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
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 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.