The Prehistory of Computing, Part II

I’ve always been fascinated by information systems that predate the transistor. I’ve been slowly compiling a list in my Obsidian notebook. In case anyone else has a similar itch to scratch: https://rickcarlino.com/notes/ideas/primitive-information-te...

I would recommend to visit Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, they have a lot old stuff.

http://hnf-erstes-og.360touren24.de/

> In philosophy he’s chiefly remembered for his incomprehensible theory of monads and for stating that this was the best of all possible worlds.

Those are not in fact the things Leibniz is best known for in philosophy ... in that field he's primarily known for the Identity of Indiscernibles and for Leibniz's Mill ... and many other things as well.

The picture of the top is of the tape readers for the Harvard Mark I, from 1944. It's Peak Tabulating Machine, a reasonably general purpose automatic computer built from IBM tabulating machine parts. The project started in 1939, but was held up by WWII.

IBM's early computing history was a long struggle between what people wanted to do and what could cost-effectively be built.

Part I managed to miss the Antikythera Mechanism.

Totally worth reading Part 1 as well; I was unfamiliar with the sector as a computing device before today. It’s very clever.