On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 1:12 AM, James G. Sack (jim) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > George Dyson video from TED > The birth of the computer > http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EF692dBzWAs# > > > One description: > """ > Historian George Dyson tells stories from the birth of the modern > computer -- from its 16th-century origins to the hilarious notebooks of > some early computer engineers. > """
Having just come back from a visit to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA, I notice one thing conspicuously absent from this presentation. Namely the work of Charles Babbage on mechanical digital calculation for several decades starting in the 1820's. But perhaps his efforts were not well known a hundred years later, despite some fairly clear publications by Ada Augusta Byron Lovelace. At the Computer History Museum there is a working hand-cranked Babbage Difference Engine, constructed in the past few years from the surviving original drawings. It's a beautiful thing to watch, with all the gears and levers and such. Especially the pipelined look-ahead carry mechanism. About 7 ft high by 15 ft long. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
