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From: wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Monkeys and Typewriters
Message-ID: <5500006@ccvaxa>
Date: Wed, 19-Feb-86 00:39:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.5500006
Posted: Wed Feb 19 00:39:00 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 04:48:56 EST
References: <101@hplabsc.UUCP>
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Nf-From: ccvaxa.UUCP!wombat    Feb 18 23:39:00 1986


Stories about monkeys and typewriters are a mini-genre I am interested in.
In addition to the story already mentioned ("Inflexible Logic" by Russell
Maloney) there's "Been a Long Time, Now" by R.A. Lafferty (in either
*Ringing Changes* or *Nine Hundred Grandmothers*).

I also have a yellowed newspaper article (June 1978) about a Yale physicist
who simulated the experiment on a computer. He cheated by giving the
"monkey" a huge keyboard with large numbers of space bars, letter e's,
letter o's, etc.  "Typing 10 characters per second, it took the computerized
monkey three days to get 'to be.'" After beefing up the "monkey" and letting
the program run one night the best he got was 'To dea now nat to be will and
them be does doesorns calawroutrould.'

"When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all."
				Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand*

						Wombat
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