 with the unanimous support of local authorities
