I know videos like this have always had a good reception here, and I just stumbled across this Navy video from 1953 about understanding mechanical computers. We often think of gears & shafts for power transmission and torque multiplication over here, but seeing it being used for computing is pretty neat:
I remember some analog electronic computers were used or at least tested as fire control computers at one point too. Part of using them was bringing them up to full operating temperature, since that would affect the accuracy of the output!
These mechanical calculators were ubiquitous in rallying until electronic ones became affordable:
In reply to GameboyRMH :
I have a Curta. It's a beautiful thing.
I recall touring the USS North Carolina (BB-55) and seeing the fire control computer and thinking that 1941 was too early for computers. I guess one needs to expand the notion of what exactly a computer is.
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
I have a Curta. It's a beautiful thing.
Really? I'm jelly. That's super-cool.
1988RedT2 said:I recall touring the USS North Carolina (BB-55) and seeing the fire control computer and thinking that 1941 was too early for computers. I guess one needs to expand the notion of what exactly a computer is.
A talented team of women, who were around since JPL’s beginnings in 1936 and who were known as computers, were responsible for the number-crunching of launch windows, trajectories, fuel consumption and other details that helped make the U.S. space program a success.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/when-computers-were-human/
In reply to aircooled :
Movie- Hidden Figures. Well worth watching.
Old school computers still get used 100s of times a day.
Keith Tanner said:Woody (Forum Supportum) said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
I have a Curta. It's a beautiful thing.
Really? I'm jelly. That's super-cool.
And cooler still is the fact that I bought it about 25 years ago, from the original owner, a friend of a friend, who bought it around 1965 to use while rallying his 1965 Mustang, which was coincidentally the same year and model as the first car I ever bought. He was a pretty cool guy. His name was Jack.
When there was a fire in my apartment building later that year, I went in to save my daughter's Teddy bear, and my Curta.
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:Keith Tanner said:Woody (Forum Supportum) said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
I have a Curta. It's a beautiful thing.
Really? I'm jelly. That's super-cool.
And cooler still is the fact that I bought it about 25 years ago, from the original owner, a friend of a friend, who bought it around 1965 to use while rallying his 1965 Mustang, which was coincidentally the same year and model as the first car I ever bought. He was a pretty cool guy. His name was Jack.
When there was a fire in my apartment building later that year, I went in to save my daughter's Teddy bear, and my Curta.
Dude, that's awesome! Well, not that you had a fire, but the Curta and the story behind it :)
When I was a kid maybe in the 5th grade my dad brought home from work over the weekend an electromechanical adding machine that could do multiplication. The first thing I did was type in something like 999 x 999 and hit enter. That poor thing started adding 999 to itself 999 times. Evidently there was no cancel button so my dad had to unplug it and take it into the office supply store and have them somehow reset the thing. Dad wasn't so impressed with me.
1988RedT2 said:I recall touring the USS North Carolina (BB-55) and seeing the fire control computer and thinking that 1941 was too early for computers. I guess one needs to expand the notion of what exactly a computer is.
The Enigma machine was a kind of mechanical computer.... and then Alan Turing designed an electromechanical computer to decrypt its output, in 1939.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
The Roman Vitruvius built a wagon odometer to set mile markers about 2000 years ago. It computed the distance from the revolution of the wagon wheels.
The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known sophisticated mechanical computer. It's really incredible.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decoding-antikythera-mechanism-first-computer-180953979/
In reply to tester (Forum Supporter) :
That was an immensely enjoyable watch. Thank you for sharing!
tester (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
The Roman Vitruvius built a wagon odometer to set mile markers about 2000 years ago. It computed the distance from the revolution of the wagon wheels.
The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known sophisticated mechanical computer. It's really incredible.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decoding-antikythera-mechanism-first-computer-180953979/
Just to completely nerd out, I'd highly recommend reading: The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
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