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Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #214181
| From | Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | alt.folklore.computers |
| Subject | Re: As We May Think--early computer article 1945 |
| Date | 2020-09-12 09:25 +0000 |
| Message-ID | <hs3igaFrpevU11@mid.individual.net> (permalink) |
| References | <5b5146f2-ae59-4c44-ad32-9e7506e73f85o@googlegroups.com> <4b4577d7-ac28-45b6-a28b-299eadebfebdo@googlegroups.com> <kc6olfd4n797187tobr9k89d2cej5agv0o@4ax.com> |
On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:52:13 -0400, J. Clarke wrote: > On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 15:28:24 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> > wrote: > >>On Friday, September 11, 2020 at 12:53:02 PM UTC-6, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com >>wrote: >> >>> I believe Bush invented the analog computer. >> >>That depends on how you define 'analog computer', since some would >>dignify the Gunter scale and William Oughtred's invention by that name. >>However, the differential analyzer of Vannevar Bush, unlike, say, a >>mechanical tide predictor (another much earlier device sometimes called >>an analog computer) was very much a mechanical device that had the same >>functionality as an electronic analog computer: through feedback between >>functions, functions of those functions, adn integrals or differentials >>of those functions, it could produce an analog solution to a >>differential equation. >> >>A tide predictor, on the other hand, just cranks out numerical values >>for a Fourier series that is already known; the differential analyzer >>solved problems where the solution was not known. >> >>So there is definitely a sense in which the Bush differential analyzer >>was the first 'real' analog computer. > > According to wiki Lord Kelvin and his brother James Thompson published a > description of a device that is identifiably a differential analyzer in > 1876. Machines derived from this work were, as you said, used as tide > predictors but also were the first computers used to direct naval > gunfire, and were in use for that purpose in 1916. I went to a demo of a Meccano replica of the Hartree differential analyser. I'm in some of the videos (in a blue and white checked short!). It's fascinating. https://youtu.be/ngCBqduGr1Y (actually the second part, the first is mainly a lecture). -- Using UNIX since v6 (1975)... Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
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As We May Think--early computer article 1945 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-11 11:53 -0700
Re: As We May Think--early computer article 1945 Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-09-11 15:28 -0700
Re: As We May Think--early computer article 1945 J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-11 20:52 -0400
Re: As We May Think--early computer article 1945 Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-09-12 09:25 +0000
Analog computers Niklas Karlsson <anksil@yahoo.se> - 2020-09-12 10:39 +0000
Re: Analog computers J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-09-12 10:02 -0400
Re: As We May Think--early computer article 1945 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2020-09-18 12:24 -0700
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