Organised Elections

[1333david]

I read this article "Organised elections" in the Psion News Issue 2 1987. I wonder if they will be using it for tonight's UK election broadcast!

"The Organiser II may not have been able to vote in the last election, but that did not prevent the machine from expressing its opinions about who the winners would be.

The handheld machine was used by Bristol mathematician and part-time broadcaster Dr Gordon Reece to produce estimates about who the winners and losers would be — based on incoming election night results. Using the Organiser II, Dr Reece entered results into the machine, a model that he has been using for the past ten years, to forecast election results.

And with the recent advent of Psion’s Pocket Spreadsheet, Dr Reece did not actually have to do a lot of complex programming to get the model running on the Organiser II — he just entered the formulae as part of the spreadsheet. He said the Organiser II was especially helpful during election broadcasts when he needed to make predictions ‘on the hop’, but couldn't afford to have a loud, clattering keyboard that would have made a noise in the studio.

‘I found the spreadsheet was quite reasonable in covering the results for the BBC West region,’ he explains. ‘It provided me with quiet broadcasting.’

He also says that the Organiser II has been useful for gathering information during an election broadcast. ‘It’s extremely useful to take notes when I’m broadcasting,’ says Dr Reece. ‘It’s very useful for keeping track of what I’m saying.’"

[Daren]

He couldn’t have been using a Psion for the last 10 years in 1987, wonder how that got published in Psion news without being noticed - I wonder if they got any letters the following month pointing out the error?

[1333david]

I initially thought the same, but maybe it's the forecast modelling formula he'd been using for 10 years prior which he keyed into the Psion.

[Daren]

Ah yes, of course.