CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite demonstrates a computer of the future, connected to a global library, in 1967. (Library of Congress photo).
This chapter takes us from Charles Babbage’s difference engine to modern computers. Although early computer development is usually excluded from media history, this seems (from a 21st century standpoint) to be a major omission. And in fact, we find a tremendous fascination with computers in the news media from the very outset.
For example, in 1952, CBS news worked with Univac computer manufacturer Sperry-Rand to help project the winner of the presidential election. Based on previous election returns and voting patterns, the Univac helped programmers project that Dwight Eisenhower would win 438 electoral votes and his opponent, Adlai Stevenson, would win 93. The official count would turn out to be 442 and 89 electoral votes. Although Eisenhower seemed likely to win at the time, the landslide was unexpected. In fact, the data seemed so out of line with other predictions that the CBS network news team and the computer programmers held it back, claiming that they had some kind of computer malfunction.
The next morning, reviewers found it charming that computers had such a hard time replacing humans. “The CBS pride was called the Univac, which at a critical moment refused to work with anything like the efficiency of a human being,” TV reviewer Jack Gould wrote in The New York Times. “This mishap caused the CBS stars, Walter Cronkite, Ed Murrow and Eric Sevareid to give Univac a rough ride for the rest of the evening, in a most amusing sidelight to the CBS coverage.”
Actually, the computer’s projections were so accurate that it frightened not only the CBS news producers but also the Univac programmers. According to the National Academy of Engineering, the projection was so unequivocal that Univac’s operators grew nervous and altered the program to produce a different result. “They later confessed that the initial projection of electoral votes had been right on the mark,” the NAE said
Discussion questions
- Curves in the road: Did Microsoft really get away with highway robbery when it licensed its operating system to IBM? And how about Apple and Xerox?
- Moore’s Law: What is it and does it still apply?
- Univac and CBS — What happened when CBS used a Univac computer to predict results during the 1952 presidential election campaign? How exactly was the computer so unnervingly accurate?
People & Events
Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Herman Hollerith, Grace Hopper, Vannevar Bush, William Shockley, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Englebart, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates
Documentary Videos
- Triumph of the Nerds — PBS Website Some of the contents of the video can be found with a YouTube search. There are two Nerds series with a total of six two-hour episodes. Most of the major figures in computing and network history are profiled in the Nerds series. There’s also an interesting personal narrative by Robert X. Cringely.
- Apple Mac “1984″ ad — YouTube link often breaks, but if this doesnt work, the ad is frequently uploaded and can be found with a search.
- Doron Swade displays Babbage’s difference engine in this YouTube Video. Also, Nathan Myhrvold & Doron Swade discuss Babbage’s difference engine.
Interesting Links
- ENIAC – The press conference that changed the world, by Dianne Martin, GWU.
- History of computing, assembled by Mike Muuss, with an emphasis on ENIAC and the US Army. Site has a wealth of information and is well worth exploring despite a somewhat limited design style.
- Fark.com Photoshop contest, September 2004, showing the different captions for the submarine control room photo supposedly the “home computer of the future.” Snopes.com site explains the computer of the future controversy.
- We owe it to the hippies — Forget antiwar protests, Woodstock, even long hair, says Stewart Brand. The real legacy of the sixties generation is the computer revolution.
