Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2015/10/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Having watched that video of the Babbage, I had to play with my maths grenade. Still a gorgeous piece of tactile kit. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/DouglasBray/Oddments/MyMathsGrenade.jpg.html Douglas ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Nichols" <jhnichols at lighttube.net> To: <lrzeitlin at aol.com>; "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org> Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 3:42 PM Subject: Re: [Leica] Re. Babbage Difference Engine > Larry, > > You really know how to bring back the memories. My first encounter with a > calculating machine was as an undergraduate in the late 1940s, and I > suspect it was a Freiden, but can't recall for sure. What I do recall is > that one had to flip the carriage from column to column by hand. > > By 1953, when I was working in my first real engineering job, I had my > choice of either an automatic Freiden or a Marchant. I chose the > Marchant, and used it to calculate supersonic nozzle contours and solve > stress equations. The real marvel of the day was the Square Root Freiden. > My wife used a Freiden that was connected to print its output on an IBM > Selectric, but it was a maintenance nightmare, and seldom worked > correctly. > > Our wind tunnel data reduction was done by an ERA 1102, and printed on > Flexowriters. > > When I finally got to use the pocket calculators by TI and HP, I was truly > amazed at what such little gadgets could do. > > Jim Nichols > Tullahoma, TN USA > > On 10/20/2015 9:25 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG wrote: >> Herbert Kramer?s photos of the Babbage Difference Engine are revealing. >> To modern computer nerds it is the Holy Grail of technology, often >> discussed but never seen. As a young college student I used to walk by a >> building on campus that emitted sounds like a threshing machine. One day >> I wandered in and found that it was the home of the Aiken Mark 1 >> computer, a 30 foot long electro mechanical device that was like a >> Frieden Calculating machine on steroids. The noise was the sound of >> thousands of relays opening and closing. It took 3 seconds to add a pair >> of numbers, about 16 seconds to divide them. Dr. Aiken started work on it >> before WW2 to crank out data for the military. I was shown around the lab >> by An Wang, a graduate student, who later invented the core memory and >> founded Wang computing.The Babbge Enngine looks like the guts of an old >> Freiden Calculator instead of a combination of a Hammond organ and a >> telephone switchboard. Neither looks like my iPhone at all. >> Larry Z >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information