MISCELLANEOUS

"Contrasting this modest effort [of Seymour Cray in his laboratory to build the CDC 6600] with 34 people including the janitor with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer."
Thomas J. Watson, IBM President, 1965

"It seems Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
Seymour Cray

"This is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's [IBM's] Galaxy-wide success is founded...their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."
TH Nelson, Computer Lib., 1988, London: Penguin.

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
Professor Edsger Dijkstra

"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in."
Bradley's Bromide

"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining."
Jeff Raskin

"If EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose millions because EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the millions, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted."
Disclaimer from Haventree Softwares's Easy Flow package

"The problem with computers is you *play* with them."
Richard Feynman

What Every Computer Consultant Needs to Know:
1) In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
2) Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them.
- Murphy's Computer Laws

"There's a pecking order around here, & you can't go around the pecking order."
Mervin E Muller, Chairman, OSU Computer & Info Science, 27 Dec 1990

"Computer viruses are an urban myth . . . "
Peter Norton

"I just posted from Babbage Museum London. UK, and BOY ARE MY ARMS TIRED!!"
Rolf Wilson, in alt folklore computers

"You cannot pray to a personal computer no matter how user-friendly it is."
W. Bingham Hunter

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."
Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer_Networks, Second Edition, p. 57

Wernher Von Braun when asked if man can be replaced by computer in spaceflight: "The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor."

"That's what's cool about working with computers. They don't argue, they remember everything and they don't drink all your beer."
Paul Leary, Lead guitarist, The Butthole Surfers, Guitar World, Sept. 1991, p70.

"And when I have understanding of computers, I will be the supreme being!"
Evil (from "Time Bandits")

"The power of the computer is locked behind a door with no knob."
B. Laurel

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
Joseph Campbell

"The real targeting computer is upstairs in his brain, and it doesn't have an 'off 'switch. This guy is so wrapped-up with his work that even when he sits down for dinner he's preparing for battle. He tests his visual acquisition sensors by locking onto the mash potatoes as they are passed from one end of the table to the other. He calculates wind deflection by observing how the steam rises off the meat loaf. He even measures the diameter of the green peas, seeing them as micro-targets. If he looks you straight in the eye, you'll feel as if you have a bullseye on your forehead."
from the package of a G.I. Joe Modern Army Action figure. For ages four and older.

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim"
Edsgar W. Dijkstra

"Visualization is a method of computing. It transforms the symbolic into the geometric, enabling researchers to observe their simulations and computations. Visualization offers a method for seeing the unseen. It enriches the process of scientific discovery and fosters profound and unexpected insights. In many fields it is already revolutionizing the way scientists do science."
McCormick, DeFanti, and Brown, et.al.

Visualization in Scientific Computing,
Computer Graphics, November 1987 ACM Siggraph

People mistakenly believe that computers have a lot to do with numbers, which is totally inaccurate. In fact, a large number of bluffers have gone into computers because there's no area in which it's easier to hide a complete inability to count, except perhaps mathematics.
Bluff Your Way in Computers

"Only Apple could slow down a 68030 chip"
Computer Shopper

"Unix is not a "A-ha" experience, it is more of a "holy-shit" experience."
Colin McFadyen in alt.folklore.computers

There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers.
Steven Levy, "Hackers"

"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."
ancient computer saying

You can tell how far we have to go when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers.
Steven Feiner

If you lie to the computer, it will get you.
Perry Farrar

Computers should work the way beginners expect them to, and one day they will.
Ted Nelson

The main difference between a User and a Hacker: A User buys a faster computer to spend less time with it. Happy hacking!
From rec.humor.funny

"The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers."
Sydney Harris

In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
Brian K. Reed

The IBM compatible sector has not yet recognized that 95% of computer usage is devoted to experimenting with different fonts and character styles in documents.
Ron Reiner

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.
D. Adams, Mostly Harmless

"Odd corners of desk, table, and shelf were occupied by the eviscerated remains of computer equipment: slain, half-eaten, and left for electronic jackals."
Michael Flynn

Man is a game playing animal and a computer is another way to play games.
Scott Adams

If automobiles had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
Robert Cringely

I try to get people to see what I have... When you run a computer company, you have to get people to buy into your dreams.
Steve Jobs

The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little.
Porterfield

Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in.
Gunter Grass

While land, labor, raw materials and capital were the main factors of production in the Second Wave economy of the past, knowledge broadly defined here to include data, information, images, symbols, culture, ideology and values is now the central resources of the Third Wave economy.
Alvin & Heidi Toffler

Most C.E.O.'s still believe that it's the chief information officer's job to identify the information he requires. This is, of course, a fallacy. The information officer is a toolmaker; the C.E.O. is the tool user.
Peter F. Drucker

People who buy Macs are the same people who said BETA is better than VHS 15 years ago. Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
Unknown

"There are two major products to come out of Berekley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
Unknown

"If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and none dare criticize it."
Unknown

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." Example of why it is difficult to get computers to understand human speech.
Unknown