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The Prehistory of Computing, Part II
- theodorethomas 1y agoPart I managed to miss the Antikythera Mechanism.
- Mr_Minderbinder 1y agoIt misses a great deal more than just that.
- Animats 1y agoThe picture of the top is of the tape readers for the Harvard Mark I, from 1944. It's Peak Tabulating Machine, a reasonably general purpose automatic computer built from IBM tabulating machine parts. The project started in 1939, but was held up by WWII. IBM's early computing history was a long struggle between what people wanted to do and what could cost-effectively be built.
- jibal 1y ago> In philosophy he’s chiefly remembered for his incomprehensible theory of monads and for stating that this was the best of all possible worlds. Those are not in fact the things Leibniz is best known for in philosophy ... in that field he's primarily known for the Identity of Indiscernibles and for Leibniz's Mill ... and many other things as well.
- sevensor 1y agoTotally worth reading Part 1 as well; I was unfamiliar with the sector as a computing device before today. It’s very clever.
- cocodill 1y agoI would recommend to visit Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, they have a lot old stuff. http://hnf-erstes-og.360touren24.de/ http://hnf-erstes-og.360touren24.de/
- detourdog 1y agoWhenever Nixdorf gets mentioned on HN I post pictures of my Nixdorf 820 https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B1i59UlCqNHCjx https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B1i59UlCqNHCjx Which has rod cell memory board https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/264/1116 https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/...
- rickcarlino 1y agoI’ve always been fascinated by information systems that predate the transistor. I’ve been slowly compiling a list in my Obsidian notebook. In case anyone else has a similar itch to scratch: https://rickcarlino.com/notes/ideas/primitive-information-technology.html https://rickcarlino.com/notes/ideas/primitive-information-te...
- detourdog 1y agoThank you for compiling and posting this.