Herbert Bruderer

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• Lecturer, Prof.
• retired at ETH Zurich

It is known that Jürg Lindecker, one of the four editors of the anthology „Ingenieure bauen die Schweiz. Technikgeschichte aus erster Hand” (Engineers build Switzerland. A first-hand technical history), published by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung Verlag, forged or falsified at least four essays. Although the publisher is aware of these falsifications, fo...

Einer der vier Herausgeber des Sammelbandes „Ingenieure bauen die Schweiz. Technikgeschichte aus erster Hand, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung“, Jürg Lindecker, hat nach bisherigen Erkenntnissen vier Aufsätze erfunden bzw. gefälscht. Obwohl dem Verlag die Fälschungen bekannt sind, wurde das Buch jahrelang nicht aus dem Verkehr gezogen. Mitherausgeber St...

78 blog posts on the history of computing and technology, published by the Communications of the ACM, New York (2017-2024)

In Frankreich, Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz waren Bilderuhren im 19. Jahrhundert überaus beliebt. Heute werden sie als begehrte Sammelobjekte an Auktionen gehandelt. Auf den Gemälden, die stets eine Uhr enthalten, sind oft romantische Landschaften dargestellt. Manche haben zudem ein Schlagwerk oder ein Musikwerk. Das Uhrwerk, das Schlagw...

Picture clocks were very popular in France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in the 19th century. Today, they are traded as sought-after collector's items at auctions. The paintings, which always contain a clock, often depict romantic landscapes. Some also have a striking mechanism or a music playing mechanism. The clockwork, the striking mechanis...

Early on, mathematics was of great importance for astronomy, navigation, time measurement, and surveying. As can be seen from contemporary textbooks by Benjamin Bramer, Levinus Hulsius and Leonhard Zubler, the main focus in the 17th century was on measuring distances and heights. The “geometrical instruments” resembled sectors and some had a crossb...

List of 77 blog posts on the history of analog and digital computing, technology, automatons, robots, and scientific instruments (mathematics, astronomy, surveying, time measurement, mechanical looms) published by the Communication of the ACM, New York, 2017-2024

Historic music machines are among the most magnificent automatons. They delighted visitors to fairgrounds, played in inns and railroad stations and entertained passengers on huge ocean liners. Many devices are still fully functional today. They range from tiny singing birds, music boxes, barrel organs, flute-playing clocks and mechanical violins to...

Historische Musikmaschinen gehören zu den prächtigsten Automaten. Sie erfreuten die Besucherinnen und Besucher von Jahrmärkten, spielten in Gasthäusern und Bahnhöfen und unterhielten Fahrgäste auf riesigen Ozeandampfern. Viele Instrumente sind heute noch voll funktionsfähig. Die Bandbreite reicht von winzigen Singvögeln, Musikdosen, Drehorgeln, Flö...

For a long time, chess was considered the epitome of the human mind, a touchstone for artificial intelligence. Alan Turing had already dealt with this topic. In 1770, Wolfgang von Kempelen built the chess-playing Turk, in 1912 Leonardo Torres y Quevedo created an end-game machine, and in 1951 Norbert Wiener played against Torres y Quevedo's machine...

Das Schachspiel galt lange Zeit als Inbegriff für den menschlichen Verstand, als Prüfstein für die künstliche Intelligenz. Schon Alan Turing hatte sich mit diesem Thema befasst. 1770 baute Wolfgang von Kempelen den Schachtürken, 1912 schuf Leonardo Torres y Quevedo einen Endspielautomaten und 1951 spielte Norbert Wiener in Paris gegen Torres y Quev...

Unlike the Chinese, Japanese and Russian bead frames, the Peruvian abacus is unknown even to many experts. Despite decades of research, it is still unclear how the Inka used this enigmatic digital calculating device. This is because there are hardly any contemporary descriptions. In addition, the abacus mentioned in the literature differs greatly f...

Im Unterschied zu den chinesischen, japanischen und russischen Kugelrechnern ist der peruanische Abakus selbst vielen Fachleuten unbekannt. Trotz jahrzehntelanger Forschung ist bis heute ungeklärt, wie die Inka das rätselhafte digitale Rechengerät verwendet haben. Das liegt daran, dass es dazu kaum zeitgenössische Beschreibungen gibt. Hinzu kommt,...

Schon im Altertum wurden Automaten gebaut. Zu den frühesten Schöpfern zählen Ktesibios von Alexandria (3. Jh. v. Chr.) und Heron von Alexandria (1. Jh. n.Chr.). Zu den führenden Automatenbauern gehörten: Ibn al Razzāz al-Jazarī, James Cox, Salomon de Caus, Heron von Alexandria, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, Athanasius Kircher, Friedrich Knaus, Ktesibios von...

A look at some of the earliest robots. Automatons were already being built in ancient times. The earliest creators include Ctesibius of Alexandria (3rd century BC) and Heron of Alexandria (1st century AD). Among the leading builders of automatons were: Ibn al Razzāz al-Jazarī, James Cox, Salomon de Caus, Heron of Alexandria, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, At...

Papers in English and German on the history of computing and technology Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12657978 https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.12657977

Zu den meist verbreiteten Rechenrahmen gehören die chinesischen, japanischen und russischen Abakusse sowie die Schulabakusse. Weniger bekannt ist der römische Handabakus, von dem nur drei originale Stücke überliefert sind und das rätselhafte peruanische Rechenbrett, die Yupana. Die Inka verwendeten Knotenschnüre (Quipus) für die Speicherung von Zah...

The most common bead frames include Chinese, Japanese, and Russian abacuses as well as school abacuses. Less well known is the Roman hand abacus, of which only three original pieces have sur-vived, and the mysterious Inka counting board, the Yupana. The Inka used knotted cords (quipus or khipus) to store numerical values and Yupanas for calculation...

This series presents selected technical marvels from the fields of computing technology, mathematics, astronomy, surveying, time measurement, looms and automatons (automaton figures, chess-playing machines, musical automatons, automaton writers, drawing automatons, automaton clocks, picture clocks, globes, historical robots). The examples are large...

In dieser Reihe werden ausgewählte technische Wunderwerke aus den Bereichen Informatik, Mathematik, Astronomie, Vermessung, Zeitmessung, Webmaschinen sowie Automaten (Figurenautomaten, Schachautomaten, Musikautomaten, Schreibautomaten, Zeichenautomaten, Automatenuhren, Automatenbilder, Globen, Roboter) vorgestellt. Die Beispiele stammen weitgehend...

2., erweiterte Auflage ___________________________________________________________________________________ Viele Museen haben öffentlich zugängliche Sammlungsdatenbanken. Das gilt besonders für die USA und Grossbritannien. Leider gibt es nach wie vor bedeutende Institutionen, deren Objektdatenbanken zurzeit nicht übers Netz zugänglich sind: z.B. da...

2nd, revised edition _____________________________________________________________________________________Many museums have online collection databases. This is particularly true of the US and the UK. Unfortunately, there are still important institutions whose collection databases are currently not accessible online: e.g. the Deutsches Museum in Mu...

Many museums have online collection databases. This is particularly true of the US and the UK. Unfortunately, there are still important institutions whose collection databases are currently not accessible online: e.g. the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum in Paderborn, the Arithmeum in Bonn. There are considerable differenc...

Viele Museen haben öffentlich zugängliche Sammlungsdatenbanken. Das gilt besonders für die USA und Grossbritannien. Leider gibt es nach wie vor bedeutende Institutionen, deren Objektdatenbanken zurzeit nicht übers Netz zugänglich sind: z.B. das Deutsche Museum in München, das Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum in Paderborn, das Arithmeum in Bonn. Es gibt e...

Mangelhafte Museumsdatenbanken Viele Museen haben öffentlich zugängliche Sammlungsdatenbanken. Das gilt besonders für die USA und Grossbritannien. Leider gibt es nach wie vor bedeutende Institutionen, deren Objektdatenbanken zurzeit nicht übers Netz zugänglich sind: z.B. das Deutsche Museum in München, das Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum in Paderborn, d...

This series presents selected technical marvels from the fields of computing technology, mathematics, astronomy, surveying, time measurement, looms and automatons (automaton figures, chess-playing machines, musical automatons, automaton writers, drawing automatons, automaton clocks, picture clocks, globes, historical robots). The examples are large...

In dieser Reihe werden ausgewählte technische Wunderwerke aus den Bereichen Informatik, Mathematik, Astronomie, Vermessung, Zeitmessung, Webmaschinen sowie Automaten (Figurenautomaten, Schachautomaten, Musikautomaten, Schreibautomaten, Zeichenautomaten, Automatenuhren, Automatenbilder, Globen, historische Roboter) vorgestellt. Die Beispiele stammen...

Slide rules are once widespread mathematical instruments designed on the basis of the logarithms discovered by Jost Bürgi (Switzerland) and John Napier (Scotland). These instruments reduce mul-tiplication to the addition and division to the subtraction of line segments. There are different types of instruments: linear slide rules, circular slide ru...

On January 18, 2024, leading British computer historian Brian Randell from the School of Compu-ting at Newcastle University spread the following message: “From the BBC: By Shiona McCallum, Technology reporter. GCHQ has released never before seen images of Colossus, the UK's secret code-breaking computer credited with helping the Allies win World Wa...

Die Digitalisierung benachteiligt ärmere, schwächere, behinderte und alte Leute.

Digitization has many downsides. It puts many people at a disadvantage and relegates them to the sidelines. It disadvantages many weaker, disabled and older people. _____________________________________________________________________________________Digitization Puts Many at a Disadvantage | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

Digitization is on everyone's lips. What does digitization mean and when did it begin? What do text robots think about this question? ____________________________________________________________________________________What Does Digitization Mean, and When Did It Begin? | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

Book reviews of Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing/Meilensteine der Rechentechnik, Springer/De Gruyter 2020

List of historical blog posts published by the Communications of the ACM, New York

The largely forgotten Swiss clockmaker Jost Bürgi (1552-1632) was a universal genius. He is considered one of two discoverers of logarithms. He worked at the imperial court in Prague with the astronomer Johannes Kepler. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Jost Bürgi and the Discovery of Logarithms |...

2023.07.13: Bard is now available in more than 40 new languages and over 230 countries, including all 27 countries in the European Union. A test should show whether Bard is more powerful than ChattGPT or AI powered Microsoft Bing, see also ChatGPT Invents a Lot of Nonsense | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM and What Does AI-Powered Microsoft B...

List of 64 CACM blog posts (mainly on the history of computing)

I asked ChatGPT who wrote the book "Meilensteine der Rechentechnik”. The program returns many different answers, all of them are wrong. Most often Friedrich Bauer (University of München), Horst Zuse (son of Konrad Zuse) and Konrad Zuse (German computer inventor) are mentioned. Other well-known names appear, such as Heinz Rutishauser (ETH Zurich), M...

I asked ChatGPT who wrote the book "Meilensteine der Rechentechnik”. The program returns many different answers, all of them are wrong. Most often Friedrich Bauer (University of München), Horst Zuse (son of Konrad Zuse) and Konrad Zuse (German computer inventor) are mentioned. Other well-known names appear, such as Heinz Rutishauser (ETH Zurich), M...

I asked the new Microsoft Bing a few simple questions, the same question in German, English and French. The answers vary depending on the language. If you repeat the questions, the answers sometimes differ greatly. Most of the time they are poor, seem random and arbitrary, often wrong and nonsensical. In general, the results are very unsatisfactory...

Ich habe dem neuen Microsoft Bing ein paar einfache Fragen gestellt, jeweils die gleiche Frage auf Deutsch, English und Französisch. Je nach Sprache fallen die Auskünfte unterschiedlich aus. Wiederholt man die Fragen, weichen die Antworten manchmal stark voneinander ab. Meist sind sie mangelhaft, wirken zufällig und willkürlich, oft falsch und unsi...

Germany is celebrating the 400th birthday of Schickard's "calculating clock": in 1623, 400 years ago, Wilhelm Schickard (Tübingen) built the first known mechanical calculating machine. In the 17th century, other such devices appeared in Europe. They were made by Pascal, Leibniz, Morland, and Schott. However, usable mechanical calculating machines w...

In Deutschland wird der 400. Geburtstag der Schickardschen "Rechenuhr" gefeiert: 1623, vor 400 Jahren, baute Wilhelm Schickard (Tübingen) die erste bekannte mechanische Rechenmaschine. Im 17. Jahrhundert kamen in Europa weitere derartige Geräte zur Welt. Sie stammen von Pascal, Leibniz, Morland und Schott. Brauchbare mechanische Rechenmaschinen kam...

Reviews of the two-volume book "Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing", 3 editions, 3rd edition in 2020 (German and English)

Buchbesprechungen zum Werk "Meilensteine der Rechentechnik", 1. bis 3. Auflage

Microsoft links its search engine Bing with the AI language model ChatGPT. A small investigation should show what users can expect. One can ask the questions in several languages, e.g. English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Questions with up to 2000 characters are allowed. The search engine names the sources. The results range from correct...

Collection of book reviews of the two-volume book "Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing"/"Meilensteine der Rechentechnik"

Sammlung der bisherigen Buchbesprechungen des zweibändigen Werks "Meilensteine der Rechentechnik"/"Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing" (Auswahl)

Almost all of the contributions to the Communications of the ACM concern the history of computing.

The automatic translators Google translate and DeepL translator still have trouble recognizing the 2nd person singular and plural and the polite form, even in very simple sentences. The results in French, Italian and Spanish are sometimes right, sometimes wrong, i.e. rather random. DeepL sometimes offers (right or wrong) alternatives. Progress in t...

On the basis of selected examples, it will be examined whether language translation programs (DeepL translator and Google translate) are really intelligent and whether they are capable of learning. Is there a false intelligence? Do the programs understand what they write? _____________________________________________________________________________...

Vintage Computer Festival, München 2023 ___________________________________________________________________________________ Die Frühzeit der Informatik an der ETH Zürich umfasst den Zeitraum von der Gründung des Instituts für angewandte Mathematik (1948) bis zum Abbruch des Eigenbaus Ermeth (1963). Nachdem die 50-jährige Sperrfrist abgelaufen ist,...

Rezension in Elemente der Mathematik 78 (2023), 90–92 DOI 10.4171/EM/490 ________________________________________________________________________ https://ems.press/journals/em

Herbert Bruderer: Meilensteine der Rechentechnik __________________________________________________________________________________ Band 1: Analog- und Digitalrechner, Automaten und Roboter, wissenschaftliche Instrumente, Schritt-für-Schritt-Anleitungen. __________________________________________________________________________________ Band 2: Er...

Am 4. November 2019, also vor über drei Jahren, habe ich die Universität Bremen über das wissen-schaftliche Fehlverhalten ihrer Sprachdozentin Valerie Scholes (Englisch-Kurse bis mindestens Sommersemester 2022) ins Bild gesetzt. Bis heute warte ich auf eine einwandfreie Klärung der An-gelegenheit. Dies obwohl ich mehrfach eine umfassende Dokumentat...

Fredrik Andersson from Lund, Sweden, has translated the Zuse Z4 user manual from German into English. ____________________________________________________________________________________ https://nablaman.com/relay/download/Z4.pdf ____________________________________________________________________________________ A rare find: User manual of the...

Heinz Rutishauser was the first to propose automatic programming (machine translation with the aid of the computer, 1951/52) and Grace Hopper developed the first utility programs for the management of subprograms (1952). Alick Glennie lays claim to the first true compiler which actually operated on a computer (1952). ______________________________...

In 1940 the mathematician Alan Turing designed an electromechanical machine, the Turing Bombe. The effectiveness of the first version was however unsatisfactory. The machine interrupted the automatic search when a possible Enigma wheel position was found, necessitating many manual interventions. The mathematician Gordon Welchman proposed incorporat...

The Harwell computer: the oldest functional relay computer.The Harwell computer, also called the Harwell-Decatron computer or Witch (Wolverhampton instrument for teaching computation from Harwell), is considered the oldest functional relay machine.

It was only with the appearance of the following publications that serious global computer manufacturing was ignited

Little is known about the Swedish Bark (binär automatisk relä-kalkylator, binary automatic relay computer). A few facts: decision to build: December 1948, beginning of construction in February 1949, completion in February 1950, followed by trial runs. Dedicated on April 28 1950. ______________________________________________________________________...

Among the first US companies to produce digital computers were Engineering Research Associates, Inc. (ERA, St. Paul, Minnesota, founded in 1946), and the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in 1946, originally named Electronic Control Company, Philadelphia), along with the Raytheon Manufacturing Company (W...

Did Turing collaborate on the Colossus? Did Churchill command the destruction of all Colossus computers? _____________________________________________________________________________________Turing, Churchill, and the Colossus | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

The tedious UNESCO project for the founding of an international computation center in Europe after the Second World War (International computation centre, Centre international de calcul méca-nique, later the Centre international des mathématiques appliquées and the Centro internazionale di calcolo) was largely a failure. Harlow Shapley of Harvard U...

The Communications website, https://cacm.acm.org, features more than a dozen bloggers in the BLOG@CACM community. In each issue of Communications , we'll publish selected posts or excerpts. twitter Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/blogCACM https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm Orit Hazzan and Koby Mike suggest a more focused approach to te...

List of 55 historical blog posts published by CACM

The early deceased Heinz Rutishauser (1918–1970) of the ETH Zurich is considered the most im-portant Swiss pioneer from the early era of computer science. He went down in history as the founder of "automatic programming" and as one of the authoritative fathers of the Algol program-ming language. _____________________________________________________...

The following early machines had the greatest influence on the development of program controlled computers: • ABC (Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, 1942), • Colossus (Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, London, 1943), • Edvac (University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 1952), • Eniac (University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 1946), • Har...

In his report about the analytical engine of Charles Babbage in tabular form Luigi Federico Mena-brea published a program for solving linear equation systems. This work was the result of a talk that Babbage gave at a conference in Turin (1840) (see Luigi Federico Menabrea: Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage, in: Bibliothèque un...

Review of Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing, 3rd ed by Herbert Bruderer | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore ____________________________________________________________________________________ P. Krapp, "Review of Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing, 3rd ed by Herbert Bruderer," in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol....

The digital computer of today arose in the first half of the 1940s independently in three different countries: Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. In Berlin the computer was the work of a single person, and elsewhere universities, government agencies or industry played an important role. For political reasons, the German inventor was largely cut off fro...

How great was Turing's influence on early British automatic computers? The opinions differ considerably. _________________________________________________________________________________ Turing's Influence on Computer Construction is Overestimated | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

List of 50 blog posts for CACM (history of computing) 1917-1922

As has only recently become known, forced labor occurred at a former Bührle textile factory in Toggenburg, Switzerland. This and other Bührle companies played a significant role in Swiss IT history. _____________________________________________________________________________ https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/259902-forced-labor-at-bhrles-arms-f...

Wie erst seit kurzer Zeit bekannt, kam es bei einer ehemaligen Textilfabrik von Bührle im Toggenburg zu Zwangsarbeit. Diese und weitere Bührle-Firmen spielen in der Schweizer Informatikgeschichte eine bedeutende Rolle.

After Germany (Zuse Z3 and Z4) Sweden was the second country on the European continent to develop its own computer (the Bark), in 1950. The third country to do so was Ukraine (with the Mesm). The Ukrainian computer pioneer Sergey Alexeyevich Lebedev built the first Soviet com-puter at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute in Kiev. The Mesm is co...

Falsified essays published by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). One of the four editors of the anthology "Ingenieure bauen die Schweiz. Technikgeschichte aus erster Hand (Engineers Build Switzerland. First-hand history of technology), Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung", Jürg Lindecker, has invented or falsified four essays according to previous findings....

Einer der vier Herausgeber des Sammelbandes „Ingenieure bauen die Schweiz. Technikgeschichte aus erster Hand, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung“, Jürg Lindecker, hat nach bisherigen Erkenntnissen vier Aufsätze erfunden bzw. gefälscht. Obwohl dem Verlag die Fälschungen bekannt sind, wurde das Buch jahrelang nicht aus dem Verkehr gezogen. Mitherausgeber St...

Einer der vier Herausgeber des Sammelbandes „Ingenieure bauen die Schweiz. Technikgeschichte aus erster Hand, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung“, Jürg Lindecker, hat nach bisherigen Erkenntnissen vier Aufsätze erfunden bzw. gefälscht. Obwohl dem Verlag die Fälschungen bekannt sind, wurde das Buch jahrelang nicht aus dem Verkehr gezogen. Mitherausgeber St...

The Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres (y) Quevedo (1852—1936) already attempted to solve diffi-cult algebraic equations by mechanical means in 1893. He wanted to realize the dream of Charles Babbage. In 1912 he built the first chess-playing automaton, which he demonstrated in Paris in 1914. He designed an automatic electromechanical calculating mach...

In recent years, research into the history of calculating and computing technology has uncovered a surprising number of analog and digital devices and documents: The world's largest commercial cylindrical slide rule, the world's oldest preserved keyboard adding machine, engineering drawings of the world's smallest mechanical parallel calculator, th...

The development of mechanical calculating machines began in the 17th century with Wilhelm Schickard (Germany), Blaise Pascal (France) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Germany). It reached its peak after more than 300 years with the Austrian engineer Curt Herzstark, the inventor of the Curta. This technical marvel was manufactured in large numbers in...

In recent years, research into the history of calculating and computing technology has uncovered a surprising number of analog and digital devices and documents: The world's largest commercial cylindrical slide rule, the world's oldest preserved keyboard adding machine, engineering drawings of the world's smallest mechanical parallel calculator, th...

Bei Nachforschungen zur Geschichte der Rechentechnik kamen in den letzten Jahren überraschende analoge und digitale Geräte und Dokumente zum Vorschein: die weltgrößte gewerbliche Rechenwalze, die weltweit älteste erhaltene Tastenaddiermaschine, Konstruktionszeichnungen des kleinsten mechanischen Parallelrechners der Welt, der einzige überlebende Re...

Bulletin de la société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale (BSEIN) No well-sounding name like Science or Nature. Inconspicuous, largely unknown, but still high-quality. A veritable treasure chest with diverse technical texts and superb drawings of machines and tools of all kinds (both copper engravings and woodcuts). The journal appeared for...

Der hochbegabte Wiener Ingenieur Curt Herzstark wurde 1943 ins Konzentrationslager Buchenwald bei Weimar deportiert. Dort fertigte er auf Geheiß der Nazis Konstruktions-zeichnungen für die später weltberühmte kleinste mechanische Rechenmaschine Curta an. Diese Rechenmühle gilt bis heute als technisches Wunderwerk. Doch Herzstark wurde um sein Leben...

The highly talented Viennese engineer Curt Herzstark was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar in 1943. There, at the behest of the Nazis, he produced design drawings for what later became the world's smallest mechanical calculating ma-chine, the Curta. This cylindrical calculator is still considered a technical marvel today. Bu...

As far as we know, only three or four original specimens of the Roman hand abacus have survived. They are made of bronze and are located in Aosta (Italy), Paris and Rome. _________________________________________________________________________ Original Roman Pocket Calculators are Extremely Rare | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

Blog posts on the history of computing and technology, published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York 2017-2021

Patent Protection in Europe | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM ____________________________________________________________________________________ The fear of plagiarizers is said to have influenced Jost Bürgi to publish his table of logarithms only many years after John Napier. The entirely justified fear of pirate copies can be seen with o...

As a rule, the English term "computer" and the equivalent German term "Rechner" describe calculating machines. But until the middle of the twentieth century computers were in fact humans who performed calculations. This is shown in older specialized books and numerous printed reference works. For complex calculations, the assistance of reckoning ce...

Napier’s rods, also called Napier’s bones, were invented at the beginning of the 17th century. They have been used for multiplications and divisions until the 19th century. There were various forms, e.g. rotating cylinders. _________________________________________________________________________________ How Does One Divide with Napier's Rods? | bl...

List of CACM blog posts

Napier’s rods, also called Napier’s bones, were invented at the beginning of the 17th century. They have been used for multiplications and divisions until the 19th century. There were various forms, e.g. rotating cylinders. __________________________________________________________________________________ How Does One Multiply with Napier's Rods? |...

The circular slide rule is an analog calculating device invented in the U.K. in the 17th century. It was widely used until the 1970s. __________________________________________________________________________________ How does one Calculate with a Circular Slide Rule? | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM

Das automatisierte Rechnen blickt auf eine lange Geschichte zurück. Bruderers monumentales Werk, das von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart führt, versammelt in seiner neu bearbeiteten Fassung noch mehr akribisch recherchierten Stoff zum Staunen als zuvor. c't Magazin für Computertechnik

The Evolution of Computing Power in Switzerland | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM ___________________________________________________________________________ The Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico (CSCS) or Swiss National Supercomputing Centre in Lugano, Switzerland, started its operation on September 30, 1991. Until 2012 it had its headq...

A very rare, beautiful work on the history of computing is now available. Franco Soresini: Storia del calcolo automatico, Confederazione generale dell’industria italiana, Rome 1977. It includes three volumes: Volume primo: Calcolo numerico meccanico, x, 178 pages, Volume secondo: Dalla meccanografia all’informatica, ix, 276 pages, Volume terzo: Cal...

European Mathematical Society (EMS) _____________________________________________________________________________________ EMS Press | Magazine of the European Mathematical Society _____________________________________________________________________________________Review of the book "Meilensteine der Rechentechnik" (Milestones in Analog and Digita...