<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">@DavidNofre:<div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">"If I am allowed to speculate, I wonder if we shouldn't look at the developments of the early 19th-century, and specially the interest on mechanical agency and language, as Mark has put in, rather as part of the longer tradition of automata construction, and particularly late 18th- century fascination with speaking automata (see, most recently:<em> </em>Kang's<i> Sublime Dreams of Living Machines</i> and Adelheid Voskuhl's <i>Androids in the Enlightenment)</i>."</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes. This also brings in a discussion of analog computing which is reflected by these mechanical automata</div><div>(e.g., principles of program, memory, iteration, and conditional branching in the form of a geometric discontinuity </div><div>are intrinsic to these machines): <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2601391">http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2601391</a> . As to when 20th century computing</div><div>theoreticians used the word “automata,” I wish I knew.</div><div><br></div><div>-p</div><div><br></div><div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;">Paul Fishwick, PhD</div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Chair, ACM SIGSIM</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology </div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"> and Professor of Computer Science</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Director, Creative Automata Laboratory</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">The University of Texas at Dallas</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Arts & Technology</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">800 West Campbell Road, AT10</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Richardson, TX 75080-3021</div></div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Home: <a href="http://utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick">utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick</a></div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Blog: <a href="http://creative-automata.com">creative-automata.com</a></div></div></div><div apple-content-edited="true">
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