ART OF COMPUTERS >>> Associate Professor Samuel Mann School of Information Technology, Otago Polytechnic, NZ Despite extensive efforts over two years, owners of copyright of many of the images are unknown or cannot be traced. We thank those owners who have given us permission to include their work, the majority of whom were surprised we asked, arguing that such work would be considered “fair use”. Because of the diffi culties in tracking unknown artists and authors, this work is being produced under principles of fair use, a compilation for academic exploration. We are more than happy to remove any material and will do so immediately if you let us know. [email protected] >>> COMPUTERS OF ART Based in part on research with Peter Brook & John van Dyk 4000-1200 B.C. Records of commercial transactions on clay tablets by inhabitants of the fi rst known civilization in Sumer. Heron of Stonehenge, now considered an “Eclipse Alexandria (200BC) Computer” (Hawkins). On equinoxes and developed complex solitices the rising sun is perfectly placed between gaps in the megaliths. mechanisms. These Hellenistic mechanisms were powered in many Phaistos disc from Minoan different ways: by palace. Produced with a falling water, sand, movable type, the spiral or mustard seeds; represents a calendrical heat; atmospheric device of palace activities pressure; and in one corresponding to stellar case by a primitive events steam engine. 3000BC 2500 2000 1500 1000 Epic of Gilgamesh describes travel in strange worlds, alien creatures and intelligent objects Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad (c.800 BC) reference to a computer, that make decisions more specifi cally a simple robot. The writing describes the arrival of Thetis at the workshop of the god Hephaistos where she fi nds him busy fi nishing a set of twenty wheeled tripods on which cauldrons have been mounted. The mobile cauldrons are to be placed around the walls of the gods’ banqueting hall and will be of assistance in serving the fare. Of particular interest is that these devices are self-controlling (l. 376, “αυτοματοι”, i. e. “automatic”). As Reck (1994, p. 343) perceptively translates, “they could scurry of their own accord to the gods’ gatherings”. http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_4.htm Blohm, H., S. Beer, et al. (1986). Pebbles to Computers: Reck,(1994) Homer’s Iliad. New York: Icon Editions The Thread. Toronto, Oxford University Press.112 The “Antikythera Device” 79AD Twenty years after (found in wreck in Agean Sea) when Astrolabes invading England, set according to latitude and day of employed William the Conquerer commissioned The week gives alternating lunar months mathematical Domesday book. A according to Hipparchos lunar gearing - teeth and year later the fi rst draft model. Blohm calls a “computer” ratios transmitting contained records for and notes that “much knowledge information (rather 13,418 settlements in the English counties seems to have been lost” than energy). south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the then Scottish border). Aeneas (350 BC) develops hydro- The Domesday survey was a detailed optical encoding messaging Venerable Bede statement of lands held by the king and by system. Light fl ash aligned (c673-735) Dark Ages his tenants and of the resources that went with code for depth of water as historian and scientist, with those land, the record being organised vessels drained synchronously. mainly concerned with according the heirarchical feudal By 150 Polybius (borrowing the measurement of structure. from Cleoxenus and Demcleitus) time and calculation of describes an alphabetic code the calendar. Incan quipu, a knotted string Liang Ling-Tsan invented mechanical device. escapement, basis of mechanical clocks (725 AD) 500BC 0 500 1000 1050 Arabic numerals developed in India around 600. Has both familiar Automation offered a route to the numerals (but not zero) and is positional so that the actual value Heron’s control systems were used in elimination of painful labour Crates of of any numeral is determined by its place in the written number automata to give the appearance of Athen, Each article of furniture will come (although backwards so 123 would have been 321). Textbooks by human animation: a theatre in which to him when he calls it. Place yourself al-Khwârizmî (Bagdad, 875) translated into Latin in 12th Century: al- the god Dionysius would emerge and here,Table! Get to work, my little kneading Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa’l-muqabala (“The Compendious spray wine from his staff while the trough... Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”) (hence “algebra”) Bacchants danced in his honor. Martianus Capella academically defi ned the seven and Algoritmi de numero Indorum (“Al-Khwarizmi Concerning the Liberal Arts as: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, Hindu Art of Reckoning”) (hence algorithm). al-Khwârizmî introduced Man was created by God: “So God geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music use of a point for zero. created man in his own image, Finger reckoning When I consider what people generally want in calculating, I found in the image of God he created “What difference it makes, “He puts aside the fi ngers of the him; male and female he created computers and orders silence, that it always is a number. I also observed that every number is if I know your fi ngers , you composed of units, and that any number may be divided into units. them.” (Genesis 1:27) and God have certainly computed” who says ‘It is not for you to reduced man to mortality: “for know the times, which the Father Moreover, I found that every number which may be expressed from Cicero 106-43BC one to ten, surpasses the preceding by one unit: afterwards the dust you are and to dust you “If a speaker, by any has put in his own power” St will return.” (Genesis 3:19). In Augustine (350-430AD) The City ten is doubled or tripled just as before the units were: thus arise uncertain or awkward twenty, thirty, etc. until a hundred: then the hundred is contrast are man’s efforts at idol of God Much Greek and Roman movements of the fi ngers doubled and tripled in the same manner as the units and making, roundly ridiculed by the knowledge was preserved differs from the accepted the tens, up to a thousand; ... so forth to the utmost limit prophet Isaiah (44:9-22 c. 700-680 in Byzantium. The Book of mode of calculation, he of numeration. BC). is thought poorly trained” Knowledge of Ingenious Quintilian 96AD Mechanical Devices or “The Johannes Scotus Eriugena considers Artes Mechanicae Automata of al-Jazari” (800) on equal footing. The liberal arts derive naturally from describes 50 devices. the intelligence. The mechanical arts, however, are not http://www.astrolabepartners.com/the_astrolabe.htm naturally innate but are derived from man’s refl ection. Blohm, H., S. Beer, et al. (1986). Pebbles to Computers: The Thread. Toronto, Oxford University Press.112 Crates of Athens, Wild Animals tr Thomas Wiedemann 1974 p 577 Thomas, K (ed) The Oxford Book of Work, Oxford Univerity Press, Oxford 616 p. Williams, M. R. (1997). A history of computing technology. Los Alamitos, CA, IEEE Press.426 p48 http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/arabnums.html Nature 444(Nov06):587-591 http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~jones/cscie129/images/history/encoding.html http://www.alshindagah.com/julaug2004/alkhawarizmi.html http://labit501.upct.es/ips/libros/TEHODN/ch-2-1.5.html http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/ Le Goff, J., Goldhammer, A. (1980) Time, work & culture in the Middle Ages Su Sung’s hydraulic Fibonacci publishes Liber Abaci clock tower system (The Book of the Abacus), maintained a which did not deal with the nationalized time in abacus at all but was designed medieval China. to show how the new Hindu- Arabic numerals could be used for calculation. Abacus introduced to Asia in The European table abacus Middle Ages. Entrenched in is standardized into a simple table with lines Chinese society by 1300 and drawn in chalk or Japanese (as soroban) by ink. The counting Ramon Lull attempts to about 1400. table upon which demonstrate truths of transactions were Christanity with logic performed becomes devices the shop counter. Each line ten times line below it (shows 287, 452) 1100 1150 1200 1250 1300 Trevisa wrote of Medieval horloge in manuscript from compotystes in reference Religons inspired or supplemented by Bodleian library, to maintaining the concrete images or “icons” (from Greek hydraulic water clock calendar εκών, eikon, “image”). with latin text describes miracle of King Hezekiah The seven liberal arts Dominicus Hortus deliciarum of Gundissalinus considers Herrad von Landsberg the Artes Mechanicae Finger reckoning still widely as applied geometry practiced. Aspray, W., Ed. (1990). Computing before computers. Ames, Iowa, Iowa State University. http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/story.html http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/foreign/russian/ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Septem-artes-liberales_Herrad-von- Bruton, E. (1979). The history of clocks and icons/redeemer-novgorod.html Landsberg_Hortus-deliciarum_1180.jpg watches. NY, Cresent Books.288 p23 The fi rst widely used printed Portable clock runs Large scale clocks book on arithmetic in the on coiled spring. The English language. This book, become ornate advance is based on by Robert Recorde, was in print artforms (Strasbourg Jacob Zech’s funce to from 1542 right up to the start Cathedral) of the 1700s. It clearly shows keep pressure equal that abacus arithmetic was being taught to school children throughout this period, also that arabic numbering is now accepted. Henni de Vick develops With increasing demand Watches, pomander or geared wheel with for shipping and as equator “nurenburg eggs” this by increments of equal then Cape of Good Hope A fusion of the technologies Jacques de la Gardes of Blois The gunner’s duration from a weight: are conquered, traditional of paper, oil-based ink and the wine-press enables quadrant (Nicolo escapement, the basic navigation techniques push Gallileo (also Hood) Gutenburg to implement Tartaglia La nova develops sector, principle of clockwork maths to limit and there is movable type and hence the scienta inventa 1537) gives proportions, a heavy demand for navigation rapid dissemination of books.