Off Topic

[Schneiderfrei]

Way back in 1978 I took my FORTRAN course on a 'real' computer.  Using punched cards.  After typing out your deck, you took it to the reader.  If the reader didn't blow your cards all over the room you were ready to sprint to the staircase to reach the line printer on the fourth floor.  If your job hadn't timed out, you got about three pages of header and footer and maybe half a page of useful output.  Any graphing of results was by hand.

jruley,

My father was a mining engineer in Mt Isa, Queensland in the 60's he jumped ship to computer programmimg as soon as he saw the stuff. Actually (I may have mentioned this before, but) there was a small pair of flat nosed pliers that I grew up with, that had enlarged handle covers, made with yellow garden hose. I was well into my 50s when he told me they were originally used to program the computer at Mt Isa Mines.

He had 32 computer languages under his belt by the end of the 1990s. Whenever he tried to teach me, I always fell asleep.

[jruley]

My father was a mining engineer in Mt Isa, Queensland in the 60's he jumped ship to computer programmimg as soon as he saw the stuff. Actually (I may have mentioned this before, but) there was a small pair of flat nosed pliers that I grew up with, that had enlarged handle covers, made with yellow garden hose. I was well into my 50s when he told me they were originally used to program the computer at Mt Isa Mines.

He had 32 computer languages under his belt by the end of the 1990s. Whenever he tried to teach me, I always fell asleep.

I remember my older brother's first 'computer'.  One of those science project things you could send for after collecting enough green stamps.  It had plastic sliding levers and hairpin springs.  Programming involved putting short lengths of what looked like soda straws on nubbins on the sliders.  When everything was in place you pulled one of slides, things clicked into place and you could demonstrate simple binary operations like addition and multiplication.

One of my grad school professors was a German engineer who had worked on jet engines during WWII.  He told us they had electronic calculators with gears and wheels, and when you wanted the solution you literally "turned the crank".

The moral (if any) is we sure take a lot of things for granted today.  There was a time when communication with machines was totally open-ended.

[Schneiderfrei]

Great story jruley, thank you.

[stoo23]

One of my grad school professors was a German engineer who had worked on jet engines during WWII.  He told us they had electronic calculators with gears and wheels, and when you wanted the solution you literally "turned the crank".[/quote]
I think THIS may have been what he was referring to:
Curta - WikipediA   



One of those Superbly crafted and engineered pieces of Excellence that would probably last multiple life-spans and make for a great Mantlke Ornament, like perhaps a Nagra SN Pocket tape recorder and Minox 'Spy' camera 

[jruley]

I think THIS may have been what he was referring to:
Curta - WikipediA   

Interesting find, but not quite - I think his were for calculus and differential equations.  Same general idea though.

Forgot whether it was Patriot's Point SC or Pearl Harbor, but I was impressed with an exhibit of the fire control computer from a WWII battleship.  Range and bearing indications from the rangefinders and turrets were converted to electrical signals, then routed to a central "table" where the 'solution' was computed using cams and gears.  Range rate and bearing rate were accounted for, as well as speed of the ship, deck pitch and roll and probably the assumed wind speed.  When everything lined up just right an electrical signal fired the guns.  All beautifully machined from brass.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer

[stoo23]

Well, it Wasn't ... 'A find' as such, I had a school friend, who's older brother used to Rally cars and they used one for Navigation,... along with a Halda, later on. I thought it was very cool ... and 'Trick'. Always wanted one 

Apart from the advanced work done by Turing & Welchman in WW2, the ONLY German (Nazi) scientist I am aware of that was one of the early pioneers involved in Analog (electro-mechanical) computing stuff that involved; (calculus & differential equations), was Helmut Hoelzer.
Hoelzer was involved in designing and developing the guidance systems for the A4 rocket (better known as the V2), see here:
Analog Computers: Looking to the Past for the Future of Computing
Helmut Hölzer - WikipediA

[jruley]

Apart from the advanced work done by Turing & Welchman in WW2, the ONLY German (Nazi) scientist I am aware of that was one of the early pioneers involved in Analog (electro-mechanical) computing stuff that involved; (calculus & differential equations), was Helmut Hoelzer.
Hoelzer was involved in designing and developing the guidance systems for the A4 rocket (better known as the V2), see here:
Analog Computers: Looking to the Past for the Future of Computing
Helmut Hölzer - WikipediA

This was my professor:

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Edse

He didn't provide any specifics about the "electronic machine" (his words).  He just explained that was the origin of the phrase "turn the crank" to solve a math problem.

[stoo23]

   That may even be some weird German 'expression' perhaps not literally meaning a physical 'crank' ??
Certainly a person with an interesting background   

[jruley]

  That may even be some weird German 'expression' perhaps not literally meaning a physical 'crank' ??

Still used by physics and math professors when I was in college.  Along with "poke the equation", and "crunch it through" (by a physics prof whose hobby was a sawmill).