John, 02 08 96 Reuter Information Service newsstory datelined Philadelphia, headlined PIONEER SAYS COMPUTER HAS BEEN NICE, NOT AWESOME reports: [Herman] Goldstine was working as an army ballistics researcher when he sold the military on an idea of Penn researchers John Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert that an electronic computer could vastly hasten the calculation of ballistics tables needed in contemporary warfare. Fortunately, The military backed the idea in June, 1943.... Unfortunately, The team faced obstacles such as broken steam pipes and a leaky ceiling in its workroom and scepticism by the engineering and mathematics es- tablishment. In particular, The National Defence Research Committee, a government agency to evalu- ate new technology, concluded that an electronic computer would be too big and unreliable to be practical. How nice that 50 years later, we can gratulate ourselves on Lessons Learned. Cordially, Jim NOTE. The newsstory's www.nando.net online filename is: info24_16459.html INCLOSURE: Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 17:51:22 -0500 From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com> To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Re: POTP gets good press Robert "Bob" Harvey once hung out at BBN. Maybe he is the one who seeks slick-kill ripoff with aptly snake-oily-named Internet Security Corp., which may be telephoned at 617-863-6400. POTP was pummeled last fall on c'punks. For the latest lubrications see: URL: http://www.elementrix.co.il/home.html Audacious marketing, these NatSec privatizing firms, and the log-rollers for USMA and SAIC, preaching dire threats, promising if-you-knew-what-we-knew security, info-warrioring fundamentalism.