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From: borasky@ogicse.ogi.edu (M. Edward Borasky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium
Message-ID: <15370@ogicse.ogi.edu>
Date: 25 Dec 90 17:52:17 GMT
References: <1990Dec18.181935.23319@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <37111@cup.portal.com> <37134@cup.portal.com> <10340@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1990Dec25.144305.8590@cs.umn.edu>
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR
Lines: 14

In article <1990Dec25.144305.8590@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:
>In article <10340@darkstar.ucsc.edu> foetus@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (71030000) writes:
>>Back in the days when a telephone switchboard (or even Thaddius Cahills 
>>fabled Tellharmonium) was the most complicated, technologically
>>advanced task machine, people compared that to a brain.
I'm impressed!  Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium?  I haven't heard that
mentioned in years.  I'm going to take this thread (eventually) to
"comp.music"; that's what the Telharmonium was.  By the way, anybody
remember the Hammond organ?  The one that generated sound with tone
wheels?  Guess whose patents were involved?  Yup, Thaddeus Cahill,
circa 1895!

I was unaware, though, that people of the day compared the Telharmonium
to the brain.  Was this a problem for Babbage as well?