The Computer

[Flurida_BlackCreek]

My sources tell me it was a guy having problems with his icebox. So we had one of our techs pose as a appliance repairman and install some special equipment. I'm not so sure they installed the equipment right.

[thurlow]

As a Tennesseean, I REALLY RESENT the question..............and the implications!

[Gary_C]

So thurlow, who did you vote for this time?   

Better be careful what you confess, Jeff is looking for the guy that voted for Al.   

[Jeff]

Well!  I never thought I would get up to THIS this morning!  Being beaten by NOBODY??  I'm not yet ready to concede! HUMPH!  I'm watchin you close thurlow...

[thurlow]

As a Tennesseeeean, I REALLY RESENT the (thinly veiled) barbs;  I think the whole vote/election is flawed (flawn?);  there was no mass mailing done beforehand with the correct candidates indicated,  there was no party affilation indicated for the candidates, etc.  As a Tennesseeeeean, I've voted the straight Bull Moose ticket for years;  philosophically, of course, my heart will always belong to the Know Nothings, but we all know how long it's been since they fielded a viable candidate;  a vote for the people they've put up recently is a wasted vote and I refuse to waste my vote.................

[johnjbc]

This is an easy one for me. I started working for UNIVAC near the middle of the last Century. They were doing the research for the patent for electronics computers in the building where I worked. Univac won based on having acquired the rights to ENIAC
They then sold licenses to the other Computer Companies for I think 24 million dollars.
A lot of money back then!!! 
Univac became, Sperry Rand, then SPERRY, and then UNISYS that is still in business

[Gary_C]

The popular vote is still undecided as Jeff might still have a chance to overtake Nobody.   

Come on guys, support our leader, he must have had some hand in the invention.

RichlandSawyer wins the prize which is all the remaining IBM punch cards that are still in existence. I can't find any of my old ones and they were all in Fortran and Basic so an old C programmer probably would not know what to do with them anyway. So if you have any left, send them to RichlandSawyer.   

johnjbc
The ENIAC patents were declared invalid in Federal Court because the design was based on information they had obtained from the previous ABC design. They were unable to show they had developed any design work prior to consulting with Atanastoff.  The Federal Court ruling was never challenged.

The Atanastoff-Berry invention was sent to a patent attorney in 1940 but the patent was never completed because the inventors went on to WW II work and it was forgotten. So the inventors never received any financial rewards for their work.

[joelmar10]

I voted none of the above cause i'd heard the first computer design was mechanical and predated the twentieth century.  then I looked it up.

It was Charles Babbage and the Babbage Analytical Engine, although it was never built.  (It was built by a couple a dudes who published in Scientific American that they had built it and it worked flawlessly.  Apparently with no "blue screen of death."   

I think Jeff B should still take full credit.  It's the politically expedient thing to do.

[Jeff]

Iv'e decided to bow out of this and devote all of my energy towards the perpetual motion thread. 

[Bill]

Now I heard this rumor that this ( JB ) candidate has been selling kidneys on the QT to get soft money to buy the election  . . .     

( sells them in CR is what the rumor said - careful he doesn't ask ya for a ride to the airport ! )