Talk:Multivac

Spoiler warning
Are spoilers warnings still used? If so, can someone add one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.130.221 (talk) 02:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Is that really necessary? If you're looking up story content, your going to learn about stories. Thetrellan (talk) 20:04, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You're replying to a twelve-year-old comment, so I doubt the IP editor will read your response. For the record, Wikipedia eliminated spoiler warnings a long time ago: WP:SPOILER. TJRC (talk) 19:48, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Internet or AOL?
It seems to me that Multivac is a centralized "information utility" of the sort widely envisioned by early researchers working with timesharing systems. It is more like AOL or Compuserv than it is like the Internet. It's terminals and a single central computer rather than the Internet model of peered computers on a network. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.89.191.228 (talk) 14:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The claim that this is "an early version of the internet" is a bit of a stretch. Networked computers where, fairly, common in research and military before the internet, in fact the internet protocol is just an answer to some of the problems that early network protocols had, centralization, which it appears the Multivac is the epitomy of. If anything, it's an opposite to the internet we know today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.226.87.167 (talk) 10:12, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Multivac is Google
I remember reading Asimov books many years ago and thinking how useful a terminal in the corner of the living room which had the ability to give you the answer to any query would be. Amazing how Google is trying to do this too...

Asimov doesn't get enough credit for this invention. --Quatermass (talk) 10:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Because he did not do any actual inventing per se, he just thought up neat, phantastic concepts, without bothering with all the tedious real-life details of actually creating a mechanism. He might have inspired certain wishes of actual inventors though. --92.107.46.178 (talk) 10:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Google didn't invent searching a database, even over a webpage. 2) Google doesn't actually answer questions -- it merely presents the result of searching though a very large database, in a, somewhat, clever fashion (which has been increasingly worsened over recent years). Google and the Multivac are only very poorly related. Google is a search engine; Multivac is an artifical intelligence (whatever that acutally means, it's certainly more than a simple search engine). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.226.87.167 (talk) 10:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Inconsistency: Question or Franchise as the first Multivac story
The "Story lines" section claims that "Franchise" was the first Multivac story, and yet the bibliography lists "Question" as being first (and Question's own entry seems to concur). Which is to be believed? -68.55.108.235 (talk) 12:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Well spotted! It sounds like the confusion may have arisen because Question was removed from publication by Asimov.  Later compilations of Multivac stories are likely to have omitted it leading to Franchise appearing to be the first.  Anyway, I'll edit the article to reflect this interpretation, but tag the article up to see if we can get a proper source.  Cheers, --P LUMBAGO  14:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Univac
In one of Asimov's later collections, perhaps it's "Gold", there are a number of short essays on Isaac's work, his ideas about things, other scifi and all sorts.

He mentions that there was a real computer, Univac, one of the early primitive ones, that gave him the idea for the name. A Multivac presumably being something like a Univac but a bit bigger and more versatile. Perhaps this needs adding. I'll do it myself if I can find the quote, and nobody else does.

92.40.83.46 (talk) 16:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC) greenaum

Proposal for Deletion
Piotrus This is the second best known computer in science fiction, after HAL, and it is the most important in science fiction. It is used to teach computer science and there are a lot of articles about it. I will now start referencing them. Johncdraper (talk) 07:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * By all means, I'd love to see this saved. Feel free to remove the prod proposal and improve this. My main concern is that this has to go beyond plot summaries and discuss real world significance - literary analysis, use as an educational tool, etc. PS. Would be great to add a referenced claim that this is "the second best known computer in science fiction". --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:18, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Will this do? Let me know if you need page numbers or anything. Johncdraper (talk) 09:30, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

There's another fictional supercomputer
Wow, Multivac sure sounds like it has a lot in common with D.F. Jones' Colossus: The Forbin Project yet no mention of that one.

Hmmmm.

Curious. 2600:8800:785:8500:C23F:D5FF:FEC4:D51D (talk) 04:43, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Good catch. Try adding it to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_fiction. Johncdraper (talk) 07:43, 9 September 2020 (UTC)