ESR posted this video on Google+, saying “Mind…utterly…blown. This is how computers worked before electronic gate logic. There’s a weird beauty of mathematics made tangible about it.”
Uploaded on 13 Jul 2011
A 1953 training film for a mechanical fire control computer aboard Navy Ships. Amazing how problems of mathematical computation were solved so elegantly in “permanent” mechanical form, before microprocessors became inexpensive and commonplace.
Wow, that was very interesting
Comment by Clive Tonge — March 5, 2016 @ 12:06
I had the privilege of working on slightly more upgraded fire control systems in the navy from 1979 – 1988. The systems were very ingenious, I would have liked to have met some of the folks who thought this stuff up.
Comment by Dwayne — March 7, 2016 @ 14:26
Was this on one of the USN’s re-activated battleships? I’d have thought more modern ships would have electronic fire control pretty much across the board by 1979.
Comment by Nicholas — March 9, 2016 @ 08:49