levin@cc2.bbn.com (11/26/86)
From: Joel B Levin <levin@cc2.bbn.com> >From: PUGH%CCX.MFENET@LLL-MFE.ARPA > . . . a great many of the best sentient >computer stories were of the short variety. Including the first and >most classic short-short where they fired up the first sentient >computer and asked it "Is there a God?" and the computer said, >"There is now!" It was a one page story that I read LONG ago. <Bibliography isn't my business>, and my memory tends to leak; while I can't tell you the name of the book I saw it in (it was high school or earlier) I am quite sure it was written by Frederic Brown (of "Arena" and _Rogue_in_Space_ fame). A book of his short stories had a two page short short between each normal length short story and this was one of them (at the ribbon cutting and powering up ceremony for the latest and greatest don't-this-beat-all computer, they ask the question "Is there a God?". As a bolt of lightning fuses the power switch, a great voice replies . . .). /JBL UUCP: {world}!bbnccv!levin or {world}!bbncca!levin ARPA: levin@bbn.com