Bernard, At the risk of sounding self-serving I've got some pretty comprehensive notes on automata displays as advertised or written about in the mid to late 18th century Colonial-American general periodical. They are in my dissertation. If you are interested let me know directly as I will have to turn on access to the PDF files for you. David On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 4:19 AM, Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> wrote:

At 20:54 -0400 18/3/08, Bernard Geoghegan wrote:

...

Hi SIGCIS members, I'm doing some research on the 20th century exhibition of computers, particularly in the form of automata and televised calculating machines. I'd like to look for some historical precedents, though. Does anyone know of any works discussing the exhibition of calculating machines from the 17th through the 19th century? For example, in the 19th century calculating machines were sent to at least one World's Fair, and in in the 18th c. von Kempelen's chess playing Turk inspired popular speculations and exciting about thinking machines, etc. Thanks for your help. Bernard

Bernard Geoghegan Doctoral Candidate, Program in Screen Cultures, Northwestern University Institute Visitor, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

One of the best i know, though slightly out of your time frame, is:

Napier Tercentenary Celebration: Handbook of the Exhibition, ed. E. M. Horsburgh, pp. 124-127, Edinburgh, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1914. [(Also published as Modern Instruments and Methods of Calculation: A Handbook of the Napier Tercentenary Celebration Exhibition, G. Bell and Sons, London, 1914.)]

Cheers

Brian Randell

-- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/

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