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The First Time Computers Called An Election

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by Kevin Maney
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Nov 04 2008 10:54am EDT

The First Time Computers Called an Election

Kevin Maney writes: Wired.com today has a story on the 1952 election, and how CBS introduced the idea of using a computer to project results before the final count was in.

As Wired notes at the bottom, one of its sources was USA Today -- which would've been my 2004 column on the same topic. That column, in turn, was based on research for my book about Thomas Watson Sr., the man who built IBM. Watson in 1952 thought he had a dominating lead in computing and had associated the very idea of computing with IBM, much as Google has now associated the idea of search with its company. So Watson watched that '52 election on CBS, horrified that his branding lead was being swept away by the appearance of a Univac on network TV.

 

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