From: "James M. Cobb" <jcobb@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 06:29:39 +0800
To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: POTP gets good press
In-Reply-To: <199602072251.RAA25348@pipe2.nyc.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSD.3.91.960208155720.6253A-100000@ahcbsd1.ovnet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 
 
  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.