anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) (08/23/86)
Some time back I posted this message. It contains a very dumb (and obvious) error. With but one exception, the responses I have received have drawn my attention to the error and had nothing of use to say about the questions. Naturally I'm quite embarrassed by the error, but [miniflame on the way] I'm even more embarrassed by the paucity of imagination in people whose only purpose in responding is to point it out. The answers I'm after are not on earth-shaking matters, but it would be nice to have responses that speak to the *obvious* question [end of mini- flame]. One responder suggested I should have posted to net.wanted, which makes sense, so I'm doing it here. The original (now corrected) posting follows: > How many computers are there in (a) the US and (b) the world? > What counts as "one computer" in the answer to this question? > How many micros are made each day? > > In "Cohabiting with Computers," Joseph F. Traub, editor, > Wm. Kaufmann, publishers (1985), two contributors make what > struck me as very large claims. One was that the number of > computers is greater than the number of people in the world, > which I take to be 5 million million. Even counting digital ^^^^^^^ thousand! (sigh :-) [silly me!] > watches, I find it hard to believe there are 5 billion > computers. Another author claims there are more computers > than people in the United States, which I take to mean 220+ > million. Could be, but that's a lot of computers! This same > author also says that more than one million microcomputers > are being manufactured each day. > > Does anyone know the facts here? If you will e-mail to me, > I will summarize to the net (include a suggestion where the > summary should appear, please). [The summary will appear in net.misc if at all.] -- ==UUCP: {harvard,seismo,topaz, =========================Jess Anderson====== | akgua,allegra,ihnp4,usbvax}!uwvax!uwmacc!anderson 1210 W. Dayton | | ARPA: anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu Madison, Wi 53706 | | BITNET: anderson@wiscmacc 608/263-6988 | ==When we awake, our senses open.========================(Chuang Tsu)=======