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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette,

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Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And sitting next to me, as always, with a really

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Speaker 1: enigmatic smile on his face, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, having a Mona Lisa moment. Oh okay, alright, Well,

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Speaker 1: you know the vacuum tubes are all humming and everything

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Speaker 1: is ready to go. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

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Speaker 1: We have to start this this podcast off a very

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Speaker 1: specific way. We do yes with listener mail, I swear

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Speaker 1: you moved that on purpose always. So today's listener mail

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Speaker 1: comes from Jason from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Jason says, hey, guys,

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Speaker 1: I was having a conversation about computer technology the other

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Speaker 1: day and the people I was talking to mention something

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Speaker 1: about old computers where you had to carry around a

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Speaker 1: box of punch cards that served as the program. However,

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Speaker 1: if you happen to drop the box and got them

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Speaker 1: out of order, you essentially lost your program. I'm only

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Speaker 1: twenty one and was wondering if this technology was a

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Speaker 1: bit before my time, because I don't remember a thing

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Speaker 1: about it. I love hearing about these older technologies and

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Speaker 1: how they work, and would be grateful if you could

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Speaker 1: enlighten me on this subject. I enjoy listening to you guys,

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Speaker 1: and congratulations again on your one episode and too many

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Speaker 1: more to come. Well, thanks, Jason. We're going to tackle

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Speaker 1: that a little bit today because we're going to actually

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Speaker 1: talk about computers from the past nifty You know, it's

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Speaker 1: actually it's more than a bit before your time. It's

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Speaker 1: actually sixty four bits before your time. Uh that you Oh,

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Speaker 1: I see what you did there? So um, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: upgraded your Internet. But let's let's let's let's let's take

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Speaker 1: a step in the way back machine, shall we. Sherman

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Speaker 1: and um try and come back all the way to

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Speaker 1: the like the earliest computational sort of engines, and then

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Speaker 1: we'll work our way forward. I've got some stuff I

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Speaker 1: can talk about as far as the punch cards go,

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Speaker 1: because I came across a great paper written by a

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Speaker 1: former engineer at IBM who has uh he kind of

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Speaker 1: shares his experience of using punch Cards for the first time,

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Speaker 1: and it's it really is a great read. I'll just

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Speaker 1: read a couple of excerpts from it to kind of

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Speaker 1: give you guys an idea. But before we do that, let's, um,

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Speaker 1: let's let's think back a bit. Now, computers really are

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Speaker 1: number crunching machines. You know, everything you see and do

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Speaker 1: on a computer is the result of different numbers being

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Speaker 1: crunched in different ways. You've got you've got two different

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Speaker 1: things going on. You've got a data stream coming in

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Speaker 1: and you've got a set of instructions going on. The

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Speaker 1: instructions tell the computer what to do to the data stream,

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Speaker 1: and then you get your result. I was wondering what

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Speaker 1: what all those crumbs were on my desk. Now I

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Speaker 1: know they're the crumbs numbers, numbers. Yeah, this is gonna

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Speaker 1: be a hell of a show, guys. I I would

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Speaker 1: like to apologize on the behalf of Pallette. I mean,

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Speaker 1: even I have my limits, folks. Um. So so let's

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Speaker 1: let's go back to about five BC. All right, So

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Speaker 1: that's that. That's what that was a PC junior, Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's yes, exactly. Now that was the first Apple No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: five hundred BC that's it's well beyond the first apple.

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Speaker 1: Did you get where I'm going with that? Okay? Anyway,

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Speaker 1: so five n b C that's when you start seeing

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Speaker 1: counting boards show up. This was a way for people

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Speaker 1: to keep track of numbers that were bigger than ten,

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Speaker 1: because you know, we have ten fingers, most of us anyway,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, if you're lucky and then um

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Speaker 1: eight fingers and two thumbs. Alright, fine, fine, but if

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Speaker 1: you want, if you wanted to try it exactly, if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to track numbers bigger than that, then uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you you had to store it in your

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Speaker 1: head or if you were talking about really big numbers,

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Speaker 1: you would want something to help you out. So that's

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Speaker 1: where counting boards came in. A couple hundred years later

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Speaker 1: that kind of evolved into the abbacus, and then we

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Speaker 1: can skip ahead quite a bit. Okay, how far I

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Speaker 1: was gonna go to sixteen seventy nine? You got something

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Speaker 1: before that? Uh yeah, actually, uh h, I had a

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Speaker 1: sixteen twenty three, which was actually there. It was before

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Speaker 1: that because Leonardo da Vinci had actually drawn up plans

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Speaker 1: for a calculator, a mechanical calculator. But William schickerd had

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Speaker 1: created the first one in sixteen twenty three where actually

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Speaker 1: built the thing. And then you know in Blaze, Pascal

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Speaker 1: had the Pascalene, which was an arithmetic machine, and that

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Speaker 1: was the first volume. You know, one that was the

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Speaker 1: first calculator was actually created in volume around sixteen six.

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Speaker 1: Actually built fifty of them. But I'm assuming that was

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Speaker 1: all by hand, so we're not talking mass production. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I don't think they had assembly lines back in sixteen Yes,

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Speaker 1: but you were, I'm betting based on your data, I'm

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Speaker 1: betting you're thinking, Uh, that guy who invented calculus so

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Speaker 1: got free liveness, who I would like to jump up

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Speaker 1: and down upon his grave for inventing calculus. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: for those of you who are going to write us

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Speaker 1: and tell us that he didn't invite invent calculus a calculus,

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Speaker 1: well he he independently came up with calculus at the

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Speaker 1: same time, around the same time as Isaac Newton, which

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Speaker 1: I always thinks, so yeah, it's it's it's one of

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Speaker 1: those one things where two different brilliant thinkers come up

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Speaker 1: with the same sort of system um independently and it

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Speaker 1: does happen. It's pretty neat stuff when it happens. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: Newton is the one you should be yelling at though right, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna yell linus anyway. So he also but because

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Speaker 1: he also introduced binary mathematics, and now binary mathematics, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about using either of the numbers. Now people are

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Speaker 1: going to write in because I'm calling it a number

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Speaker 1: using either zero or one as the your digits. And uh,

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Speaker 1: that's what all of modern computing is based off of.

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Speaker 1: Our these binary digits, or bits as they are also known.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I'm that suppose the guy who came up

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Speaker 1: with this idea of using bits um Now, it would

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Speaker 1: be a while before anyone had come up with a

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Speaker 1: practical purpose for them as far as computing goes. But

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Speaker 1: that's where it got start. What's the next date you

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Speaker 1: wanted to throw out there? Because I'm gonna I want to.

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Speaker 1: I've got a big list of dates here, and I

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Speaker 1: have another big gap. Okay, Uh, the next date that

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Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up is eighteen o four, eighteen

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Speaker 1: o five. Yes, that's uh, that has nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with computers, or does it, Because that thing you're having

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Speaker 1: to do with weaving, Yes, it's unbelievable. Joseph Murray chaquad yes, yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a guy who um yes, Jacques Jacques, Yes,

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Speaker 1: you shouldn't say. Alright, so what did you said that? Right?

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Speaker 1: What did Joe Mury do? Well? Joe Mury, he was

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Speaker 1: he invented an automated loom. And you might say, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: was an automated loom have to do with computers? Well,

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Speaker 1: he did it. He used method that had already been

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Speaker 1: used before, but he perfected it. It was a method

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Speaker 1: where he used a punched cards to allow the needles

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Speaker 1: of the loom to pass through to create specific patterns

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Speaker 1: weaving patterns. Um. So it's sort of like you would

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Speaker 1: see on a player piano, because that is something you

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Speaker 1: might I'm guessing that those of you listing might have

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Speaker 1: actually seen with your own eyes how the digits pop

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Speaker 1: up and down with the holes in the paper. Right.

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Speaker 1: So the yeah, the holes in these cards were what

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Speaker 1: allowed certain needles to go through at certain times to

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Speaker 1: create these patterns in in uh, when he was weaving.

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Speaker 1: And why would this be important? Well, it would allow

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Speaker 1: you to create patterns that only a master weaver could

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Speaker 1: really make on his or her own. And then automated

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Speaker 1: in such a way that anyone running this loom could

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Speaker 1: create the same pattern, which, by the way, tended to

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Speaker 1: tick off the master weavers a lot. Yeah, they actually

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Speaker 1: burned quite a few of these automated looms and stop him.

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Speaker 1: But but they definitely protested and as a result, textiles

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Speaker 1: in France, Uh, the prices dropped quite a bit because

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Speaker 1: it turned up there was a much cheaper way of

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Speaker 1: producing these really nice weaves. Um. I'm surprised that you

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Speaker 1: weren't the person to drop the trivia effect here, But

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Speaker 1: since you left the opening for me, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: point out that they also, in addition to setting fire

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Speaker 1: to these limbs, like to drop wooden shoes in there,

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Speaker 1: you know, the sabo that's a bot, which gave rise

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Speaker 1: to the term sabotage and later would produce an awesome

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Speaker 1: Beastie Boys song. So thank you, Joe Marie. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: the getting back to it, the whole reason we're talking

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Speaker 1: about is because the punched cards, those of course come

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Speaker 1: into play later on. So the next the next day

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Speaker 1: I have is one. Yeah. Yeah, that's when Babbage, Charles

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Speaker 1: Babbage first invented the idea of the difference engine. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he would later go on in four to come up

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Speaker 1: with the analytical engine. Um, neither of which he ever

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Speaker 1: actually saw a maid. No, he made bits of them,

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Speaker 1: but never created an entire working engine. Now this was

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Speaker 1: a shame. This was an incredible idea, and more so,

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Speaker 1: the more we look back on it, the more we

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Speaker 1: realize how incredible this machine would have been had he

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Speaker 1: been able to create it at the time, because it

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Speaker 1: took into account many of the things that modern computers

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Speaker 1: actually do. I mean, it would have done these things

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Speaker 1: on a different scale, but that's it's and on a

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Speaker 1: mechanical scale, not an electrical scale. But it was still

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Speaker 1: really cool. And the idea here was that, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: if if he, if he could have created it would

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Speaker 1: have been the steam powered, massive thing made out of

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Speaker 1: brass and steel and you could run computations through it.

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Speaker 1: And um, it's just a shame that he never you know,

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Speaker 1: he he realized during his lifetime that he would never

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Speaker 1: be able to actually build it. Well he uh, he

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Speaker 1: had a problem. There was no the venture capitalist had

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Speaker 1: not been invented yet, being on the government to uh

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Speaker 1: to fund him, and they basically figured out that rather

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Speaker 1: than finding navigation for ships, which is what he said

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Speaker 1: he wanted to do with this machine. He wanted to

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Speaker 1: be able to to uh, to run calculations to help

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Speaker 1: people travel over the sea more safely and efficiently. Basically,

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Speaker 1: he was an inventor who wanted to build better computational

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Speaker 1: machines and they said, yeah, we're not giving you money

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Speaker 1: for that. Dude. Yeah, he wanted to rush the Singularity

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Speaker 1: on a lot earlier than we would have seen otherwise. Um.

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Speaker 1: But despite the fact that no one built this machine

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Speaker 1: for for a couple hundred years actually because um, well

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Speaker 1: a little less than two hundred, I guess, uh, because

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Speaker 1: it has been built uh in London. Um was that

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Speaker 1: since then? And since then? Yes, yes, I think two

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Speaker 1: thousand two is when when they built that that model.

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Speaker 1: So that was a long time between design and production.

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Speaker 1: But despite the fact that was never built, it didn't

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Speaker 1: stop people from writing programs for it. Well, in know,

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Speaker 1: give a hobbyist to a project. One of those would

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Speaker 1: have been the Countess of Lovelace. Yes, not that they

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Speaker 1: ever met, no, and but she created programs for Babbage's

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Speaker 1: theoretical engine using the binary system. Hey, so there you go.

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Speaker 1: You've got your first binary coded program for a computer

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Speaker 1: that doesn't exist. And now we can say that about

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Speaker 1: lots of different things in modern times, to build lots

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Speaker 1: of programs for computers that can't run them yet. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's uh. With Babbage's machine finally being built

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Speaker 1: in the two, you know, the twenty first century, it's

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Speaker 1: very much like every other machine that's being built in

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Speaker 1: the twenty first century. It was obsolete as soon as

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Speaker 1: it was exactly so, setting a precedent there. Skipping out

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Speaker 1: a few more years. In eighteen fifty, you've got George

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Speaker 1: Boole who invent and logic that provides the basis of

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Speaker 1: of computer logic and is far too complex for me

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Speaker 1: to go into here. Let's see what what what's the

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Speaker 1: next thing you want to hit? I mean there, I'm

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Speaker 1: jumping ahead quite a bit from here. Otherwise, Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: became obvious when I was doing the research for this

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Speaker 1: that there's far too much to cover in our normal

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Speaker 1: time frame, so I cut out some dates here and there. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So what's the next thing you have? Um, I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: getting towards the uh, the early early twentieth century in

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Speaker 1: my notes around nineteen eleven, actually, when a bunch of

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Speaker 1: you know, basically, these machines that existed at this point

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Speaker 1: where advanced calculators. If if that, I mean they were

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Speaker 1: used for business purposes, and um, you know, business calculators

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Speaker 1: were pretty popular. They had they had reason to, uh

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Speaker 1: to do these kinds of calculations. I mean, the the

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Speaker 1: census needed advanced math, um, and I mean they weren't

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Speaker 1: really used for science, so you were just tabulating numbers. Um. Well,

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, a bunch of business machine companies decided to

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Speaker 1: get together and they created a new company called this

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Speaker 1: is a really catchy name, Computing, tabulating Recording Company. It

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Speaker 1: was so catchy that they decided to change it in

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Speaker 1: to International Business Machines. Hey, one of the initials of

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Speaker 1: that IBM. I think I've heard that before. Yes, it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a relatively small company, but they were they

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Speaker 1: were to go on to be one of the first

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Speaker 1: well you know this business machine manufacturing, but they uh

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Speaker 1: sort of set a precedent later on. Right. Well, well,

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Speaker 1: before we get further in there, I had one date

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Speaker 1: before that, nineteen that was when William DeForest invented the

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Speaker 1: vacuum tube, Yes, which provided the basis for what would

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Speaker 1: eventually the thing that would eventually replace the vacuum tube

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Speaker 1: was the transistor, but that wasn't around yet. So we

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Speaker 1: had these these machines using enormous vacuum tubes instead of tiny,

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Speaker 1: relatively tiny transistors, and those are going to be important

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Speaker 1: in some of the machines, were getting ready to talk

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Speaker 1: about so UM. That was when IBM adopted the eighty

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Speaker 1: column pun card UH format. The so the eighty columns

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Speaker 1: was your typical punch card. You were asking us Jason

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Speaker 1: about the punch cards. Um, this was the way that

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Speaker 1: you could design programs for early computers. Now when we're talking,

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Speaker 1: we're really talking about running specific um functions. Were not

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Speaker 1: really talking about programs yet. That's that's kind of a

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Speaker 1: little early for that. But the punched cards that IBM

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Speaker 1: settled on that became the standard for them, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of the machines could only read the first seventy

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Speaker 1: two columns, so you'd say, well, what would you use

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Speaker 1: the last eight columns for a lot of programmers would

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Speaker 1: use those columns in order to create a serial number

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Speaker 1: so that you could keep the punch cards in the

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Speaker 1: correct order. Because anyone who has worked with a punched

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Speaker 1: card system would tell you if you drop those cards

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Speaker 1: and they all fall out and get out of place. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. It's even worse than slides. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you know, at least with slides you can look

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Speaker 1: at them and go, hey, that one goes here. So

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Speaker 1: then we've got six. We have Alan Turing doing the

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Speaker 1: publishing is on computational numbers, which was also very important

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Speaker 1: for theoretical computer principles. Um. And then I've got the

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Speaker 1: the first what what the United States anyway recognizes as

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Speaker 1: the the first electronic digital computer. Do you know what

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Speaker 1: this one is? Um? I what sort of depends on

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Speaker 1: which one is what a judge decided was the first one.

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Speaker 1: So because because there is some debate about that exactly

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Speaker 1: so legally in the United States anyway, the first computer,

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Speaker 1: electronic digital computer was invented by John Vincent A, Tennis

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Speaker 1: Offt and Clifford Berry, and it was called the A

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Speaker 1: B C. Isn't that clever? Yes? For theisoft Berry computer. YEA.

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Speaker 1: So that was that was But in started in the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties, it was completed in the early nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't until nineteen seventy three that the US

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Speaker 1: judge said that that was, in fact the first digital

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Speaker 1: electronic digital computer, as opposed to one that was had

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Speaker 1: an interesting acronym for a name, Yeah, eniac. That was

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Speaker 1: the that was the competing computer in the court system

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Speaker 1: for the first electronic digital computer, although they were sort

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Speaker 1: of different. Yeah, oh no, they were very different. So

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Speaker 1: so all right, so that was nineteen round eight. You've

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Speaker 1: got Conrad Zeus who builds his Z one calculating machine,

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Speaker 1: which was the first programmable calculating machine. Some people call

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Speaker 1: that the first computer. Um, you've got You've got Touring

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Speaker 1: himself working on a system that was directed by m

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Speaker 1: Dr Tommy Flowers. It was a computer that no one

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Speaker 1: outside of a certain group of people really knew about.

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Speaker 1: It was called Colossus. Colossus, and that that was. It

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Speaker 1: was so secret that that there were no contemporary reports

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Speaker 1: on Colossus, and all the documentation to show how to

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Speaker 1: operate Colossus was destroyed by the end of World War two.

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Speaker 1: They didn't want anyone to find out how this machine worked,

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Speaker 1: and it was used as a way of cracking codes

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Speaker 1: and things like that. Yes, uh, I actually wrote a

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Speaker 1: blog post about that in the tech Stuff blog not

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Speaker 1: terribly long ago. Although you may not recognize it by

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Speaker 1: its title. Um, somebody who Uh. They actually rebuilt Colossus

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Speaker 1: in uh in the UK at Bletchley Park a few

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Speaker 1: years ago. And uh, there's a musician who writes what

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Speaker 1: they call chip tunes, which is using electronic equipment basically

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Speaker 1: gaming equipment mostly, uh to write electronic music. Well, he

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Speaker 1: actually went in and sampled sounds that Colossus made to

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Speaker 1: make a record from it. And uh, you know, I

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Speaker 1: happened to hear this BBC podcast all about it, and

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Speaker 1: I learned that Colossus actually didn't crack the codes itself.

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Speaker 1: It was calculating the positions of the wheels on the

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Speaker 1: German code machines. It imagining that it took a room

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Speaker 1: full of computer to calculate possible positions for the for

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Speaker 1: the wheel, so that cryptographers could take that information and

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Speaker 1: then use it to crack the codes. You know, I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty sure you know an iPhone could well yeah, but

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Speaker 1: at the time, but at the time, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: very very important. In three, you've got the Harvard Mark

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Speaker 1: one digital sequence controlled computer and the first computer bug.

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Speaker 1: It was a real bug. Yes, it was a moth.

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Speaker 1: There was a moth inside the Harvard Mark one and

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Speaker 1: it touched a relay and it made the computer fail,

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Speaker 1: and thus we get bug. Yes we didn't, you know,

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Speaker 1: not a features in. That's when we finally have the

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Speaker 1: invention of the transistor. Now it's gonna be a while

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Speaker 1: before the transistors make their way into computers, but this

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Speaker 1: is what eventually allows us to create computers that are

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Speaker 1: not the size of your average gym. These these old

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Speaker 1: computers were enormous. They took up huge amount of space.

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Speaker 1: And this is all a very formative time in computers

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Speaker 1: because it's a time when people are starting to rethink

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Speaker 1: what computers could be used for. Um X, Arthur Burkes,

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Speaker 1: Herman Goldstein, and John von Newman came up with a

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Speaker 1: paper called Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of Electronic

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Speaker 1: Computing Instrument uh and Jonathan's looking at me like, why

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Speaker 1: are you bringing this up? Well, it's because a lot

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Speaker 1: of people consider this the basically the document that started

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Speaker 1: computer science, because it was discussing things like how data

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Speaker 1: and instructions should be stored together and how instructions could

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Speaker 1: be uh changed by other instructions, which is something that

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Speaker 1: Conrade Zeusa didn't believe. He said that that was a

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Speaker 1: horrible horrible thing and it shouldn't be allowed to happen otherwise. Uh,

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Speaker 1: dogs and cats living together are um. But actually this

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Speaker 1: is what allowed advanced computer programming to to come about,

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Speaker 1: was people started thinking about computers and how they could

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Speaker 1: be used, you know, with the concepts, and as the

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Speaker 1: forties roll on and and people start thinking about what

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Speaker 1: computers really could be used to handle. Uh, they they

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Speaker 1: that was really the end of it being a computational machine,

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Speaker 1: in the beginning of it being used for you know,

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Speaker 1: other kinds of of uses. So let's say go up

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Speaker 1: to that's when Touring creates the a C, which was

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Speaker 1: the first programmable digital computer, the ACE. He also publishes

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Speaker 1: the Turing test. So the Turing test is of course

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Speaker 1: the famous test of finding out, you know, are you

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Speaker 1: human or are you are you computer? Right? If if

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Speaker 1: a computer is able to pass the Touring test, it

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Speaker 1: means that it is able to fool a certain percentage

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Speaker 1: of people into thinking it's another person. Mm hmm. Touring

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Speaker 1: tests are also what we used to base the Capture

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Speaker 1: system on. That's the system where if you have to

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Speaker 1: you know, when you're creating a profile on a on

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Speaker 1: a site and you see the jefas put in a

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Speaker 1: certain sequence of letters and members, like the jumbled up

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Speaker 1: type written looking letters and numbers with a line through it.

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Speaker 1: That's a captured test, and that's designed so that it,

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Speaker 1: theoretically anyway, is easy for humans to complete, but difficult

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Speaker 1: for computers to complete. That's not always the case because people,

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Speaker 1: you know, there are hackers out there who are clever

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Speaker 1: enough to make computers that are clever enough to pass it.

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Speaker 1: And then of course you have to come up with

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Speaker 1: a new test, but that's all based off the touring test. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In fifty six, IBM built the first hard drive it

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Speaker 1: had had a five megabyte capacity and it cost one

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Speaker 1: million dollars. Yeah. Yeah, my iPod has I think eighty

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Speaker 1: gigabit gigabyte capzi. Yeah, it's a it's a lot less

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Speaker 1: than a million anyway. Uh. And then by fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: that's when you start seeing computers using transistors instead of

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Speaker 1: vacuum tubes. So the yeah, transistor was invented in forty seven,

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Speaker 1: and then in fifty nine, this is is when you finally

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Speaker 1: start seeing them show up in computers. Um. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the ones with the vacuum tubes just sound better, man,

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Speaker 1: I think you're thinking about something else. So sixty one

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Speaker 1: that's when you get the first integrated circuits commercially produced,

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Speaker 1: And in sixty three this is this one. I like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you may have some more dates to fill

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Speaker 1: in through here. Actually I skipped ahead again because I

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Speaker 1: want to I want to read about this in more detail. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we would love to be able to do a series

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Speaker 1: of these. Actually, that cat should be a spoken word

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Speaker 1: album right there, because the early days of computing. We'll

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Speaker 1: just we'll we'll pitch that. If you guys all write

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Speaker 1: in and say we really want to hear that, then

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Speaker 1: we get to do it. If you write it and

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Speaker 1: say we really don't want to hear that, then I

402
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Speaker 1: guess we'll move on to something else. But in sixty

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Speaker 1: three Douglas Inglebart gets a patent for the computer mouse,

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Speaker 1: and sixty four he builds it, and uh so that

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Speaker 1: was the first appearance of the computer mouse. Actually, a

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Speaker 1: few years later, um he shows up and uh shows

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Speaker 1: a a not just a computer mouse and a keyboard,

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Speaker 1: but a graphic user interface which kind of forms the

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Speaker 1: basis of some operating systems we know and love today.

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Speaker 1: At least. No, I actually don't actually don't know the

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Speaker 1: answer to this, I'm asking you this question is was

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Speaker 1: he involved with Xerox? Um. I believe he did play

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Speaker 1: a part in that. I mean, in nineteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: he introduced the mouse, keyboard and Windows Interface system UM

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Speaker 1: at the Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: until let's see, um, I got it written down here,

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Speaker 1: let me chick. Seventy three was when Xerox developed Alto,

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Speaker 1: which was the computer that had the graphics user interface.

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Speaker 1: But then they decided there's no market for this. People

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Speaker 1: aren't gonna want a computer in their homes, you know,

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Speaker 1: trash it. So I'm not sure if Inglebard himself actually

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Speaker 1: was involved in the in the development of Alto, but

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Speaker 1: it was pretty clear that his inventions at least played

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Speaker 1: a part in the production of Alto. Well again, never

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Speaker 1: really went anywhere, but I would eventually show up in

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Speaker 1: other products like I don't know, Windows and and Mac

427
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 1: operating system. Well, it's uh, it's funny you would mention

428
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three and how people wouldn't be interested in that,

429
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: because that was an unintentional segue. UM. I noticed that

430
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 1: there was a magazine called Radio Electronics that in three

431
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,880
Speaker 1: published uh information about something called the TV typewriter. It's

432
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: basically a terminal you could use to uh connect to

433
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 1: a mainframe and uh more or less a hobbyist project.

434
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: But you know, these are the kinds of things that

435
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:29,160
Speaker 1: get people who like to tinker, the kinds of people

436
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: who might read MAKE magazine. Now. Uh, you know, they

437
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 1: were reading Radio Electronics back then, and and they were saying, mmm,

438
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,680
Speaker 1: I could use that. And uh, you know, in France

439
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,439
Speaker 1: right about the same time, uh, you know, there was

440
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: the R two E made. Uh. They had their own

441
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:46,919
Speaker 1: that was the name of the company. They had their

442
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: own micro computer that used an Intel eight O eight

443
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: processor and they sold five hundred of them in France.

444
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:54,479
Speaker 1: Of course, nobody heard of them in the United States,

445
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: So in the States that would be It wouldn't be

446
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: until about nineteen seventy five when Ed Roberts does signs

447
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: the Altar hundred yes for a micro instrumentation telemetry systems

448
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,719
Speaker 1: and fifty name for why are the computer manufact So

449
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: he introduces this kit for three seven dollars. You can

450
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: you can buy the kit and build your own personal computer.

451
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: And it is wildly successful within the computer world. Well yeah,

452
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: I mean they were on the cover of Popular Electronics.

453
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: Saved the company they were they were basically a custom

454
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: chip manufacturer, and they were they were tanking. Now what's

455
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: interesting is back in uh you technically had the first

456
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: personal computer. It was like the ken Back one, but

457
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: that machine didn't really take off and it wasn't called

458
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: a personal computer. Actually, Ed Roberts was the one who

459
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: kind of coined that phrase the personal computer, and PC

460
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: has been around ever since. Um. Also one that was

461
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 1: when Pong was invented. Oh yeah, didn't have anything to

462
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: play it on, but they had the game. Now, if

463
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 1: you wanted to use the al Tear, you had to

464
00:25:57,560 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: program it in assembly code. And there were a bunch

465
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 1: of switches on the front and a bunch of lights

466
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 1: and basically you'd flip switches and watch the output of

467
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:12,199
Speaker 1: the lights and uh yeah, exactly, not exactly know, uh

468
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: you know, that was how you would get an output

469
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: on the on the machine. And you might say, who

470
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 1: would care about something like that, Well, the Homebrew Computer

471
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: Club would care. There were a bunch of people in

472
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: California who were interested in programming, and a couple of

473
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: guys named Steve were members of that club. Yeah, Steve

474
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who later went on to

475
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: actually were Atari employees at one point but later went

476
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 1: on to UH start Apple Computer and and in in

477
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: v they were working on they were starting to build

478
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: their own computers within UH in a garage, which is

479
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: the way almost every technology company in California started. And

480
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: there were a couple of guys out east to who

481
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 1: were looking at the Altare for programming, UM, Paul and

482
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 1: Bill Billy Billy Billy Gates and Paul Allen. I assume

483
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Yeah, so the Altaire actually has a

484
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: place in the pantheons of computer history for both Apple

485
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: and Microsoft. So, yeah, Jobs in Bosnia they're building computers

486
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: in the garage, Gates and Allan they are building basic compilers,

487
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:22,719
Speaker 1: and that was kind of laying the foundation of Microsoft.

488
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: I'll talk about compilers in a second when I do

489
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: a quick rundown of the punch card system. UM. And

490
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: then in nineteen seventy six, you have the Cray one

491
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: super computer. Yes, actually the Cray. Uh it's it's named

492
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: after was it was it? Seymour Cray, Yes, Seymour Crazy,

493
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: I was right, Cray And no, he's but but Seymour Cray,

494
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: it actually developed another computer, the world's first supercomputer actually

495
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen sixty four, um, and that was

496
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,479
Speaker 1: the c d C sixty six hundred. But the Cray one,

497
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: of course left in the dust. That was, you know,

498
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: twelve years later. So it's much more advanced computer, especially

499
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: if you follow the logect of Gordon Moore, and it

500
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: can leap tall buildings in a single bound. So that

501
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 1: that's where I cut off. I'm like, all right, seventy six,

502
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 1: we've got that. By then, you've got the Apple computer

503
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: coming out. Um, you've got the genesis of Microsoft. We're

504
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: really entering the modern era of computers. But um, that's

505
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: where I was like, okay, I'm not going any further

506
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 1: than seventy six. That could be a different podcast. Computers

507
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 1: with the modern era. Yeah, that's that's really the transition

508
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: because right around then and through their early es, IBM

509
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: released the first personal computer, and uh, you know, the

510
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: other the Windows system of using the graphical Union user

511
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: interface and the mouse, you know in the the Macintosh

512
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: and the Amiga and ther St and Windows and all

513
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: the other computers that that started out with that, and uh,

514
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: you know, that's sort of up to where we are today,

515
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: more or less with refinements. Yep, well, let me hit

516
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: this punch cards thing really quickly. We're running kind of

517
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: along on this podcast problem. Let's obviously we're both passionate

518
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: about this historical stuff. Um, who knows, maybe stuff you

519
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: missed in history class will try and cover computing at

520
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: some point and we'll be like, ha ha, beat you

521
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: to it. So this I'm I'm pulling this information from

522
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: a paper called Programming with Punched Cards, which was written

523
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: by Dale Fisk, who was an engineer at IBM. This

524
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: was talking about his his experiences back in the early

525
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: seventies and if you wanted to write a program using

526
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: punch cards, here's kind of how he lays it out.

527
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: Writing a program began with a paper tablet of coding forms.

528
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,239
Speaker 1: Each page of the tablet had about fifty lines on it,

529
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: and each line on the form would eventually be converted

530
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: into a punched card and stowed away in a box

531
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other cards. So you would fill

532
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: out one of these forms, you take it to a

533
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: key punch operator, or if you knew how to use

534
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: the key punch machine yourself, you'd use it yourself. You

535
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: would encode each line into a card, and then you

536
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 1: would have a deck which was called your source deck. Now,

537
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: for programmers, this is the essentially the same as talking

538
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: about source code. This is oh that humans can easily interpret.

539
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: Machines aren't very aren't good at that they can interpret

540
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: source code, but people can. And it's very important because

541
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: the next step is you'd feed the source code into

542
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: a computer that would translate it into object code. You

543
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: would get an object deck of cards. Now that process,

544
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: that's what you're putting your your source code through a compiler.

545
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: That's what compilers do. They translate from source code into

546
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: object code. So you're compiling your program. Now you have

547
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: an object code. You have an object deck. This is

548
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: what allows you to create to run a program on

549
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: a computer. And he talked about the process of running

550
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: this object deck through a computer, and then he got

551
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: this big stack of paper and it essentially told him

552
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 1: that everything went pear shaped. Shortly after the first couple

553
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: of cards went through and it turned out that his

554
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: source code, one of the source code cards was missing

555
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: a comma, so he had to go back and insert

556
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: the comma, redo the punch card, replace the one that

557
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: had been put in there. Run the source deck through

558
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: the compiler again, get a new object deck, try it again,

559
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: same mistakes, another mistake rather, and this is the way

560
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: they debugged programs in the early days. Like if you

561
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: had not written it out properly, or if you had

562
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: key punched it in incorrectly, then your program wouldn't work

563
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: and you would have to locate the problem and put

564
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: build a new punch card, or several new punch cards

565
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: if if it were was a problem that that spanned

566
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: more than one, and then run the object or the

567
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: source deck rather through the compiler again. Get an object

568
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,239
Speaker 1: deck that, run that through the computer and see if

569
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: your program worked. This is why people to write software

570
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: for me. So yeah, and of course keep in mind

571
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: there are no monitors. You're getting printed information here. You know,

572
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: you're not seeing it in in the sense of the

573
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: way we see things on our computers today. So that

574
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: kind of gives you the rundown on what it was

575
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: like to do to create a program on the punch card. Now,

576
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: the paper that Dale Fisk wrote, it's about eighteen nineteen

577
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: pages long, and it's a great read. It's not written

578
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: in in super technical language, a lay person could easily

579
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: follow it, and so I highly recommend hounting that paper

580
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: down again. It's called programming with punched cards, so you

581
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: can google that and find the pdf online. Now, um,

582
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: that pretty much wraps up our our discussion about computers

583
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: from the past, which is a good thing because we're

584
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: running over thirty minutes now, all right, so let's wrap

585
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: this up. Guys, if you have anything you want to

586
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: say to us, if you have any comments or corrections

587
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: or compliments or suggestions, you can write us. Our email

588
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.

589
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: You can learn all about these computing systems on our

590
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: website how stuff works dot com. And hey, if you

591
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: if you have technical questions that you might need answers

592
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: to very quickly, you might ask someone who can do

593
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: more tech support type answers, because not that we don't

594
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: want to get those questions, but we might be less

595
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: helpful and it might take us longer to get to them. Yeah,

596
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: it turns out we have a lot of stuff going on,

597
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 1: so if your computer is acting funny, we're probably not

598
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: the best people to talk to, but we do appreciate

599
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: your email. You guys are swell, So with that said,

600
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: I guess this wraps up another episode and we will

601
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: talk to again really soon. For more on this and

602
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com

603
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the new tech stuff

604
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: blog now on the house Stuff Works homepage, brought to

605
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

606
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: are you