Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
If the red slide is used to represent my male cats and the gray slide to
represent my black cats, Stanhope's method was to push the red slide,
from one side of the Demonstrator, eight units across the window, and
the gray slide, from the other side of the Demonstrator, four units across
the window. In the window there will be two units that overlap—these
represent the number of my male cats that are certain to be black.
Although Stanhope's brainchild was limited to logical expressions with
only two terms (for example, “cats” and “furry” in footnote 3), the
Demonstrator was a first practical step on the road towards the mech-
anisation of thought processes.
Stanhope started work on a topic that he intended to be called
The
Science of Reasoning Clearly Explained upon New Principles
. In 1800 he
printed some of the early chapters of the topic on his own hand-operated
printing press, and sent copies to only two friends, with the request that
they not discuss his invention with anyone in case “some bastard imi-
tation” were to appear before he could publish his own full description
of the Demonstrator. Around 60 years after his death the Earl's notes
and one of his devices came into the possession of the Reverend Robert
Harley, who published an article on the Stanhope Demonstrator in 1879.
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was a prolific inventor. His inventions
included a dynamometer, the standard railway gauge, the heliograph
ophthalmoscope, the Greenwich time signals and a lighting system for
lighthouses. But it was his designs for the Difference Engine and Ana-
lytical Engine for which he is best known today, the latter providing his
credentials for being the inventor of the first digital computer.
Babbage was the first to conceive of a general-purpose programmable
computer but was never able to secure sufficient funding to be able to
complete the project. He received a grant of
£
1,500 from the British
Chancellor of the Exchequer to enable him to develop the first of his
calculating machines, the Difference Engine, and when that money ran
out Babbage financed the continuing development using his own money,
until he was granted a further
£
3,000 of public funds. By then his plans
for the Difference Engine had become more ambitious. Instead of cal-
culating to six decimal places, as had been his original intention, he now
wanted to calculate to 20 places. This extra complexity meant that Bab-
bage's estimate of the cost of completing the Difference Engine would
