The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romantic Analogue, by W.W. Skupeldyckle

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Title: The Romantic Analogue

Author: W.W. Skupeldyckle

Illustrator: Ed Emsh

Release Date: April 26, 2010 [EBook #32143]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANTIC ANALOGUE ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction September
1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

THE

Romantic Analogue

By W. W. Skupeldyckle

Illustrated by Ed Emsh

_Norm Venner's fancy was pretty well fixed on thoughts of
electronic calculators--until the invention started making
passes at the inventor!_

* * * * *

Mathematicians are just like people: old, young, fat, thin, male,
female. This one was male, thirty-five, with steady brown eyes and a
nice smile when he remembered to use it. His name was Norman Venner,
and besides being a mathematical whiz generally, he had designed and
built an electronic brain, or calculator, which was in some ways
smarter than himself--and a lot less diffident.

Electronic calculators are invariably given acronymic names such as
BINAC, SEAC, and MANIAC, and nine out of ten of them are of the
digital type. This is a nice way of saying that they count on their
fingers. They're nearly as big as yachts, and cost more, but can
calculate a million times faster than any human.

Norm's machine was of the analogue type, which is less flexible, less
complex, and vastly smaller and cheaper. He called it the ICWEA
(ICK-wee-ah), which stood for "I Can Work 'Em All!" It could, too! It
was especially good at deriving equations from curves, which was
really something.

Charley Oglethorpe burst into the office one morning, catching Norm in
a brown study. "Hi, Genius. How is she perk