2013-05-10
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“To be ready for the worst, so that the worst will never happen, America is now armed with instant electronic reflexes. The Sage computer made by I.B.M.”
(Source: youtube.com)
2013-03-19
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Computers by artist Richard Hamilton. Hamilton designed two computer exteriors; the OHIO computer prototype (for a Swedish firm named Isotron, 1984) and DIAB DS-101 (Dataindustrier AB, 1986).
The blurring of these computer designs into the fine art world is intriguing, the image below is titled Study for Isotron Computer, 1984 and sold at auction for £21,250, and the computer above is known as the sculpture titled Diab Ds-101 Computer, 1985 - 1989, (materials: functioning computer, aluminium support, cellulose and anodized aluminium) and sold at auction for £79,250.
The Diab DS-101 Computer is held by Tate, after a donation by Eddie Thordèn in 1996.
(How did I not know about this?)
2013-03-15
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2012-12-11
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In 2008, the German computer magazine c’t launched a competition to find the best program that could play Asteroids, the classic arcade game. It detailed the internals of the machine, and eventually chose from the entrants.
The winner, Helmut Buhler, was responsible for the video above. He realised that the random number generator at the core of the game was actually predictable, which means his code can fire shots before asteroids appear, or aim for both the asteroid and the smaller fragments that will spin off it.
If the sheer audacity of that doesn’t impress you, you may prefer the entry from Vladimir “Bleifuß” Panteleev, whose ship will scare the willies out of you as it slides at high speed just past vast rocks or the alien spaceship.
(Thanks to Paul Hammond for introducing me to these videos.)
2012-11-22
2012-10-31
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From NPR’s All Tech Considered, The Night A Computer Predicted The Next President:
Before election night 60 years ago, the race between Stevenson and Eisenhower looked close. But early in the night, with just over 3 million votes counted, UNIVAC predicted the odds were 100 to 1 in favor of Eisenhower.
It wasn’t until after midnight that a Remington Rand representative, Art Draper in Philadelphia, came on the air with an explanation.Even early returns, without the aid of a computer, were indicating an Eisenhower landslide. But the odds still seemed inconceivable. The computer printout, revealed hours later, read: “It’s awfully early, but I’ll go out on a limb … The chances are now 00 to 1 in favor of the election of Eisenhower.” The printout read 00 instead of 100 because the programmers never imagined needing an odd greater than two digits.
“As more votes came in, the odds came back and it was obviously evident that we should have had the nerve enough to believe the machine in the first place,” he said. “It was right. We were wrong. Next year we’ll believe it.”
It’s worth reading (or even listening) to the whole thing. Fascinating stuff from the early history of computing.
Image: A printout of the UNIVAC prediction of the 1952 presidential prediction. Courtesy of the Computer History Museum.
2012-09-03
2012-05-10
2012-04-28
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I found a wonderful picture from 1965 showing a TELEFUNKEN RAT700 analog computer simulating the suspension system of a car.
