Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #4717Re: Power Off
From: lin... Donald Lindsay
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 1990 01:53
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 1990 01:53
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In article <3303@mindlink.UUCP> a577@mindlink.UUCP (Curt Sampson) writes: >I think that some of the laptops out there have it right. You can >turn it off at any time, and when you turn it on it comes back up at >the exact same place, doing the exact same thing. >I guess the only thing that does that one better is Babbage's (sp?) >box, which didn't even *have* a power switch.... :-) And then there was the analog computer that was used around the turn of the century to predict tides in the English Channel. To check its operation, you turned the crank backwards, until you had drawn a tidal chart for the _previous_ few days. If it was right, then the machine didn't need maintenance. This thing was eventually automated: they put an electic motor on the crank. Eventually they replaced it with a CDC 6600. -- Don D.C.Lindsay
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Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!crdgw1!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!gandalf.cs.cmu.edu!lindsay From: lin...@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Power Off Message-ID: <10587@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Date: 27 Sep 90 01:53:20 GMT References: <3303@mindlink.UUCP> Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 18 Posted: Thu Sep 27 02:53:20 1990 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit