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IP: Silicon Valley folks -- LECTURES: "Charles Babbage's Calculating Engine" & "Collecting and Conserving Computers"
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 20:12:42 -0500
The Computer Museum History Center is delighted to present the following two lectures on computer history: "It will not slice a pineapple": The construction of Charles Babbage's Calculating Engine Doron Swade Senior Curator of Computing, London Science Museum Wednesday, March 3, 4:15 p.m. Stanford University, NEC Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building, Room B03. Charles Babbage is widely celebrated as the first pioneer of the computer. The designs for his vast mechanical calculating engines are one of the startling intellectual achievements of the last century. Babbage is equally famous for two things: he invented computers, and he failed to build them. The reasons for his failures are still hotly debated today and the tale of his woes has become a modern parable. But in the absence of a demonstrably working machine, doubt has clouded his reputation. Was Babbage an impractical dreamer, or a designer of the highest calibre? Could his engines have been built in the previous century, and if so, would they have worked? The Science Museum built a complete Babbage Engine from original designs in time for the bicentenary of Babbage's birth in 1991. This presentation will describe the project and how it has revised historical perceptions of the great inventor. For more information, including directions to the event, see http://www.computerhistory.org/swade_1 **************************************************************** Collecting and Conserving Computers Doron Swade Senior Curator of Computing, London Science Museum Thursday, March 4, 5:30 p.m. Building 40, Silicon Graphics, Inc. Mountain View, CA. Engineers take pride in fixing things, conservators in preserving them, yet there is a conflict between restoration and conservation. This presentation explores the practical and ethical implications of actively preserving computers through restoration, reconstruction, physical replication and logical simulation. Examples are drawn from the major programmes recently undertaken in England, including the Manchester `Baby', the Bletchley Park Colossus, the Ferranti Pegasus, the Elliott 803, Babbage's Engine, and the Phillips Economics Computer, a hydro-mechanical analog machine from the late 1940s. The philosophical and practical implications of collecting and conserving software, an equally challenging problem, will also be discussed. For more information, including directions to the event, see http://www.computerhistory.org/swade_2 Biographical Note: Doron Swade is the Senior Curator for Computing and Information Technology at the Science Museum in London. He is an electronics engineer and an historian of computing. He has published widely on the history of computing and on curatorship, and written three books, two on Charles Babbage and one, co-authored, on the Information Age. His fourth book, "The Cogwheel Brain," is due out in October this year. Swade masterminded the construction of Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2, which was completed at the Science Museum on the bicentenary of Babbage's birth in 1991. -- Dag Spicer Curator & Manager of Historical Collections The Computer Museum History Center Building T12-A NASA Ames Research Center Mountain View, CA 94035 Offices: Building T12-A Exhibit Area: Building 126 Tel: +1 650 604 2578 Fax: +1 650 604 2594 E-m: spicer () tcm org WWW: http://www.computerhistory.org To be placed on our computer history lecture announcement list: chc () tcm org. This month's lecture "Doing Computer History in Internet Time." See: http://www.computerhistory.org/ceruzzi Donations: http://www.computerhistory.org/donor. History of Computing timeline: http://www.tcm.org/html/history/timeline/index.html <spicer () tcm org> PGP: 15E31235 (E6ECDF74 349D1667 260759AD 7D04C178) Personal e-mail: spicer () alumni stanford org S/V T12: HAL
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- IP: Silicon Valley folks -- LECTURES: "Charles Babbage's Calculating Engine" & "Collecting and Conserving Computers" Dave Farber (Feb 19)