So we ventured down to Mountain View (about 45 minutes south of SF Bay area) to visit our friend Dave. We went with him to the Computer History Museum and were lucky because this nifty machine pictured below was only on display for a couple of weeks!) What is it? You are probably wondering... well, it is the first functioning calculator!!! And all it does is add!!! The inventor spent his whole lifetime designing it but never got to see it all put together and functioning ... so sad. An interesting fact: this machine was purchased by an American for an undisclosed amount (probably millions) just to sit in his living room along side his T-Rex!
That dark wheel with the handle is where you crank the machine to get the numbers.
And after that fantastic demonstration... we went on to the meat of the museum...
This was designed to be the first kitchen computer... for storing and retrieving recipes and such... but the display was nothing more than binary lights and switches! There was a note on the display that said "there is no evidence that this ever was sold to any individual". Well... duh! hahahahaha...
The first Apple laptop!
Atari!!! Nintendo!!!!
After all that... it was time to rest my 3-year-old brain with some yummy hot chocolate :)
1 comment:
A Difference Engine! Oh. My. Goodness. Charles Babbage is considered the first designer of the modern stored-program computer. In his day (mid-1800's) there were of course no electronics, so his designs were of course mechanical. He never saw a completed design in his lifetime. Two replicas were built; this one is the Myhrvold machine, owned by Nathan Myhrvold. This, frankly, rocks. Sofia, you are one of a very few people who will ever see this machine in person.
Interesting note - Charles Babbage designed the first theoretical computer. He worked with another person who devised the first program for it (that would calculate a series of Bernoulli numbers). This program of course never ran, but Babbage's correspondent was the worlds first computer programmer. Who was it? Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, and daughter of the poet Lord Byron. The first programmer was a woman! Go for it, girl!
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