Babbage's Language of Thought
Hi: This comes from the Plan 28 Blog:
Babbage's Language of Thought This is a guest post by Adrian Johnstone, Professor of Computing at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Babbage has been called the 'great-uncle' of modern computing, a claim that rests simultaneously on his demonstrable understanding of most of the architectural principles underlying the modern computer, and the almost universal ignorance of Babbage's work before 1970.
There has been an explosion of interest both in Babbage's devices and the impact they might have had in some parallel history, as well as in Babbage himself as a man of great originality who had essentially no influence at all on subsequent technological development.
In all this, one fundamental question has been largely ignored: how is it that one individual working alone could have synthesised a workable computer design over quite a short period, designing an object whose complexity of behaviour so far exceeded that of contemporary machines that it would not be matched for over one hundred years?
I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering. <snip>
Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html Cheers Brian Randell School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell
Brian Please keep us informed of the simulation for Babbage’s notation. Can you provide a reference to the article or book where the notation (e.g., the flow diagram in your online article) is covered? -paul On Dec 11, 2014, at 4:34 AM, Brian Randell <brian.randell@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi:
This comes from the Plan 28 Blog:
Babbage's Language of Thought This is a guest post by Adrian Johnstone, Professor of Computing at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Babbage has been called the 'great-uncle' of modern computing, a claim that rests simultaneously on his demonstrable understanding of most of the architectural principles underlying the modern computer, and the almost universal ignorance of Babbage's work before 1970.
There has been an explosion of interest both in Babbage's devices and the impact they might have had in some parallel history, as well as in Babbage himself as a man of great originality who had essentially no influence at all on subsequent technological development.
In all this, one fundamental question has been largely ignored: how is it that one individual working alone could have synthesised a workable computer design over quite a short period, designing an object whose complexity of behaviour so far exceeded that of contemporary machines that it would not be matched for over one hundred years?
I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering. <snip>
Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html
Cheers
Brian Randell
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell
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Paul Fishwick, PhD Chair, ACM SIGSIM Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology and Professor of Computer Science Director, Creative Automata Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas Arts & Technology 800 West Campbell Road, AT10 Richardson, TX 75080-3021 Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick Blog: creative-automata.com
Hi Paul (+ list) Babbage described the notation in a paper to the Royal Society in 1826: there's a link to it on this page <http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/116.toc>. This was reprinted in volume 3 of Babbage's collected works, ed. Martin Campbell-Kelly (Pickering, 1989). Dionysius Lardner's 1834 article on "Babbage's calculating engine" also discusses the notation. (Reprinted in vol. 2 of the collected works). There's a small section on it, based on these sources, in my book. I don't know where the diagram in the blog post came from - presumably the Science Museum archives? It's a fascinating topic, particularly the suggestion that Babbage used the notation to reason about, and so simplify, the design of the Difference Engine. I'm really looking forward to following the progress of this project. Cheers, Mark On 12 December 2014 at 03:18, Paul Fishwick <metaphorz@gmail.com> wrote:
Brian Please keep us informed of the simulation for Babbage’s notation. Can you provide a reference to the article or book where the notation (e.g., the flow diagram in your online article) is covered? -paul
On Dec 11, 2014, at 4:34 AM, Brian Randell <brian.randell@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi:
This comes from the Plan 28 Blog:
Babbage's Language of Thought This is a guest post by Adrian Johnstone, Professor of Computing at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Babbage has been called the 'great-uncle' of modern computing, a claim that rests simultaneously on his demonstrable understanding of most of the architectural principles underlying the modern computer, and the almost universal ignorance of Babbage's work before 1970.
There has been an explosion of interest both in Babbage's devices and the impact they might have had in some parallel history, as well as in Babbage himself as a man of great originality who had essentially no influence at all on subsequent technological development.
In all this, one fundamental question has been largely ignored: how is it that one individual working alone could have synthesised a workable computer design over quite a short period, designing an object whose complexity of behaviour so far exceeded that of contemporary machines that it would not be matched for over one hundred years?
I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering.
<snip>
Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html
Cheers
Brian Randell
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Paul Fishwick, PhD Chair, ACM SIGSIM Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology and Professor of Computer Science Director, Creative Automata Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas Arts & Technology 800 West Campbell Road, AT10 Richardson, TX 75080-3021 Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick Blog: creative-automata.com
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Hi Paul: I’m not involved in the project myself, and can add just one further reference to Mark Priestley’s reply. SWADE, D. 2011. Pre-Electronic Computing. In: JONES, C. B. & LLOYD, J. L. (eds.) Dependable and Historic Computing. Heidelberg: Springer. pp.58-83. http://www.springer.com/computer/general+issues/book/978-3-642-24540-4 This reproduces examples (on pages 73 and 74) of each of Babbage’s three types of diagrams comprising his Mechanical Notation. One of these describes, in flow diagram form, the programmable printer that Babbage designed for his No. 2 Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine, which was eventually successfully built over 150 years later - and can now be seen at the Science Museum and the Computer History Museum. Cheers Brian Randell On 12 Dec 2014, at 03:18, Paul Fishwick <metaphorz@gmail.com> wrote:
Brian Please keep us informed of the simulation for Babbage’s notation. Can you provide a reference to the article or book where the notation (e.g., the flow diagram in your online article) is covered? -paul
On Dec 11, 2014, at 4:34 AM, Brian Randell <brian.randell@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi:
This comes from the Plan 28 Blog:
Babbage's Language of Thought This is a guest post by Adrian Johnstone, Professor of Computing at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Babbage has been called the 'great-uncle' of modern computing, a claim that rests simultaneously on his demonstrable understanding of most of the architectural principles underlying the modern computer, and the almost universal ignorance of Babbage's work before 1970.
There has been an explosion of interest both in Babbage's devices and the impact they might have had in some parallel history, as well as in Babbage himself as a man of great originality who had essentially no influence at all on subsequent technological development.
In all this, one fundamental question has been largely ignored: how is it that one individual working alone could have synthesised a workable computer design over quite a short period, designing an object whose complexity of behaviour so far exceeded that of contemporary machines that it would not be matched for over one hundred years?
I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering. <snip>
Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html
Cheers
Brian Randell
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Paul Fishwick, PhD Chair, ACM SIGSIM Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology and Professor of Computer Science Director, Creative Automata Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas Arts & Technology 800 West Campbell Road, AT10 Richardson, TX 75080-3021 Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick Blog: creative-automata.com
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell
On 12/11/14 2:34 AM, Brian Randell wrote:
I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering. <snip>
Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html
How will this differ from Bromley's work?
Hi Al: On 12 Dec 2014, at 15:15, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 12/11/14 2:34 AM, Brian Randell wrote:
I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering. <snip>
Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html
How will this differ from Bromley's work?
My guess is that this project is exactly the sort of project that Allan Bromley would have gone on to do if he had not died so tragically young. But as I recall it Bromley mainly studied Babbage’s drawings (to great effect) rather than his Mechanical Notation - and my impression is that Johnstone’s project has already gone way beyond anything I know of by Bromley. Cheers Brian School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell
On 12/12/14 7:38 AM, Brian Randell wrote:
But as I recall it Bromley mainly studied Babbage’s drawings (to great effect) rather than his Mechanical Notation - and my impression is that Johnstone’s project has already gone way beyond anything I know of by Bromley.
That's good to know. I know that Doron and I talked a bit about the notation while he was here at CHM. I wasn't sure how much has actually been written on it.
@Mark and @Brian: Thank you for the literature citations. I wonder if Babbage’s diagrammatic notation represents the first published example of information flow (i.e., data and/or control)? paul On Dec 12, 2014, at 9:44 AM, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 12/12/14 7:38 AM, Brian Randell wrote:
But as I recall it Bromley mainly studied Babbage’s drawings (to great effect) rather than his Mechanical Notation - and my impression is that Johnstone’s project has already gone way beyond anything I know of by Bromley.
That's good to know. I know that Doron and I talked a bit about the notation while he was here at CHM. I wasn't sure how much has actually been written on it.
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Paul Fishwick, PhD Chair, ACM SIGSIM Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology and Professor of Computer Science Director, Creative Automata Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas Arts & Technology 800 West Campbell Road, AT10 Richardson, TX 75080-3021 Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick Blog: creative-automata.com
Hi Paul: On 12 Dec 2014, at 16:00, Paul Fishwick <metaphorz@gmail.com> wrote:
@Mark and @Brian: Thank you for the literature citations. I wonder if Babbage’s diagrammatic notation represents the first published example of information flow (i.e., data and/or control)? paul
I assume it is but Doron Swade or Adrian Johnstone are probably the best people to answer this question. In fact it seems to me that Babbage’s three notational forms taken together look like an incredibly early predecessor to UML. Cheers Brian
On Dec 12, 2014, at 9:44 AM, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 12/12/14 7:38 AM, Brian Randell wrote:
But as I recall it Bromley mainly studied Babbage’s drawings (to great effect) rather than his Mechanical Notation - and my impression is that Johnstone’s project has already gone way beyond anything I know of by Bromley.
That's good to know. I know that Doron and I talked a bit about the notation while he was here at CHM. I wasn't sure how much has actually been written on it.
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Paul Fishwick, PhD Chair, ACM SIGSIM Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology and Professor of Computer Science Director, Creative Automata Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas Arts & Technology 800 West Campbell Road, AT10 Richardson, TX 75080-3021 Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick Blog: creative-automata.com
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
-- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell
participants (4)
-
Al Kossow -
Brian Randell -
Mark Priestley -
Paul Fishwick