[split] Did the VM go straight from cerebellum to vellum?

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I have no idea if the VM was written straight to vellum but the peculiarities of the text with line and paragraph of a function make me believe there was a draft.

Personally I am pretty convinced that the text had some draft. I won't tell you if it was on paper or wax tablet or something else but there should be some.

I am pretty sure that there was a draft, and it was on paper.  Vellum was hard to erase and too expensive to discard if one made a big mistake, like skipping a paragraph and noticing only two pages after.  If it was on vellum, one would have to discard a whole bifolio.  In a draft, one could scribble "Insert the parag *** here" and write the "***" text on the next page.  One could cross out words, insert words, overwrite, etc.  One could tear off half a page and throw it away...

Writing straight to vellum would be like typing a report on a keyboard connected directly to the laser printer...

All the best, --stolfi

PS. Reminded me of this academic joke.  Told by Math professors, of course:

Three Deans are waiting for the University budget meeting to start.  The Dean of the Physics Department complains:

"These budget meetings are always a big stress for me.  Every little project that our researchers come up with needs new equipment that costs half a million of more. The electricity bill alone eats up all our regular allowance..."

"Well, that at least is a problem we don't have in my Department," says the Dean of Maths.  "The only equipment our researchers need is paper, pencils, erasers, and dustbins."

"Same for us," says the Dean of Philosophy.  "Except that ours do not need erasers or dustbins."