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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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moy
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040692
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0406995.000
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1992-08-28
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1KB
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VIEW POINTS, Page 69TELEVISIONMachines That Think
When CBS hired a newly minted Univac to analyze the vote in
the 1952 presidential election, network officials thought it a
nifty publicity stunt. But when the printout appeared, an
embarrassed Charles Collingwood reported that the machine couldn't
make up its mind. It was not until after midnight that CBS
confessed the truth: Univac had correctly predicted Dwight
Eisenhower would swamp Adlai Stevenson in one of the biggest
landslides in history, but nobody believed it. It is a defining
moment in THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, a surprisingly
satisfying five-part history of the computer that starts April 6
on PBS. Crafted from old footage and fresh reportage by a team of
veteran Nova and BBC hands, it is less a chronicle of hardware
than a loving exploration of the sometimes rocky relationship
between the first mindlike machines and the people who created
them. Heady data for a generation that tends to take its Macs
and PCs for granted.
By Philip Elmer-De Witt.