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The Writer - A 240 Year Old 6,000-Part Automaton

submitted by Grimm

1 decade 1 year 2 weeks ago

This Programmable 6,000-Part Drawing Boy Automata is Arguably the First Computer and It Was Built 240 Years Ago.

YouTube Description:

From the BBC programme Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams, Professor Simon Schaffer examines a clockwork creation of Pierre Jaquet-Droz.

14 Comments

It is far too rarely that we allow ourselves to create such remarkable works of beauty.

ant

*british

Adding video to channels (British) - requested by ant.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'automaton, the writer, programmable, computer, pierre jaquet droz' to 'automaton, the writer, programmable, computer, pierre jaquet droz, automaton, hugo' - edited by lucky760

The eyes.

I wonder if there's anything made in the last 40 years that will still function 200 years from now...

AeroMechanical jokingly says...

Plastic grocery bags?

I wonder if there's anything made in the last 40 years that will still function 200 years from now...

Might I suggest
http://videosift.com/video/Baroque-Androids-Automata-and-Watches

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This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by oritteropo.

Added alternate embed code for this video - backup requested by oritteropo.

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This dead video has been deemed functional; either it was accidentally declared dead or oritteropo is planning to manually replace the embed with a backup - declared notdead by oritteropo.

*dead

Automatically replaced video embed code with backup #7877 (supplied by member oritteropo) - video declared dead by member oritteropo.

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