The mercury broke three digits inside the sultry, low-ceiling lab as men in dress shirts neatly tucked in despite the weather milled around. Behind them was MIT's PDP-10. Nearly everyone who had anything to do with the ARPANET was there. Like baboon troops meeting at a waterhole, they intermingled with each other and renewed old acquaintances. Homer was talking with Bob Kahn, the man who was responsible for coding the IMPs in the first place. He was top banana that day as everyone seemed to have a request, demand, compliment, or comment for him.

"I'll go take a leak," excused Homer.

"Bathroom's down the hall and to the left," directed Bob, as he moved on to someone else who was waiting to speak with him.

He pushed open the lab door and followed the sign saying MEN'S RESTROOM. He saw a man in a bow tie walking to the lab from the bathroom, and they were getting closer. The man reached out his hand, and Homer shook it.

"Good morning, sir," said the man, "are you Homer Carlson? I've heard a lot about you. I'm Adam Larson and I'm from the Internal Revenue Service."

"Is this about my taxes? I've filed my return for 1970."

"This is about everyone's taxes. Remember the Census?"

"I remember filling the form out and mailing it back last year, yes."

"It counted over 200 million Americans. All of them have to be represented in Congress--and most of them have to send money to us."

"Do you think they like it?"

"No. Here's a secret: we don't like processing tax returns either. So I thought to enlist the help of computers in completing this arduous task. The Census has to do this every 10 years, but we have to do it every year."

"How long have you been working at the IRS?"

"Since 1969. Not a good time to start. On December 30, 1969, Congress rewrote almost the entire tax code. And so we had to tear down all our old procedures, rules, and regulations, write new ones, and familiarize our staff with the new ones. With computers, should a similar thing happen, we could skip the last part."

"My job is to connect computers together, not to--"

"But that's better! We have to get tax returns from all over the country. Do you realize how easier our lives would be if we didn't have to ship auditable returns between our Regional Centers and headquarters in DC in the back of a truck every time something looks suspicious?"

"What's in it for me? What do you want us to do?"

"We want you to upgrade FOSDIC. That's our system for reading forms. Right now it can only read filled-in bubbles. But I'd like you to help upgrade it so it reads text as well."

"But that's much harder to do. People have different handwriting. And even if you solved that problem, people express the same thing in different ways so that wouldn't fully automate the process."

"I'm sure you computer people can figure something out." Adam produced a business card. "Call me if you change your mind."

"Pleasure to meet you," Homer lied, as he produced his. The business cards changed hands.

"'Figure something out'." Homer muttered to himself as he walked to the bathroom. "That's all we are to them, computer wizards."