4 ms·

Every time I see this video posted I watch it again from start to finish. Amazing what could (can!) be done with purely mechanical components.

agumonkey 5y ago
That is true. And also I see a direct link between coupled mechanics and reactive programming. That vid brought a few internal chats about computing. Since it's clear those things are computing advanced function in real time (with noise though), streaming physical changes downto the linkage graph, no side effects if you haskell-squint hard.. digital computers are a different take on computing, they were timeless, memoryfull at first.. and along the decades it seems we were all seeking to bring back automatic coupling (reactive recomputation) on the foreground.
- rfreiberger 5y ago
  I love the idea of alternative reality and what if the vacuum tubes were never invented, the same with the transistor. Would we have huge steam engines running building sized mechanical computers to calculate simple programs. Each time I visit the Computer History Museum I think of what if the path was disrupted somehow.
  - sidpatil 5y ago
    I'd prefer to think that in the alternate universe, the machines aren't building-sized. In that alternate universe, maybe Swiss watchmakers are the ones driving innovation in computing.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      Opening a smartphone is reminiscent of opening a wristwatch.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  There are concepts of electronic computers that involve streaming data in a vaguely similar way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array An early example of this (an electronic computer in the 1940s!) seems to have been: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    Yes most analog "computers" were time ordered / streaming. Hollerith and discrete calculating machines were more about unordered data analysis. Static batch of input, chunk it the way you want, forward, backward.. doesn't matter. Very freeing in a way. I can understand why digital computation wiped the market, no noise and no constraint.. how nice. Until it starts to produce spaghetti bowls and crawling insects.

agumonkey 5y ago

That is true. And also I see a direct link between coupled mechanics and reactive programming. That vid brought a few internal chats about computing. Since it's clear those things are computing advanced function in real time (with noise though), streaming physical changes downto the linkage graph, no side effects if you haskell-squint hard.. digital computers are a different take on computing, they were timeless, memoryfull at first.. and along the decades it seems we were all seeking to bring back automatic coupling (reactive recomputation) on the foreground.

rfreiberger 5y ago
I love the idea of alternative reality and what if the vacuum tubes were never invented, the same with the transistor. Would we have huge steam engines running building sized mechanical computers to calculate simple programs. Each time I visit the Computer History Museum I think of what if the path was disrupted somehow.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  I'd prefer to think that in the alternate universe, the machines aren't building-sized. In that alternate universe, maybe Swiss watchmakers are the ones driving innovation in computing.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    Opening a smartphone is reminiscent of opening a wristwatch.
perl4ever 5y ago
There are concepts of electronic computers that involve streaming data in a vaguely similar way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array An early example of this (an electronic computer in the 1940s!) seems to have been: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Yes most analog "computers" were time ordered / streaming. Hollerith and discrete calculating machines were more about unordered data analysis. Static batch of input, chunk it the way you want, forward, backward.. doesn't matter. Very freeing in a way. I can understand why digital computation wiped the market, no noise and no constraint.. how nice. Until it starts to produce spaghetti bowls and crawling insects.