Building on the efforts of yesterday's makers

Hard Work

Article from Issue 168/2014
Author(s):

"maddog" takes a quick look at some of the early pioneers of computing.

Recently, I spoke to a group of students at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. The occasion was the 40th anniversary of the university's offering a computer science degree, and my talk gave me a chance to reflect on computing history, how it came about, and how many people today have no idea of the work, effort, and plain brilliance of some of the early pioneers in computing.

It is easy to look back on the computing pioneers and say "Oh yes, of course" and to take their work and brilliance as natural fact, but when you put yourself in their place and try to imagine things that had never been done, it becomes a whole different story.

Many people have heard the story of Charles Babbage and how he tried to make a difference engine out of gears and cams back in the 19th century. A classic case of re-engineering, Babbage never completed any of his machines. But few people know that a couple of years later, a father and son team named Scheutz created a much simpler device of the same type and built two working machines. Soon after that, Martin Wiberg reworked the machine and build an even more successful difference engine.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News