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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: \"C\" vrs ADA (really Babbage)
Message-ID: <8512@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Aug-87 02:24:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8512
Posted: Sat Aug 29 02:24:52 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Aug-87 02:24:52 EDT
References: <1493@cullvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 30

> > [Babbage's] early Difference
> > Engine used interchangeable parts many years before Eli Whitney "invented"
> > this concept.
> 
> I question this.  Whitney worked with interchangable parts around
> 1800, Babbage was late 1800's...

Please check your references; unless I am much mistaken, Whitney was circa
the US Civil War (1860s) while Babbage was *early* 1800s.

> But during most of this period, the
> only people who used interchangable parts were rifle manufacturers for
> the military...

Again, I suggest some checking of facts; I *think* Whitney was making muskets,
not rifles.  And they were justified on grounds of lower cost (always a
significant issue in wartime, believe it or not), not field interchange of
parts.

The most amusing part of this is that in fact gun parts are not fully
interchangeable to this day.  Neither are automobile parts, by the way.
It is more economical to accept some degree of hand-fitting or variance
in sizes (car-engine pistons effectively come in three sizes) than to
achieve the precision needed to make everything fully interchangeable.
(For example, making all pistons the same size requires changing or
adjusting cutting bits much more often, because wear on the bits slowly
changes the size of the parts they produce.  And those things are costly.)
-- 
"There's a lot more to do in space   |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry