Computer print on paper
Computer: IBM 360/44
Programmed in FORTRAN IV by Giorgio Moscati
Produced at University of Sao Paulo
“The Information Content of Three Consonants and Three Vowels
The program generates groups of six letters -three vowels and three consonants – whose positions alternate according to pseudorandom numbers and according to a frequency of appearance roughly proportional to the probability of the words’ initial letters appearing in the Portuguese dictionary.
The groups of two or three letters that bear some meaning are given a numerical value according to a table which, counting the lines used in the dictionary to explain the meaning of a particular group, goes from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 9. The basis of the evaluation is highly ambiguous: the more words that are needed to explain a word, the greater its significance. The number shown beside each group is, therefore, the sum total of each group’s value; in other words, the total significance of each six-letter group."
[Waldemar Cordeiro in: tendencije 4, exhib_ cat., Galerija suvremene umjetnosti, Zagreb, 1970, n. p.; translated from the Italian.]
Source: [Rosen, 2011]