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What’s a Human-Powered Computer? (2020)
- simonblack 3y agoWe used to call them 'Adding Machines' - http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/Burroughs_1.JPG http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/Burroughs_1.... They were gradually phased out when (very expensive!) digital hand-held calculators came on to the market in the early 1970s. * Expensive as in a simple 4-function digital calculator was priced at more than half the average person's weekly salary. 10-15 years later, similar-capability solar-powered calculators were being given away as promotional materials.
- JohnFen 3y agoAnd let's not forget that "computer" used to be a job title, not the name of a machine.
- reportgunner 3y agohttps://archive.is/U2JVr https://archive.is/U2JVr
- m3kw9 3y agoIn the book 3 body problem, they had a game where they used many humans to emulate a transistor and made calculations.
- tianqi 3y agoYes. Qin Shi Huang commanding the human computer made by very large population is, I think, a satire on the obsession of dictatorship country with large-scale population performances (which always happens in China and North Korea), but that's really a very imaginative and mind-blowing scene.