Re: [OM] Godspeed, Neil Armstrong

[Chris Trask]

     In the 1951 science fiction movie "When Worlds Collide" you get to see one 
of those mechanical "automatic differentator" computers at work.  It took 
forever for it to calculate the trajectory of the approaching rogue planet.  
That movie won an academy award for special effects.

>
> >
> > >  Just to extend this OT discussion a bit further, who remembers this
> > >clever little device:
> > >
> > >       http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm
> > >
> > >  I remember drooling over the ads for this thing in Scientific
> > > American back in the late 60's. I was tempted a few times but $125 was
> > > a *lot* of money.
> > >
> >
> >      And then there's Thacher’s Calculating Machine:
> >
> >      http://www.flickr.com/photos/thayerschool/3272197754/
> >
> >      I first saw one of these in a display case at the Lowell
> > Observatory in Flagstaff.  It just so happens that it was there
> > that Neil Armstrong made his last public appearance at the
> > dedication for a new observatory built by the Discovery Channel.
> >
> >      And then there was this mechanical wonder from the early 1960's:
> >
> >      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digi-Comp_I
> >
> >      I had one of these.  It tended to get stuck when you operated the 
> > slides, but it was still pretyy neat.
> >
>
>  Then there is the granddaddy of them all:
>
>              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
>
>  Clever those ancient Greeks.
>

Chris

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