Period Computers

[FamilyWiggs]

Help build Mr Babbage's Analytical Machine - a period computer from 1837:

http://www.pledgebank.com/babbage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11530905

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I like Babbage. He wrote the best-ever nerdy fan letter to a poet:
http://uh.edu/engines/epi879.htm

 

[robgil]

who is babbage?
im in a lazy mood tonight.

 

[Flyfisher]

For another poetry connection, Babbage worked with Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron during the documenting of his analytical engine. Sometimes noted as being the founder of programming, albeit a topic of some controversy, Ada Lovelace does, at least have the honour of having a programming language named after her.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

who is babbage?
im in a lazy mood tonight.

He invented the computer. Sort of.

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, the concept of a calculating machine anyway. Certainly ahead of his time but was limited by the available technology at the time. The Science Museum recently constructed a working version of his 'difference engine' and proved it could work. It's a techological dead-end, of course, and now well-and truly superseded by electronic computers, but many of the concepts he (and Ada) originated remain valid today.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

The name Babbage appears in my family archives. My Father, Grandfather and Great grandfather were from Totnes: I am told that my second name is after Anne Babbage whose name is in the family Bible . I really must get to grips with this family history stuff-- Father's side is a bit hazy, Hugenot origins apparently.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The name Babbage appears in my family archives. My Father, Grandfather and Great grandfather were from Totnes: I am told that my second name is after Anne Babbage whose name is in the family Bible . I really must get to grips with this family history stuff-- Father's side is a bit hazy, Hugenot origins apparently.

Computer Charles was from the West Country. One of the buildings at Plymouth Uni was the Babage ("Cabbage") Building.
Thank you Jocelyn for your putative ancestor's gift to us, being able to argue the toss while many miles apart

 

[Flyfisher]

Wikipedia (yes, I know, but it's a start) gives Charles Babbage's birthplace as London (with a Blue Plaque, apparently), but his father was certainly from the West Country: Babbage's father, Benjamin Babbage, was a banking partner of the Praeds who owned the Bitton Estate in Teignmouth. His mother was Betsy Plumleigh Teape. In 1808, the Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house in East Teignmouth, and Benjamin Babbage became a warden of the nearby St. Michael’s Church.

How fascinating, Jocelyn, to perhaps have such a pioneer for an ancestor.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Betsy Plumleigh Teape.[/i]

They don't name 'em like that anymore

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Betsy Plumleigh Teape.[/i]

They don't name 'em like that anymore

It's also why them wot is not born here often have trouble with our spelling and pronunciation.

They don't no weather to take a bough or drink there coughfee!

In the example above I count 3 phonetic "ee" sounds and 4 letter e's - 2 of the latter not being in the former!

 

[robgil]

i thought it was bill gates who invented the computer.

 

[Flyfisher]

Bill Gates didn't really make anything but he was a smart (or lucky, or both) programmer who saw the potential for a standard operating system and sold MS-DOS to IBM for their personal computer.

 

[Nigel Watts]

A period computer is a human being. When Babbage was building his machines this is what the word meant. The main application for Babbage's machine was to eliminate the human error involved in the manual calculation of log and other tables which those of us of a certain age will remember well from our school days - an important objective as these tables were used for navigation and many other critical activities.

His later ideas went far beyond the generation of tables but his more elaborate machines were never built. I read a good biography of him a few years ago but as usual I cant find my copy. I think it was:
http://www.foyles.co.uk/display.asp?CID=AFW&ISBN=9780349112398

 

[Penners]

If an entire Babbage Difference Engine could be built, it would be a machine of enormous complexity - and great beauty.

A small part of it has been constructed - and shown to work.

 

[Flyfisher]

A period computer is a human being. When Babbage was building his machines this is what the word meant. The main application for Babbage's machine was to eliminate the human error involved in the manual calculation of log and other tables which those of us of a certain age will remember well from our school days - an important objective as these tables were used for navigation and many other critical activities.

Ah, log tables. I recall reading that such books were vastly expensive to produce because of all the human-powered calculations involved and that publishers would deliberately insert tiny errors on certain pages in order to "watermark" their intellectual property and thus be able to prove their ownership in cases of plagiarism, which was apparently rife.

It so easy to forget how difficult even simple calculations used to be. I remember my Father taking me into his bank (well, not his bank, you understand) on a saturday morning and letting me play with his calculator, which was a mechanical work or art that worked like a one-armed bandit.

There's also a wonderful scene in the film Apollo 13 where there is a critical moment requiring some calculations and they have people in mission control checking the results with slide rules.

Such things are now truly history, yet were commonplace only 40 years ago. We're living in times when not only can new technologies be invented in our lifetime, they can become obsolete as well. It is truly astonishing really, yet also quite amazing how readily we seem to adapt.

 

[Penners]

Around 1970 I can remember one of our sales force coming into the office and proudly showing us his electronic calculator. It had a red LED display and could add, subtract, multiply and divide. I cost him nearly £70!

 

[robgil]

Around 1970 I can remember one of our sales force coming into the office and proudly showing us his electronic calculator. It had a red LED display and could add, subtract, multiply and divide. I cost him nearly £70!

and if you held it upside down you could write out some words as well.

 

[Penners]

Oh yes - schoolboy games. 59009.

 

[Flyfisher]

It had a red LED display

Another technology that has come and gone in our lifetime - remember those first digital watches where you had to press a button to light up the display because the battery drain was too much for it to be on all the time?

I also remember the first Sinclair scientific electronic calculators in the mid-70s. The red LED display would go blank during calculations as their multiplexed operation required the processor to control them and it could only handle one thing at a time.

We had great fun trying to find the calculation that caused the display to blank for the longest time. I recall it was the tangent of a particular number that took over 30 seconds to calculate.

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