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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!udel!burdvax!bpa!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: eric@snark.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: \"C\" vrs ADA (really Babbage)
Message-ID: <139@snark.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Aug-87 00:03:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: snark.139
Posted: Wed Aug 26 00:03:36 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Aug-87 16:28:07 EDT
References: <8948@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: Thyrsus Enterprises, Malvern PA 19355
Lines: 26

Wow. One of Henry Spencer's sage pronunciamentos turns out to be misleading.
They'll probably report hell freezing over next...;-)

In article <8473@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> By the way, Babbage not only understood the machine technology of his time,
> he may have made an indirect major contribution to it.

The connection is much more direct than Henry implies. Babbage and his
associates effectively invented precision machining in the modern sense (i.e.
with repeatable tolerances smaller than the unaided eye can distinguish) during
his two-and-a-half attempts to build the 'Analytical Engine'.

Babbage, Whitworth and two of the other team members co-authored *the*
foundation text in the field of precision machining, a weighty tome with a
title that escapes me at the moment. Ask any historian of technology about it.

The article I got all this from claimed that the book is *still* occasionally
cited by the older generation of instrument makers and tool-and-die men, who
remember and revere Babbage's name without having retained as part of the craft
lore the original purpose of his work.

Sorry, I can't give hard sources for this. It might have been one of James
Burke's coffee-table books on the history of technology. -- 
      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355    Phone: (215)-296-5718