[HN Gopher] Mechanical Computer - Basic Mechanisms in Fire Contr...
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Mechanical Computer - Basic Mechanisms in Fire Control Computers
(1953) [video]
Author : xept
Score : 49 points
Date : 2021-12-07 11:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| kazinator wrote:
| This video may be useful for teaching kids arithmetic intuition
| from non-traditional angles, including for negative numbers. E.g.
| the double-rack-pinion adder and especially the X-Y rack
| multiplier.
|
| Multiplication is typically modeled using repeated addition, or
| surface areas. But when negative numbers are involved, it may be
| unclear. You can stick to areas if you have a Cartesian plane
| where the upper left and lower right quadrants are understood to
| contain negative area. But that may seem arbitrary, requiring
| explanations that seem like hand waving if you don't already have
| an intuition for it. The mechanical multiplier replaces hand-
| waving explanations of sign with a waving arm that clearly
| reverses slope under the right geometric conditions, to produce a
| positive or negative number.
| daralthus wrote:
| As a fun exercise add erosion into the picture as a memory
| mechanism. Then just imagine a river flowing, rocks tumbling,
| birds chirping...
| IcyClAyMptHe wrote:
| I've watched this video countless times throughout the years.
| It's a lovely illustration of what can be calculated by physical
| means, but also a great example of a concise and engaging
| educational video - every step is clearly animated and you
| understand how each component works. Fantastic stuff
| chefandy wrote:
| Though this video isn't among them, the Prelinger Archives at The
| Internet Archive have a thousands of public domain videos-- many
| are educational videos from this era. They've got a streaming
| preview player but you can easily download larger versions
| directly, or torrent them if you want to save Brewster a bit of
| bandwidth.
|
| https://archive.org/details/prelinger
| pinkman68419 wrote:
| Every time I see this video posted I watch it again from start to
| finish. Amazing what could (can!) be done with purely mechanical
| components.
| agumonkey wrote:
| That is true. And also I see a direct link between coupled
| mechanics and reactive programming.
|
| That vid brought a few internal chats about computing. Since
| it's clear those things are computing advanced function in real
| time (with noise though), streaming physical changes downto the
| linkage graph, no side effects if you haskell-squint hard..
| digital computers are a different take on computing, they were
| timeless, memoryfull at first.. and along the decades it seems
| we were all seeking to bring back automatic coupling (reactive
| recomputation) on the foreground.
| rfreiberger wrote:
| I love the idea of alternative reality and what if the vacuum
| tubes were never invented, the same with the transistor.
| Would we have huge steam engines running building sized
| mechanical computers to calculate simple programs. Each time
| I visit the Computer History Museum I think of what if the
| path was disrupted somehow.
| dang wrote:
| Sorry for offtopicness- xept could you please email
| hn@ycombinator.com? I want to send you some repost invites.
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