EPICAC (short story)

"EPICAC"
Short story by Kurt Vonnegut
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Science fiction short story
Publication
Published inWelcome to the Monkey House
Publication typeAnthology
PublisherDial Press
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Publication date1950
Pages8 pp

"EPICAC" is a short story in the book Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut. It was the first story to feature the fictional EPICAC computer later used in Vonnegut's novel Player Piano in 1952. It was published on 25 November 1950, for Collier's Weekly,[1] and reprinted in the February 1983 PC Magazine.[2]

The story was published just four years and nine months after the world's first electronic general-purpose computer, ENIAC, went on-line. ENIAC was the inspiration for his story.[3] The title is a near-homonym of "ipecac."

  1. ^ Jerome Klinkowitz The Vonnegut effect x p.22
  2. ^ Vonnegut, Kurt (February 1982). "EPICAC". PC Magazine. p. 393. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  3. ^ "ENIAC fetes 50-year birthday". CNET. February 15, 1996. Retrieved 5 June 2014.