Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.2602:f977:0:1::5!not-for-mail From: Rich Alderson Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Names of ancient computing devices [was: Re: The joy of FORTRAN] Date: 09 Mar 2025 21:50:29 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 19 Sender: alderson+news@panix5.panix.com Message-ID: References: <59CJO.19674$MoU3.15170@fx36.iad> Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="2602:f977:0:1::5"; logging-data="5412"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 22.3 Bytes: 1620 Charlie Gibbs writes: > On 2025-03-08, Rich Alderson wrote: [ snip ] >> 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". > No, he called it "Multivac". CamelCasing had yet to be invented at the time. Well played. -- 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