My gripe is that the history of computers does not include analog computing. I mean, you did mention the slide rule, but what about Vannevar Bush's Differential Analyzer? Moniac? The Ford Instrument Company? Mark I? Elmer Sperry? George Philbrick?
Early to mid-20th century automatic telephone exchanges, were some of the largest programmable machines, besides computers, to ever be manufactured. They were one of the first embedded applications computers were applied to, as well (1960s). Claude Shannon showed in the 1930s how Boolean logic could manipulate switching electrical circuits symbolically. This was in the quest to simply the telephone network and its millions upon millions of automatically switched relays. It turned out to be directly applicable to designing computers. The drive to connect people - as an economic force and a social force - and to do so efficiently and at scale - through telegraph and telephone systems -- is a major chapter in the story of where computers came from.
While not exactly ‘ancient,’ I believe that typesetting machines were an example of early (pre-digital) computers. I actually wrote a paper about it in American Printing History Association’s journal _Printing History,_ issue 21, 2017.
My gripe is that the history of computers does not include analog computing. I mean, you did mention the slide rule, but what about Vannevar Bush's Differential Analyzer? Moniac? The Ford Instrument Company? Mark I? Elmer Sperry? George Philbrick?
Early to mid-20th century automatic telephone exchanges, were some of the largest programmable machines, besides computers, to ever be manufactured. They were one of the first embedded applications computers were applied to, as well (1960s). Claude Shannon showed in the 1930s how Boolean logic could manipulate switching electrical circuits symbolically. This was in the quest to simply the telephone network and its millions upon millions of automatically switched relays. It turned out to be directly applicable to designing computers. The drive to connect people - as an economic force and a social force - and to do so efficiently and at scale - through telegraph and telephone systems -- is a major chapter in the story of where computers came from.
While not exactly ‘ancient,’ I believe that typesetting machines were an example of early (pre-digital) computers. I actually wrote a paper about it in American Printing History Association’s journal _Printing History,_ issue 21, 2017.
https://johnlabovitz.com/publications/The-electric-typesetter--The-origins-of-computing-in-typography.pdf