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"One can see the free software movement as a precusor for a "free hardware" or "free wetware" movement--one that will provide free libraries of designs for biological or nanotechnological products that replicators can be programmed to churn out."
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![]() The Grantline Comptometer is a very early reference to computers or machines that can solve even the most complex problems simply by entering the necessary parameters of the problem.
This device was an extension of the Felt Comptometer, a calculating machine that was first built in the 1890's and developed through the 1930's. Comptometer schools were opened, and equipped with the machines to train the necessary operators. Comptometers had full rows for sets of numbers; it didn't matter what order the digits were entered. Early versions performed addition and subtraction; later models performed multiplication and division, and even square roots.
The Grantline Comptometer presages systems like Mathematica, that actually do allow the user to type in a calculus formula; the software then solves the equation for you. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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