Radio: Univac & Monrobot

The radio & TV networks hope to end the suspense as quickly as possible on election night. In order to detect instantly any significant trends in the voting, CBS has arranged to use Univac, an all-electronic automatic computer known familiarly as the "Giant Brain." Because it is too big (25,000 Ibs.) to be moved to Manhattan, CBS will train a TV camera on the machine at Remington Rand's offices in Philadelphia. This week, and for the rest of the month, a staff of researchers is feeding 1944 and 1948 election results of each state into the Giant Brain. With all this material digested and memorized, the machine will be able on election night to respond every hour with a comparative analysis of the total popular and electoral votes for each candidate.

NBC has its own smaller electronic brain. Called Monrobot, it will also recall the past and help predict the outcome of the current election at the earliest possible hour. Says ABC's News Director John Madigan, professing a disdain for such electronic gimmicks: "We'll report our results through Elmer Davis, John Daly, Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson—and about 20 other human brains."