Re: Names of ancient computing devices [was: Re: The joy of FORTRAN]

ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) writes:

In article <mddv7skl9hy.fsf_-_@panix5.panix.com>,
Rich Alderson  <news@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:

c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> writes:

It was vac-tube tech then ... and 'digital' was kinda
limited to Turing's stuff and the incipent UniVac.

Quibble (reading this in a.f.c, naturally), If you're going to CamelCase the
name of that device, you should write UnivAC, as it's name was

Universal Automatic Computer

(understanding "computer" as the name of a human occupation which had been
 electronically automated).

Asimov took "AC" and ran with it:

https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html

In one of his essays, Asimov explained that he made the same error to which I
was responding above, that UniVac was a device with *one* *vacuum* *tube*, so
that he called the computer in his story "MultiVac".

--
Rich Alderson   news@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen