Three Poseidon Computers Claim to Have a Brain Superior to Those of Britain's Eighty-Five Admirals Taken Together-News Item

STUART HEMSLEY

When I was a lad I served a term
As a card machine for Mr. Hollerith’s firm.
Sortings galore I could do at a glance
(And so could my sisters and my cousins and my aunts).
Then computer electronics made a bid for me,
And now I am the ruler of the Queen’s Navee.

I learned about flip-flop, bits, transistors
(And so did my cousins and my aunts and sisters).
Analogs and digitals of every kind
I simply looked at and then refined.
Never was a calculator quite like me!
And now I am the ruler of the Queen’s Navee.

The Navy called, and I had it made
As lieutenant (sub) or (junior grade).
(And had I known just a little bit more
I’d easily have qualified as commodore.)
This service life so suited me
That now I am the ruler of the Queen’s Navee.

I was doing all right; but what opened the door
Was my artful switch into the Memory Core.
There the sort of things I kept in mind
Were admirals’ indiscretions of a delicate kind.
And I fed these back so cunningly
That now I am the ruler of the Queen’s Navee.

The question arises; the point is moot:
How did I pluck this ripest fruit?
Did matchless competence carry the day?
Did my subtle outputtings pave the way?
The answer to that you will never get from me
Or from any other ruler of the Queen’s Navee.