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LUDGATE, PERCY. 1883-1922. On a Proposed Analytical Machine. Dublin: The Royal Dublin Society, 1909. image 1
LUDGATE, PERCY. 1883-1922. On a Proposed Analytical Machine. Dublin: The Royal Dublin Society, 1909. image 2
Lot 26

LUDGATE, PERCY. 1883-1922.
On a Proposed Analytical Machine. Dublin: The Royal Dublin Society, 1909.

4 December 2019, 13:00 EST
New York

US$800 - US$1,200

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LUDGATE, PERCY. 1883-1922.

On a Proposed Analytical Machine. Dublin: The Royal Dublin Society, 1909.
8vo (280 x 184 mm). Original printed wrappers, custom folder. Unopened, front wrapper with tiny chips, spots and toning to extremities.
Offprint from: The Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society. Volume XII (N.S.), Number 9.

FIRST APPEARANCE, offprint issue, of Ludgate's calculating machine, developed independently of Babbage's design and today considered closer to the modern computer than Babbage's. Portable and based on multiplication rather than addition, Ludgate's engine could also be programmed and was "the result of about six years' work, undertaken ... with the object of designing machinery capable of performing calculations, however, intricate or laborious, without the immediate guidance of the human intellect" (p 77). The machine was never built, and sadly, Ludgate's original drawings of it have been lost. Rarely encountered as a separate offprint. Randell Origins of Digital Computers (3d ed), pp 73-87 (reprinting this paper), 489. See Hook & Norman Origins of Cyberspace p 72.

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