Victorian computing
- Started
- Last post
- 9 Responses
- ukit
Most have probably heard of this, but I never saw the actual text until today...
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Lo…
This is regarded as the first computer program, written in 1843 by this woman.
And intended to work on this
- designbot0
hah cool. Some of the clocks they had back then (and much earlier) were incredibly complex....kind of like computers of the day. I am always amazed at that.
Also back in the late 1700's they were actually able to transmit data over radio waves hundreds of miles....basically they had email even back then :)
- Sorry kind of random, just made me think of that.designbot
- designbot0
So it looks like she created a massive calculator, basically. Probably more advanced than any other calculating system or method at the time.
- ukit0
Yeah primitive although the basic design was similar in some way to what we have now.
"Babbage's machines were among the first mechanical computers, although they were not actually completed, largely because of funding problems and personality issues. He directed the building of some steam-powered machines that achieved some success, suggesting that calculations could be mechanized.
Although Babbage's machines were mechanical and unwieldy, their basic architecture was very similar to a modern computer. The data and program memory were separated, operation was instruction based, the control unit could make conditional jumps and the machine had a separate I/O unit."
- If you're into this stuff check out a book By Steven Levy "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"designbot
- Also Crypto...I bet you would dig them. Fictional titles but there's lots of cool computer history etc.designbot
- Apparently William Gibson (sci fi author) also wrote a book about Babbage and Ada Lovelace (the woman above)ukit
- nice, if you happen to stumble upon the title send it my way.designbot
- ********0
- 23kon0
the first ROBOTS were designed by the Romans!
they were automated stage props able to be programmed to move across the stage in various directions and change directions etc.
watched a program about this ages ago. they were controlled by weights dropping pulling a pulley which would be wound in certain ways to 'program' the robot.
- twokids0
that's why there was a computer game store in the 90s called 'Babbages'
- ukit0
