arnold@gatech.UUCP (Arnold Robbins) (01/14/85)
The letter which I have quoted in full below appears in the January 1985 CACM. I am sending it for posting on net.announce in the hope that it will reach an audience that might not otherwise have seen it. While there is a definite intersection of CACM readers and Usenet readers, I hope that by posting this to net.announce, I will reach the union of the set. I hope that any Usenet readers who can help Mr. Weiss out, will do so. Arnold Robbins --------- begin quoted article ----------------------- INFORMATION SOUGHT ON 'Only a Few Computers are Needed' STATEMENT * Eric Weiss, an editor of the Annals of the History of Computing, has requested that Communications print the following: * Some popular writers about the early days of computers quote a major industry figure as saying, "Only X of these giant machines will be needed to make all the calculations in the world." The number X is always small, ranging from three to 20. The person quoted is either a top corporate executive or a famous computing pioneer. The precise source of the remark is never given and my informal inquiries about it have not turned up any definite information, although some pioneers claim that there were many executive foot-draggers at the time who shared some version of the expressed opinion. The most recent publication of the remark is in _The_Experts_Speak_ by Christoperh Cerf and Victor Navasky where it appears on page 208 in the following form: " `I think there is a world market for about five compu- ters.' -- Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (chairman of the board of International Business Machines), 1943." The source cited is _Facts_and_Fallacies_, edited by Chris Morgan and David Langford, "an English anthology of `misguided predictions.' " The expert authors of both books have the quotation or the source, or both, wrong, for in 1943 a "computer" was a person and as late as 1950 Thomas J. Watson, both senior and junior, called large number crunching devices, like the Harvard/IBM Mark I, "calculators." So much for self- appointed experts! But the remark has already been put about in England and because of the popularity of the U.S. book the erroneous statement will now take its place with the Mencken Great Bathtub Hoax as part of the common wisdom. My own undocumented recollection is that a statement like this first turned up between 1946 and 1948 and was ascribed to a Remington-Rand executive. He was said to have said that since 18 Univacs would satisfy the computing needs of the U.S., that was all they should plan to make. Since they only wanted 18 customers, there was no need to make a large sales effort or give any information to tire-kickers. I would like to nail this remark down, if possible establish the statement as factual, or establish the fact that as of today, nobody can say that it is or is not. I would appreciate correspondence from anyone having more information on this remark or any close relative. I would like to find the precise wording of the remark and identify who said it, when, where, and under what circumstances. I would particularly like a copy of any documentation or a lead to such documentation. If I can't get documentation, I'd like to hear from the person who said it or from someone who heard it said. My intent is to publish what I find out (or do not find out) as a note in the _Annals_of_the_History_of_Computing_ in order to contradict _The_Experts_Speak_ and provide future historians of computing with something more definite than the existing apocryphal rumors. Eric A. Weiss Box 222 Springfield, PA 19064 Note: The full citation of the U.S. book is _The_Experts_Speak_, _The_ _Definitive_Compendium_of_Authoritative_Misinformation_, by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York City, 1984, 392 pages, ISBN 0-394-52061, (0-394-71334-6 pbk., $9.95).