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<DIV><FONT face=Garamond>Like others I've really enjoyed this string. In a
piece of very scientific research on a cold Sunday afternoon I googled
electronic brain and discovered an article from Nov 9, 1946 in the <EM>Surrey
Comet</EM> newspaper, which covers Teddington where the NPL is located. It
is discussing Turing's ACE machine under the headline "Electronic Brain to be
made at Teddington" as an improvement on ENIAC. A few years ago I was lost
when driving near Teddington, and when I stopped to look at a map looked up and
saw the blue plaque where Alan Turing lived 1945-1947 before he went to
Manchester. On then searching <EM>The Times</EM> for electronic brain
between 1900 and 1950 I came across a speech by Lord Mountbatten, President of
the British Institution of Radio Engineers, who on October 30 1946 appeared to
use the term 'electronic brain', which was incorporated into the headline.
(Lord Mountbatten was very high profile, the Queen's Uncle-in-Law (& cousin)
and in WWII was Supreme Allied Commander of SE Asia, Vinegar Joe Stillwell's
boss) There were a number of letters protesting the term electronic brain,
including one from the Director of the NPL responsible for the ACE who ever so
gently blamed Mountbatten. Another protest about the term was from
Prof Hartree, Dir of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. On Feb 28
there was a CUP advertisement for Hartree's new book 'Calculating Machines'
described as including 'an account of ENIAC, the so-called electronic
brain'. Like to have been a fly on the wall when he next met his
publisher! I've no idea whether or not Tom set the list up with the
ability to accept attachments but if so you will see the result of these
searches.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Garamond>kind regards</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Garamond>neil</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Garamond></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Dr Roger Neil Barton<BR>Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Historical
Research<BR><A
href="http://www.uclmail.net/~neil.barton/">http://www.uclmail.net/~neil.barton/</A></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jwcorta@us.ibm.com href="mailto:jwcorta@us.ibm.com">James Cortada</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=thaigh@computer.org
href="mailto:thaigh@computer.org">Thomas Haigh</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=members-bounces@sigcis.org
href="mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org">members-bounces@sigcis.org</A> ; <A
title=members@sigcis.org
href="mailto:members@sigcis.org">members@sigcis.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, January 31, 2009 10:21
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Another
question - "Giant Brains"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<P>So much good dialogue has taken place today on this topic that I think we
should ask Evan to consolidate all of this into a short article that goes into
one of the back sections of the Annals or into an article in some media
journal. If that works, there are a bunch of other things we could flush out
from time to time using this social networking/wisdom of crowds approach. We
might even expand Evan's assignment by discussing automation next weekend and
then the following weekend cybernetics.<BR><BR>Jim (James) W.
Cortada<BR></P></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>