Building on the efforts of yesterday's makers
Hard Work
"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.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
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.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.