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Hydraulic Analog Computer From 1949
mbone writes "In the New York Times, there is an interesting story about a hydraulic analog computer from 1949 used to model the feedback loops in the economy. According to the article, 'copies of the 'Moniac,' as it became known in the United States, were built and sold to Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Ford Motor Company and the Central Bank of Guatemala, among others.' There is a cool video of the computer in operation at Cambridge University. I remember that the Instrumentation Lab at MIT still had an analog computer in its computer center in the mid-1970s. Even then, it seemed archaic, and now this form of computation is largely forgotten. With 14 machines built, it must have been one of the more successful analog computers — a supercomputer of its day. Of course, you have to wonder if it could have been used to predict our current economic difficulties."
It might have been more successful if they had used beer instead of water...
Some explosives factories still use hydraulics, steam or vacuum for process control. Although it tends to be digital now, with valves used as flip-flops.
Furthermore, the factory itself can be considered as a digital information storage system.
The problem is returning to the current state after it flips to the other one.
"Johnny, there's another damn memory leak! Bring the bucket!"
... the Internet truly would be a series of tubes.
Also, little known fact: Gordon Moore's father was a mechanical engineer who predicted that the size of hydraulic valves would shrink 50% every 18 months.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
There is a serious flaw in thinking that computers can accurately model macroeconomics, or predict systematic collapses, any better than commonsense and basic logic can. It is a given that if you massively inflate the monetary supply, you will create a false sense of wealth and a false understanding of risk, and people will malinvest in sectors that they otherwise would have spent far less resources on, or none at all. This is an unsustainable artificially created bubble, and all bubbles burst. Many people saw this coming years, even decades ago, and didn't have supercomputers. People understood this scenario centuries ago, before computers even existed. Using computers as a crutch to make up for a lack of understanding of basic economics is an aggravating factor in the current scenario, not the solution.
Yeah, but if I can program a fly on the wall to recognize speech on the NYSE trading floor, and whenever it hears the words "The payoff is greater than the risk. Even the big guys are doing it like crazy. What's the worst that could happen?" then it sets off an alarm and shoots every Fortune 1000 controller in the face with a lethal stream of sulphuric acid... not only could I predict these things over a year before they happen, but after the two or three are predicted, I'm sure it would be at least 20 years before anything like this happens again... in the NYSE.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
In college I built a divide-by-eight counter in pneumatics.
:-D
;-)
It would be more impressive if you could build a divide-by-zero counter.
(Almost) seriously though, this contraption rocks! A few more gear-wheels and this just might make a perfect steampunk computer...
Which gave rise to one of the oldest computer jokes: "If it doesn't work, piss on it."
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
This was water cooled before water cooling was cool
*DrugCheese rants*
... but not an ice storm.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Shows that our economy is down the drain.
Don't be shy to say it, a factory is a 1-bit PROM. Perhaps one day, a socially challenged but otherwise very friendly hacker will try to become immortal by writing "HELLO WORLD" into such memory, but no one will understand him, as usual. :-(
Ezekiel 23:20
What they don't realise is that motorists are more intelligent than water particles.
Says you.
If the geiger counter does not click, the coffee, she is not thick.
Also, when you treat traffic as a compressible fluid, you get 20-car pile-ups, because cars aren't compressible... or at least, they're not uncompressible afterwards...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
now i truly understand a buffer overflow, and the implications of a memory leak are clear.
I saw one of these in operation at the Venice Biennale in 2003. It was really remarkable to watch, but then I was thinking of it as more of an art project pointing out the absurd nature of economic forecasting than a serious research tool.
If these did run teh internetz, then the Internet really WOULD be a series of tubes! :D
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50