Learn English – What did we say before “clockwise”

Before modern computers, the term computer was used to describe people who computed, and this term was indeed sometimes used as a job title or description. For instance, in an 1884 report of the U.S. Naval Observatory, a list of acknowledgements of assistance included these:

...Mr. Theo I. King throughout the year, in the grade of computer until April 20, 1897, and subsequently in the grade of assistant astronomer; Computer Frank B. Littell... Computer E. A. Boeger throughout the year; Computer G. K. Lawton ...

In fact the U.S. Civil Service had competitive examinations for the position of Computer. The 1890 test had sections on spelling, penmanship, copying, letter-writing, algebra, geometry, logarithms, and trigonometry. (The sample questions may be interesting to some.)

Computer was not just used for people, though; it came to be used for any tool which helped with computation. This was not just mechanical devices such as adding machines, but was also applied to sets of numeric tables and procedures published in books such as Screw Propeller Computer.

There probably was not much confusion when digital computers were coming into use, just as previously there was not a great deal of confusion between an adding machine, a book, and a civil servant. In the early years, computer was usually qualified by an adjective, e.g. electronic computer, at least at initial mention.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says sustainability is from 1972, though its root words are much older.

sustainable
1610s, "bearable," from sustain + -able. Attested from 1845 in the sense "defensible;" from 1965 with the meaning "capable of being continued at a certain level." Sustainable growth is recorded from 1965. Related: Sustainability (1972).

An article by Nathan Thanki called Sustainable: a philological investigation gives some background, here's an excerpt that neatly links sustainability with Nachhaltigkeit:

So it is what we are trying to sustain that is usually the meat of arguments about “sustainability”—is it overconsumption, overpopulation, environmental degradation? The term has become synonymous with that “meat” in the past few decades. The Club of Rome, in its 1972 report, “Limits to Growth,” claimed that it was searching for a global equilibrium, “a world system that is: 1. sustainable without sudden and uncontrolled collapse; and 2. capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people.” When the World Commission on Environment and Development (aka the Brundtland Commission) concluded with the notion of “sustainable development,” the emergence of the concept we know too well today was fully underway. Since that time, sustainability has come to be almost synonymous with “sustainable development, defined in Our Common Future as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
...
While the origins of the words association with the environmental seem to lie in the emergence of the environmental movement of the 70s, Ulrich Grober points out a deeper root. In “A conceptual history of ‘sustainable development’ (Nachhaltigkeit),” he argues that the term actually comes from 18th Century forestry (at the time timber was a key resource with an uncertain future). German nobleman and forester Hans Carl von Carlowitz wrote “’daß es eine continuirliche beständige und nachhal–tende Nutzung gebe,’ (that there would be a continuous, steady and sustained use).” Sadly, Europe no longer has any primeval forest outside of the Białowieża Forest in Poland and Belarus.So it would appear to me that the quest for “sustainability” is older than we commonly recognise, and, thus, so is our failure to achieve it: marking the failure of civilization.

Edit: The 1972 date is surprisingly late, here are some antecedents from 1906 and 1907.