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Saxonia Issue 01 Part 020
Nothing is new
By Rumrunner/VOID
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you ever thought of the computer industry? The usual is telling
that we have now made something new and exiting, and all that.
Well, both in computer industry, and also elsewhere, I have my
own thoughts that this isn't the truth, read on.
Right on then, let's start with something like the good old disks.
Hmm, the predecessor to the disks were some kind of "hole bands", that's
directly translated from Norwegian, so that's probably not the right name
but that doesn't matter. What matters is what these were, and how they
worked. Right, you had a band on a roll which was connected to the
computer. When saving, the band got winded from one wheel, onto another.
In the middle was a device punching holes into the band where it should
save that "hey, this bit is set".
That's easy enough, right? And not so far from the way the disks, or
harddrives stores data. But when these "hole bands" came with this
method of storing, they were not the first ones. Some of you might have
heard about steam organs. Yes, that's right an organ (the musical
instrument, of course) that was driven with steam. They were often used
on passenger boats for the "finer classes of society". And these steam
organs were automatic. You had a roll inside which worked almost like
the camaxle in a motor. There were "nobs" that triggered steam valves
to open or close for steam to each of the available notes. That sure
is craftsmanship, getting all that to work together. Also there were
made some almost multitimbral machines like these, working like a whole
orchestra, with drums, pipes and so on.
And my point is that this is not far away from the way we still store our
precious data. So, to make something else that's really astonishing, maybe
talk to you grandparents, or read some old books to get ideas?
And, just to make it short here in the end of the article, looking at
the past to build the future is used on other occasions too.
I would like to mention one of them, the car industry. But beware,
there are lies here (not from me, that is, but from the car industry).
Not long ago, I saw an advert from a car company, they told about their
revolutionary new hill holder. This is a device that, when you push down
the clutch, triggers a valve to maintain pressure on the brakes, even if
you take your foot off the braking pedal. That way, you can stand on a
steep hill, with one leg on the clutch and the other one on the gas
without rolling backwards.
Now, it's time to tell you that I am a big fan of old cars, among other
things. I also have a Terraplane from 1937. And you could get the
same kind of hill holder for it. And also other things, like electric
hand, which made gearshifts possible from just flicking a little
switch. Also you could get automatic clutch, and some other little
goodies. My question is then : where's the revolutionary part when
someone have done the same many decades before you?
Funny to think about right?
