2025/09/08
Advances on cracking Antikythera Mechanism
"Freeth and colleagues at University College London (UCL) believe they have finally cracked the puzzle using 3D computer modelling. They have recreated the entire front panel, and now hope to build a full-scale replica of the Antikythera using modern materials". News article at BBC News, full article at Scientific Reports.
Labels: #analogue, #Computers
Colossus, electronic analog
"Let us not imagine, however, that Colossus was a programmable, general-purpose computer in the modern sense. It could logically combine two data streams – one on tape, one generated from ring counters – and count the number of 1s encountered, and that was all. Much of the “programming” of Colossus was actually carried out on paper, with operators executing decision trees prepared by analysts." From, The Electronic Computers, Part 2: Colossus.
Labels: #Computers, #History
2017/11/25
Laptops hinder performance
Looks like I am right to ban laptops in my classes... "By the end of the semester, students in the classrooms with laptops or tablets had performed substantially worse than those in the sections where electronics were banned."
Labels: #Computers, #learning
2016/10/27
Turing Tape Neural architecture
"Although there are clear parallels between human reasoning and the running of computer programs, we lack an understanding of how either of them could be implemented in biological or artificial neural networks. Graves and colleagues take a substantial step forward in this quest by presenting a neuro-computational system that shows striking similarities to a digital computer." Full news article @ Nature; target article "Hybrid computing using a neural network with dynamic external memory" also at Nature.
Labels: #Computers, #Turing, #TuringTape
2016/09/28
first ever computer music recording generated on Alan Turing's computer
New Zealand researchers have restored the first recording of computer-generated music, created in 1951 on a gigantic contraption built by British genius Alan Turing. See article @ Australian Broadcasting Corporation and music @ Thump.
Thank you Nathan Ratkiewicz for sharing.
Labels: #Computers, #Music, #Turing
first ever computer music recording generated on Alan Turing's computer
New Zealand researchers have restored the first recording of computer-generated music, created in 1951 on a gigantic contraption built by British genius Alan Turing. See article @ Australian Broadcasting Corporation and music @ Thump.
Labels: #Computers, #Music, #Turing
2015/12/01
Ada ovelace: Enchantress of abstraction
"The bicentenary of Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, heralds the critical reassessment of a remarkable figure in the history of Victorian science. Ada Lovelace (as she is now known) was 27 years old and married with 3 children when she published the first account of a prototype computer and its possible applications in 1843. Her 20,000-word paper was appended as seven Notes to a translation of a descriptive article, Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage." Book review @ Nature : Nature
Labels: #Computation, #Computers
