• Shinobu (unregistered) in reply to Norman Diamond
    Norman Diamond:
    The Science Museum, London, had an exhibit on Charles Babbage in 1999. That's where I read that he was vilified for trying to fix bugs in tables of logarithms.
    Ooh, that's interesting. Their website doesn't mention it though. Still, it would be very interesting if it were to turn out there were some truth to it, and I'd love to read more about it.
  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Shinobu
    Shinobu:
    Norman Diamond:
    The Science Museum, London, had an exhibit on Charles Babbage in 1999. That's where I read that he was vilified for trying to fix bugs in tables of logarithms.
    Ooh, that's interesting. Their website www.sciencemuseum.org.uk onlinestuff stories babbage.aspx doesn't mention it[/url] though. Still, it would be very interesting if it were to turn out there were some truth to it, and I'd love to read more about it.
    You're right, it's too bad their web site doesn't mention it.

    The quotes below are relatively innocuous. They are NOT the droids that I'm looking for.

    www.computerhistory.org babbage dionysiuslardner "Here Lardner again trumpeted the danger of tabular errors, and this at the expense of the mathematical potential of the machines. His focus on errors was a well-intentioned attempt to publicize the engines. But in overemphasizing errors he did Babbage's interests near-fatal damage as experts disagreed whether errors in tables were a serious problem at all."

    www.computerhistory.org babbage georgeairy "In 1842 he advised the Treasury that the engines were 'useless' and that Babbage's project should be abandoned. The Government axed the project shortly after. Airy was not alone in his opposition. Astronomers in Sweden and France also rejected the utility of the machines."

    Akismet says that computer history is spam.

    Akismet still says that computer history is spam.

    Maybe a moderator can put the URLs back together, since no one's going to moderate Akismet.

  • Spoe (unregistered) in reply to TheCPUWizard
    TheCPUWizard:
    ...multi-user mainframe....DecWriter (sic)

    It is DECwriter...made by...wait for it...DEC [Digital Equipment Corp]. The vast majority of these were used for PDP-11 and VAX computers, both of which were considered Mini computers and not mainframes...

    I remember those. The company I worked for in the nineties sold those to farms (the agricultural kind) so they could dial in to our VAXen to run reports. I think we stopped selling them in the eighties, but they were still in use (and we had to support them) in to the naughties (2000s).

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