发信人: Podoid (戒急用忍), 信区: Science
标 题: 150年前的电脑展示
发信站: 水木社区 (Fri Apr 25 02:07:51 2008), 站内
Designed nearly 150 years ago but never actually built until recently, the
Difference Engine No. 2 designed by Charles Babbage (1791 to 1871) is a piece
of Victorian technology meant to tussle with logarithms and trigonometry long
before the first modern computer. Technophiles have a rare opportunity
beginning May 10 to see one of these devices (only two exist) on display at the
Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.
Babbage's automatic computing engine consists of 8,000 bronze, cast iron and
steel parts, weighs five tons, and measures eleven feet (3.4 meters) long and
seven feet (2.1 meters) high. Museum guest curator Doron Swade used Babbage's
own plans to bring the engine to life.
Babbage is also credited with inventing the cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard
railroad gauge and heliograph ophthalmoscope as well as uniform postal rates,
occulting lights for lighthouses and Greenwich time signals.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=150-year-old-computer-babbage |
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