Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Marcin Wichary

A book idea: “Life before software.” All of the amazing mechanical and electromechanical solutions to what today would be software: Old pinball machines, Backspace on a Selectric, tons of a/v stuff, Linotype, Comptometer, phone relays, probably a million other things. Beautiful drawings and great stories.

12 comments
Soh Kam Yung

@mwichary Hmmm...book to be produced without software also? 🙂

Nelson Minar 🧚‍♂️

@mwichary I hear you'll be looking for a new project soon :-)

penguin42

@mwichary Some early machine tools as well; I think a lot of stuff kind of got there in sequencing/automation.

Marcin Wichary

@TechConnectify Still watching your video if you can’t tell!

Ángela Stella Matutina

@mwichary

All kinds of analog calculators from the humble slide rule to the Bendix Central Air Data Computer, stopping in the way to admire tide-predicting machines and gun directors. Sound synthesizers made out of oscillators and filters. The camera lucida and the blink comparator. Holmberg's lamp-based integrator for gravitational force between many galaxies.

By which I mean, yes, do it and I'll buy it and recommend it.

Go Up