aaw@pyuxss.UUCP (Aaron Werman) (04/05/84)
[In the beginning was the pale signature,]
Geoffrey Austrian:
Herman Hollerith - Forgotten Giant of Information Processing
Columbia U. Press, 1982, 418p hardcover
Woody Allen once wrote a story in imitation of S. J. Perelmans' style
about a regular man. Rather than exalt the mundane, he was described
through a series of shopping lists. There was no insight to the man
himself, and the story was very funny.
Austrian has apparently chosen the same tactic in describing Hollerith.
An example quote (p. 320):
"The butter on the market was so poor that I recently started
Mrs. Fletcher down on the farm making butter for me... The
only trouble is I like it so well and eat so much of it I am
getting fat. I now weigh stripped 197 1/2. It is altogether
too much and yet I don't want to tell Mrs. Fletcher not to
make the butter so good." (ellipsis are in the book)
There are many such descriptions of food, several shopping lists, and
a few business letters. The author (an IBMer)is not a professional
writer and had few facts and no insight to bear on the subject. Minimal
discussion of the technical issues leaves them murky.
{harpo,houxm,ihnp4}!pyuxss!aaw
Aaron Werman