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VK2TV > FUEL 07.03.08 08:27l 74 Lines 3029 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 35396_VK2TV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re: Optimists & Pessimists
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Sent: 080307/0614Z @:VK2TV.#MNC.NSW.AUS.OC #:33639 [Kempsey, QF68JX] $:35396_VK
From: VK2TV@VK2TV.#MNC.NSW.AUS.OC
To : FUEL@WW
# Generated by: TstHWin v2.21b - Registered to VK2TV
# On : 3/7/2008 17:14:33
# UTC: 3/7/2008 6:14:33 A
>R:080307/0545Z @:VK2TV.#MNC.NSW.AUS.OC #:33638 [Kempsey, QF68JX] $:552110VK6BE
>
>From: VK6BE@VK2TV.#MNC.NSW.AUS.OC
>To : FUEL@WW
>
>
>Yeau! Yeah! I have heard all this before - in 1937 to be exact. I was
>playing tennis with my club and we waited for the world to end. It had
>been confidently predicted by some crazy group in the USA that the world
>would end at 3 p.m. that day, and many people believed them. That was 70
>years ago and it has not happened yet.
>
>In this world we can predict nothing with accuracy as there is always some
>factor not recognized that emerges. Man is the most adaptable animal as I
>said before and there are alternatives that need to be developed. I don't
>believe for one minute that the USA and Australia are going to starve and
>that hungry people are going to raid our houses because all their food is
>going to make fuel for cars. That is a joke. How can we predict what
>technology might bring in the future? We can't. Even brilliant men of
>science tried that over many years and were proved to be wrong.Who could
>have predicted we would be using computers as an everyday thing even 40
>years ago. Yet the computer performs operations beyond our wildest dreams
>of even 30 years ago.
Hi All,
This is not to take a poke at Bob.
Bob's reference to computers 30 and 40 years ago caused me to
search the dreaded i/net for information and I stumbled across
this page ...
http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=cmptr
Please allow me to paste a couple of grabs from that site.
1940
The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone
Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz.
In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society
conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz stunned the group by performing
calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New York City) using a Teletype
connected via special telephone lines. This is considered to be the first
demonstration of remote access computing.
How about that, remote access in 1940. The start of the internet???
1941
Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 computer. The Z3 was an early computer built by
German engineer Konrad Zuse working in complete isolation from developments
elsewhere. Using 2,300 relays, the Z3 used floating point binary arithmetic
and had a 22-bit word length. The original Z3 was destroyed in a bombing raid
of Berlin in late 1943. However, Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of
the Z3 in the 1960s which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in
Berlin.
The site refered to above has pictures and the most fascinating history of
computing science.
Forget about fuel for a while and have a look at the clever people who
helped get us where we are today. I think that you will also be stunned by
this early brilliance.
Cheers ... Ray vk2tv
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