#charlesbabbage — Public Fediverse posts

@KPBSPublicMedia @science-KPBSPublicMedia #AI ‘impact’ can be positive *or* negative. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Computers are useful, as was envisioned by #CharlesBabbage over 170 years ago and continuously demonstrated for over 8 decades, but #education professionals should #resist #AIslop. 🙏

#AI is already the ‘asbestos’ of #cyberspace.

@KPBSPublicMedia @science-KPBSPublicMedia #AI ‘impact’ can be positive *or* negative. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Computers are useful, as was envisioned by #CharlesBabbage over 170 years ago and continuously demonstrated for over 8 decades, but #education professionals should #resist #AIslop. 🙏

#AI is already the ‘asbestos’ of #cyberspace.

“Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate”*…

Punched cards have a long history in machine control (dating back to Jacquard) and computing (starting with Babbage‘s Difference Engine), but it was Herman Hollerith who brought them into modern computation in the late 1880s… where punch cards remained for about 100 years. From the Smithsonian’s American History Museum…

In the late 1880s, American engineer Herman Hollerith saw a railroad punch card when he was trying to figure out new ways of compiling statistical information for the U.S. Census. His first punch card, like those used on railways, only had holes along the edges. The meaning of each hole was indicated on the card. By the time Hollerith tabulating equipment was used in the 1890 U.S. Census, holes were scattered across the cards, although their meaning was not indicated on it.

Hollerith and his employees at the Tabulating Machine Company in Washington, D.C. soon developed punched cards for use in compiling information for commercial enterprises such as railroads. They and staff of the U.S. Census Bureau prepared improved machines—these devices are shown in the object group on tabulating equipment. By the 1920s, the United States had two major manufacturers of punch card equipment, International Business Machines (the descendent of the Tabulating Machine Company) and Remington Rand (the descendent of Powers Accounting Machine Company established by Russian emigré and former Census Bureau employee James Powers). Each manufacturer developed a distinctive standard punch card. IBM cards had eighty columns of rectangular holes while those of Remington Rand had ninety columns of circular holes. Tabulating machines were widely used in both government and commerce, with cards designed to meet the needs of customers. For example, checks issued by the U.S. government often came on punch cards.

When IBM and Remington Rand began selling electronic computers in the years following World War II, punch cards became the preferred method of entering data and programs onto them. They also were used in later minicomputers and some early desktop calculators. Punch cards surviving in the Smithsonian collections reflect the widespread use of computers – they announced scores on standardized tests, served as a library cards, were part of the proof of mathematical theorems, and kept medical records. Some are printed with the names of users, from university computer centers and computer clubs to the Library of Congress to Bell Laboratories…

Browse the collection: “Punch Cards for Data Processing“

See also: here, here, and here.

* Ubiquitous warning on punch cards:

… in the 1950s, after the invention of the computer and its widespread business use, that everyone began to see punch cards. Companies sent punch cards out with bills: the telephone company, utility companies, and even department stores realized that they could save a step in their billing process, as well as making it easier for them to process the returned check, by using the cards themselves as the bills. By the 1960s, punch cards were familiar, everyday objects.

While company employees could be trusted to take care of the cards, the person in the street could not. Warnings were necessary. In the 1930s the University of Iowa used cards for student registration; on each card was printed “Do not fold or bend this card.” Cards reproduced in an IBM sales brochure of the 1930s read “Do not fold, tear, or mutilate this card” and “Do not fold tear or destroy.” I’m not sure when the canonical “Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate” first appeared; it’s one of those traditions whose author and origin is lost in the mists of time. Let’s consider the words one at a time, stop and take them seriously…

– “A Cultural History of the Punch Card” (from 1991; eminently worth reading in full)

###

As we contemplate chads (of which, punch cards produced a gracious plenty), we might spare a thought for Gerald Hawkins; he died on this date in 2003. An astronomer and author, he was best known for his work in archaeoastronomy— most of all, for his 1965 book, Stonehenge Decoded. In the early 1960s, Hawkins had used punch cards to load data modeling sun and moon movements onto magnetic tapes, then into an IBM 7090. The results led him to conclude, as the book argues, that the features at the monument were arranged in such a way as to predict a variety of astronomical events– that Stonehenge was a giant prehistoric observatory and computer. While some archaeologists are hesitant to accept Hawkins’ theories, many archaeoastronomers have built upon his work. More widely, scholars accept that the importance of astronomical alignment and large complexes being planned and constructed to fulfill cosmology has been demonstrated at other prehistoric sites, such as the Snake Mound and Cahokia in the U.S.

source

“Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate”*…

Punched cards have a long history in machine control (dating back to Jacquard) and computing (starting with Babbage‘s Difference Engine), but it was Herman Hollerith who brought them into modern computation in the late 1880s… where punch cards remained for about 100 years. From the Smithsonian’s American History Museum…

In the late 1880s, American engineer Herman Hollerith saw a railroad punch card when he was trying to figure out new ways of compiling statistical information for the U.S. Census. His first punch card, like those used on railways, only had holes along the edges. The meaning of each hole was indicated on the card. By the time Hollerith tabulating equipment was used in the 1890 U.S. Census, holes were scattered across the cards, although their meaning was not indicated on it.

Hollerith and his employees at the Tabulating Machine Company in Washington, D.C. soon developed punched cards for use in compiling information for commercial enterprises such as railroads. They and staff of the U.S. Census Bureau prepared improved machines—these devices are shown in the object group on tabulating equipment. By the 1920s, the United States had two major manufacturers of punch card equipment, International Business Machines (the descendent of the Tabulating Machine Company) and Remington Rand (the descendent of Powers Accounting Machine Company established by Russian emigré and former Census Bureau employee James Powers). Each manufacturer developed a distinctive standard punch card. IBM cards had eighty columns of rectangular holes while those of Remington Rand had ninety columns of circular holes. Tabulating machines were widely used in both government and commerce, with cards designed to meet the needs of customers. For example, checks issued by the U.S. government often came on punch cards.

When IBM and Remington Rand began selling electronic computers in the years following World War II, punch cards became the preferred method of entering data and programs onto them. They also were used in later minicomputers and some early desktop calculators. Punch cards surviving in the Smithsonian collections reflect the widespread use of computers – they announced scores on standardized tests, served as a library cards, were part of the proof of mathematical theorems, and kept medical records. Some are printed with the names of users, from university computer centers and computer clubs to the Library of Congress to Bell Laboratories…

Browse the collection: “Punch Cards for Data Processing“

See also: here, here, and here.

* Ubiquitous warning on punch cards:

… in the 1950s, after the invention of the computer and its widespread business use, that everyone began to see punch cards. Companies sent punch cards out with bills: the telephone company, utility companies, and even department stores realized that they could save a step in their billing process, as well as making it easier for them to process the returned check, by using the cards themselves as the bills. By the 1960s, punch cards were familiar, everyday objects.

While company employees could be trusted to take care of the cards, the person in the street could not. Warnings were necessary. In the 1930s the University of Iowa used cards for student registration; on each card was printed “Do not fold or bend this card.” Cards reproduced in an IBM sales brochure of the 1930s read “Do not fold, tear, or mutilate this card” and “Do not fold tear or destroy.” I’m not sure when the canonical “Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate” first appeared; it’s one of those traditions whose author and origin is lost in the mists of time. Let’s consider the words one at a time, stop and take them seriously…

– “A Cultural History of the Punch Card” (from 1991; eminently worth reading in full)

###

As we contemplate chads (of which, punch cards produced a gracious plenty), we might spare a thought for Gerald Hawkins; he died on this date in 2003. An astronomer and author, he was best known for his work in archaeoastronomy— most of all, for his 1965 book, Stonehenge Decoded. In the early 1960s, Hawkins had used punch cards to load data modeling sun and moon movements onto magnetic tapes, then into an IBM 7090. The results led him to conclude, as the book argues, that the features at the monument were arranged in such a way as to predict a variety of astronomical events– that Stonehenge was a giant prehistoric observatory and computer. While some archaeologists are hesitant to accept Hawkins’ theories, many archaeoastronomers have built upon his work. More widely, scholars accept that the importance of astronomical alignment and large complexes being planned and constructed to fulfill cosmology has been demonstrated at other prehistoric sites, such as the Snake Mound and Cahokia in the U.S.

source

On 7 Mar 2019: #QueenElizabethII of Great Britain shares her first Instagram post, a letter between mathematician #CharlesBabbage and Prince Albert.

Happy birthday, Charles Babbage (b. 12/26/1791)!

Let us hope that, wherever he may be, he is finally free of organ grinders.

#UnofficialDiaryDates #CharlesBabbage

Happy birthday, Charles Babbage (b. 12/26/1791)!

Let us hope that, wherever he may be, he is finally free of organ grinders.

#UnofficialDiaryDates #CharlesBabbage

"Pray do not corrupt the cats with poetry" (Ada Lovelace to George Eliot in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage).

In her riotous, rigorously researched #GraphicNovel, Sydney Padua invents an alternate universe where, instead of dying young, #AdaLovelace teams up with #CharlesBabbage to build a monumental #steampunk calculating engine. Padua's zany drawings are a delight, as is her zest for scholarly (and cheeky) footnotes!
#Books #bookstodon #amreading

https://literaryreview.co.uk/get-with-the-program

#AdaLovelace

#LordByron's daughter

Her mother #AnneMilbanke insisted Ada have an education rooted in #science and #mathematics

That led her on a lifepath where she wound up in cahoots with #CharlesBabbage, geeking out with him over the potential for his invention, the #AnalyticalEngine, a mechanical #computer

And this is how Ada because the world's first computer #programmer

And in her writing is found the world's first practical prediction of

And rejection of

#AI

3/x

#AdaLovelace

#LordByron's daughter

Her mother #AnneMilbanke insisted Ada have an education rooted in #science and #mathematics

That led her on a lifepath where she wound up in cahoots with #CharlesBabbage, geeking out with him over the potential for his invention, the #AnalyticalEngine, a mechanical #computer

And this is how Ada because the world's first computer #programmer

And in her writing is found the world's first practical prediction of

And rejection of

#AI

3/x

@CarveHerName

Great book! 👍 Here's the hardback over art.

Note to the curious... the first few pages are a very jocular but accurate depiction of Ada's origin, upbringing, and influences (a great way to learn her story). The remainder is a mash-up of historical figures like #GeorgeEliot, #steampunk fantasy (all on the mark), & early #information_science.

It is a wild and rewarding ride!

#AdaLovelace #CharlesBabbage #GraphicNovel #History

@CarveHerName

Great book! 👍 Here's the hardback over art.

Note to the curious... the first few pages are a very jocular but accurate depiction of Ada's origin, upbringing, and influences (a great way to learn her story). The remainder is a mash-up of historical figures like #GeorgeEliot, #steampunk fantasy (all on the mark), & early #information_science.

It is a wild and rewarding ride!

#AdaLovelace #CharlesBabbage #GraphicNovel #History

Saint Babbage

If programming languages were a religion, I think all denominations would revere Saint Babbage of the Holy Theory.

#CharlesBabbage #ifProgrammingWereAReligion #TheHolyTheory

Today we remember #AdaLovelace Day, famed for her work on #CharlesBabbage's proposed mechanical computer, the #AnalyticalEngine.
In 1843, Lovelace published what would now be recognized as a #computerprogram to generate Bernoulli numbers and was the first to see the creative potential of Babbage's machine.
As for the day honoring Lovelace, its goal is to increase the profile of women in STEM and encourage more girls into #STEM careers.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/08/ada_lovelace_day/

Today we remember #AdaLovelace Day, famed for her work on #CharlesBabbage's proposed mechanical computer, the #AnalyticalEngine.
In 1843, Lovelace published what would now be recognized as a #computerprogram to generate Bernoulli numbers and was the first to see the creative potential of Babbage's machine.
As for the day honoring Lovelace, its goal is to increase the profile of women in STEM and encourage more girls into #STEM careers.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/08/ada_lovelace_day/

Come creare presentazioni efficaci con l'intelligenza artificiale? Proviamo le funzionalità di Prezi! #presentation #artificialintelligence #charlesbabbage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1_aFrVftDk

Nel 1837 Charles Babbage aveva proposto un problema che avrebbe potuto essere risolto dalla "macchina analitica" che stava progettando. Scopriamo quando è facile trovare la soluzione per il nostro amatissimo Commodore 64! #commodore64 #charlesbabbage #analytycalengine #adalovelace #programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fbLBlAYr0Q

Nel 1837 Charles Babbage aveva proposto un problema che avrebbe potuto essere risolto dalla "macchina analitica" che stava progettando. Scopriamo quando è facile trovare la soluzione per il nostro amatissimo Commodore 64! #commodore64 #charlesbabbage #analytycalengine #adalovelace #programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fbLBlAYr0Q

Here's a rebuild of a part of #CharlesBabbage's #DifferenceEngineNumberTwo, by the team led by #DononSwade at London's #ScienceMuseum. It implements an adder.

Interestingly, the exhibit includes a foot-operated metal lathe from 1910, likely closely modelled on the type of lathe that Babbage commissioned 70 years earlier. It was capable of achieving tolerances of 0.1mm.

#HNF #HNFPaderborn #ExtremeRetroComputing

Here's a rebuild of a part of #CharlesBabbage's #DifferenceEngineNumberTwo, by the team led by #DononSwade at London's #ScienceMuseum. It implements an adder.

Interestingly, the exhibit includes a foot-operated metal lathe from 1910, likely closely modelled on the type of lathe that Babbage commissioned 70 years earlier. It was capable of achieving tolerances of 0.1mm.

#HNF #HNFPaderborn #ExtremeRetroComputing

@clew @luke @NullNoMore

🎩#CharlesBabbage included accordions in his list of "instruments of torture permitted by the Government" in his epic "Street Nuisances" in 1864

There's mention at the end [of this blog post] that after his death they dissected Babbage's brain (photo included 🧠) and considered whether he had "cochlear degeneration" that contributed to his sensitivity to noise

Maybe he'd have been less grouchy if he could have turned everybody down
https://perneward.wordpress.com/2023/07/25/the-infernal-organ-charles-babbage-and-street-nuisances/

#Accordion

@clew @luke @NullNoMore

🎩#CharlesBabbage included accordions in his list of "instruments of torture permitted by the Government" in his epic "Street Nuisances" in 1864

There's mention at the end [of this blog post] that after his death they dissected Babbage's brain (photo included 🧠) and considered whether he had "cochlear degeneration" that contributed to his sensitivity to noise

Maybe he'd have been less grouchy if he could have turned everybody down
https://perneward.wordpress.com/2023/07/25/the-infernal-organ-charles-babbage-and-street-nuisances/

#Accordion

Browsing the newly published details of Charles Darwin's library more. Impressed to see novels in there - that's relatively unusual for a private library of this era. Many Dickens, many Gaskell. He also had works by Babbage, Mary Somerville and my g..uncle-in-law Charles Maclaren. http://darwin-online.org.uk/Complete_Library_of_Charles_Darwin.html #HistoryOfScience #BookHistory #Books #Bookstodon #Libraries #Reading #Darwin #CharlesDarwin #Science #Novels #Babbage #Dickens #CharlesBabbage #CharlesDickens #ElizabethGaskell #Gaskell

Browsing the newly published details of Charles Darwin's library more. Impressed to see novels in there - that's relatively unusual for a private library of this era. Many Dickens, many Gaskell. He also had works by Babbage, Mary Somerville and my g..uncle-in-law Charles Maclaren. http://darwin-online.org.uk/Complete_Library_of_Charles_Darwin.html #HistoryOfScience #BookHistory #Books #Bookstodon #Libraries #Reading #Darwin #CharlesDarwin #Science #Novels #Babbage #Dickens #CharlesBabbage #CharlesDickens #ElizabethGaskell #Gaskell

More than 200 years ago, #CharlesBabbage pioneered the computer w/his "Difference Engine."

https://newatlas.com/go/1288/

More than 200 years ago, #CharlesBabbage pioneered the computer w/his "Difference Engine."

https://newatlas.com/go/1288/

@gutenberg_org

A delightful #GraphicNovel which covers most of her *actual history* and provides an extended yarn on what the real Lovelace & Babbage might have gotten themselves up to! 😉

#History #AdaLovelace #CharlesBabbage #SydneyPadua #ComputerScience

@gutenberg_org

A delightful #GraphicNovel which covers most of her *actual history* and provides an extended yarn on what the real Lovelace & Babbage might have gotten themselves up to! 😉

#History #AdaLovelace #CharlesBabbage #SydneyPadua #ComputerScience

“The infernal organ”: #CharlesBabbage and street nuisances https://perneward.wordpress.com/2023/07/25/the-infernal-organ-charles-babbage-and-street-nuisances/ #Noise #Music #Soundscape #Sounds #UrbanLife #Towns #19thCentury #NineteenthCentury #History #ComputingHistory #ComputerScience #StreetNuisances #StreetMusicians #Musicians #Organs #accordion #squeezebox #Bagpipes #Religion #Psalms #London #HurdyGurdy #BrassBands

“The infernal organ”: #CharlesBabbage and street nuisances https://perneward.wordpress.com/2023/07/25/the-infernal-organ-charles-babbage-and-street-nuisances/ #Noise #Music #Soundscape #Sounds #UrbanLife #Towns #19thCentury #NineteenthCentury #History #ComputingHistory #ComputerScience #StreetNuisances #StreetMusicians #Musicians #Organs #accordion #squeezebox #Bagpipes #Religion #Psalms #London #HurdyGurdy #BrassBands

CBI Image of the Day.

A portion of the Analytical Engine of the incomplete mechanical computer at time of inventor Charles Babbage's passing in October 1871.

Held at Science Museum of London (its photo--CC). Contained a store for numbers (or memory) and a mill (which corresponds to what we think of as the CPU). It was 15 ft tall & weighed what a small locomotive does.

#charlesbabbage #babbage @histodons #computer #history #science #engineering #artifacts #tech #technology #museums #sts

CBI Image of the Day.

A portion of the Analytical Engine of the incomplete mechanical computer at time of inventor Charles Babbage's passing in October 1871.

Held at Science Museum of London (its photo--CC). Contained a store for numbers (or memory) and a mill (which corresponds to what we think of as the CPU). It was 15 ft tall & weighed what a small locomotive does.

#charlesbabbage #babbage @histodons #computer #history #science #engineering #artifacts #tech #technology #museums #sts

Charles Babbage, who is credited with inventing the first automatic digital computer, was born this day in 1791. He first had the idea of creating a calculator to compute mathematical calculations about 1813 and created a small calculator with an 8-decimal capacity. In 1823, he was given government support to create a more advanced Difference Engine with a 20-decimal capacity.
#CharlesBabbage #DifferenceEngine #Inventor #Computer #Calculator
Image of the Difference Engine. Image via Wikipedia

I'm looking for a freely-available full text (PDF, ePub preferably) of Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1846).

There's a start of one at Wikisource, but it's only the contents, index, and other supplemental material.

Neither LibGen nor Archive Org seem to have a copy of the text in English and out of copyright. (There's a copyrighted repriint at Archive.Org.)

#DearMastomind #PDFMe #Books #CharlesBabbage #DearHivemind #EconomyOfMachinery #TechOntology

#DropSea: Ritratti: #AdaLovelace https://dropseaofulaula.blogspot.com/2021/12/ritratti-ada-lovelace.html #matematica #LordByron #CharlesBabbage #macchinaanalitica #LuigiMenabrea

This “essential piece of computing history” just sold for $43,750 - Enlarge / This Jacquard-driven loom, circa 1850, is considered an early predecessor of the first co... more: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1633943 #computinghistory #historyofscience #gaming&culture #charlesbabbage #historyoftech #jacquardloom #computers #science