Machines That Count

Nov 10 2025

The Dream of Mechanical Reason

Storing Information in Patterns

Babbage's Vision - But No Necessity

The Census Problem Creates Real Necessity

The Emergence of the Corporation

Something Not Quite a Calculator, Not Yet a Computer

The War Problem - Ballistics Creates Final Necessity

Conclusion: The Pieces Are Finally In Place

The Dream of Mechanical Reason

Leibniz, Pascal, Napier

machine ratiocinatrix

versus

nulla nunc celebrior clamorosiorque secta quam Cartesinorum

Pascal and the Pascaline

John Napier

Leibniz

Llull's Influence on Leibniz

Digression: John Clark

link

Storing Information in Patterns

Not a continuous card but a flippin' fax machine! And not the only one to be invented around this time! Works by using pendulums to scan a message using electrochemical paper. Anyway, just to show you that everything you thought was unique to the 20th century isn't.

Babbage's Vision - But No Necessity

Difference Engine

video of difference engine #2 in action [2:19 mark]

Part of the reason Babbage fails is because there was no social necessity for his analytical engine

Are You Seeing Any Patterns?

Now Let's Add Electricity

Taking Stock

So we've got ways of mechanically manipulating numbers.

We've got ways of counting things electrically.

We've got ways of doing it automatically.

We have all of the mental apparatus necessary to create a computer that can change its own programs.

The Census Problem Creates Real Necessity

Herman Hollerith (1860 - 1929)

THIS! THIS IS IT!

Coupling punch cards with electro-mechanical counting finally sets in train the development of the digital computer...

The Emergence of the Corporation Emerges Again In Our Story

Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company

You know it better as IBM

Something Not Quite a Calculator, Not Yet a Computer

Or roughly 1900-1935.

Ish.

More or less.

Leonardo Torres Quevedo

Existing 'social necessity' good enough for electrico-mechanical calculators, not enough for all-purpose general computers

The War Problem - Ballistics Creates Final Necessity

Ballistics

Reverend Francis Bashforth, from 1864-1880 - conducts experiments related to air drag and velocity - produces the first firing tables ('with windspeed at... adjust by...')

US military, in aftermath of civil war, establishes testing range to train ballistic officers and work out tables for different kinds of guns

Conclusion

The Pieces Are Finally In Place

(Don't Pack Up Yet There's Still Something To Do)

Consolidation

  1. What's the difference between a calculator and a computer, and why did it take so long to build the latter?
  2. How did "social necessity" shape the development of computing technology, and what does this tell us about technological innovation more broadly?
  3. What patterns do you notice about who invented these machines versus who made them work, and what might this tell us about the history of technology?
  4. Who is missing in this story?
  5. What captures your imagination here?