Word: univacs
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...radio & TV networks hope to end the suspense as quickly as possible on election night. In order to detect instantly any significant trends in the voting, CBS has arranged to use Univac, an all-electronic automatic computer known familiarly as the "Giant Brain." Because it is too big (25,000 Ibs.) to be moved to Manhattan, CBS will train a TV camera on the machine at Remington Rand's offices in Philadelphia. This week, and for the rest of the month, a staff of researchers is feeding 1944 and 1948 election results of each state into the Giant Brain...
Frankenstein Monster? Mathematician Wiener had often said this before, and been pooh-poohed as an alarmist. Last week he was not laughed at. Allen N. Scares, vice president and general manager of Remington Rand, Inc., told of a machine, UNIVAC, manufactured by his company, that can do most of the numerical tasks now performed by flesh & blood clerks. In computing payroll checks, for instance, it "reads" (at 10,000 characters per second) two magnetic tapes with numbers coded on them. One tape carries all the data about each employee: his wage rate, tax status, pension deductions, etc. The other carries...
...many clerks UNIVAC would replace Scares did not say. He was confident that Remington Rand had not created a "Frankenstein [monster] which can turn upon us and wreck the very foundations of our society. History has demonstrated that there is an ultimate good in every new tool . . . The acceptance is gradual as the new tool proves its worth. It has never occurred as a sudden change...