Dead Media Working Notes
Historical media and inventions, like pnuematic trains, camera obscura, the Difference Engine, wax cylinder audio recordings, etc.
Historical media and inventions, like pnuematic trains, camera obscura, the Difference Engine, wax cylinder audio recordings, etc.
"An analog computer is a computing device that has two distinguishing characteristics: (1) Performs operations in a truly parallel manner. Meaning it can perform many calculations all at the same time. (2) And operates using continuous variables. Meaning it uses numbers that that change not in steps, but change in a smooth continuous manner. By constrast, a digital computer can only perform sequential (one at a time) operations, and operates on discrete (noncontinuous) numbers."
dead link: http://dcoward.best.vwh.net/analog/
Made about 850CE, this computer uses ropes and pulleys to make the logic gates.
dead link: http://www.rustrans.co.uk/slh/rope.html
A 1930s catalog of Masonic pratical joke gadgets. Lots of electric shocks and blanks exploding here.