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Lot 157

SMEE, ALFRED.
The Process of Thought adapted to Words and Language. Together with a Description of the Relational and Differential Machines. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851.

4 June 2014, 13:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$625 inc. premium

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SMEE, ALFRED.

The Process of Thought adapted to Words and Language. Together with a Description of the Relational and Differential Machines. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851.
8vo. xvi, 77, [1 blank], [2] ad, 16 ad, 32 ad pp. Wood-engraved figures, including full-page frontispiece. Original cloth, spine gilt-lettered. Pale spotting at ends, stain to back cover, hinges cracked.
Provenance: D.M. Walker (period ownership inscription).

FIRST EDITION containing the first suggestion of "the possibility of information storage and retrieval by a mechanical logic machine operating analogously to the human mind, although [Smee] recognized that if such a machine could be built in Victorian England, it would probably take up an area larger than London. This is a dramatic example of the feasibility problems posed by mechanical computing devices before the advent of electronics" (Origins of Cyberspace 366).

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