[dba-Tech] Charles Babbage

>From slashdot...

"It was on this day 220 years ago (December 26 1791) that Charles Babbage
was born. The calculating machines he invented in the 19th century,
although never fully realized in his lifetime, are rightly seen as the
forerunners of modern programmable computers. [0]What if he had succeeded?
Babbage already had plans for game arcades, chess playing machines, sound
generators and desktop publishing. A Victorian computer revolution was
entirely possible."

-- 
For more information on this and an imaginative take on it, read "The
Difference Engine", by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling; an amazing piece
of fiction, IMO, but frankly not quite my favorite take on historical S-F.
That vote would go to "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson, neck and neck
with "V." by Thomas Pynchon.

Arthur
Cell: 647.710.1314

Thirty spokes converge on a hub
but it's the emptiness
that makes a wheel work
   -- from the Daodejing