野暮用で古代のコンピュータPDP-11のアーキテクチャの確認。
Dickinson College Library の蔵書だったようだ。ちなみに、図書カードもそのまま付いていて、貸し出し出された形跡は・・・ない。
ときに、表紙のイラスト、アンティキテラの歯車でないかい？
と、思ったら、裏表紙に書いてあった。orz
何たる偶然の一致！
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The oldest known minicomputer system, the Antikythera mechanism, was created circa 80 B.C. by an ancient mechanician, possibly on the island of Rhodes. A party of sponge-fishers discovered fragments of the device in a shipwreck off Antikythera, northwest of Crete, in 1900. This instrument predates any known mechanical system of similar complexity by hundreds of years and is thus the oldest existing relic of scientific technology.
The fragments of the instrument were "reconstructed" and the function of the mechanism decoded primarily through the efforts of Derek de Solla Price , presently Avalon Professor of History of Science at Yale University.
The gears, schematically depicted on the cover, were all fashioned form a single bronze sheet and were encased in a rectangular box about 17 cm wide, 32 cm high, and 9 cm deep. Two sets of rotatable annular dials, upper and lower, filled the back cover while a single dial with two annuli, the inner fixed and the outer moveable, was centrally located on the front. The device was apparently a portable hand-calculator for displaying calendrical cycles. System input was via the crown-gear wheel at the right; five turns moved the mechanism dials through a yearly cycle. System output, via the dial pointers, was a visual indication of various astronomical phenomena, such as the motions of the sun and moon in the zodiac, and risings and settings of bright stars and constellations throughout the year.
The device is the true predecessor of the modern minicomputer system by virtue of its sophisticated differential turntable, which has no known historical precedent. The synodic motion of the moon, the cycle of phases from new moon to full moon, is the difference between the sidereal motions of the sun and moon against the background of fixed stars. The differential gear apparently computes and, via the dials, display positional information regarding these cycles for any time of year.
The provenance, decoding, function, and historical significance of the Antikythera mechanism is fully documented in Dr. Price's monograph, Gears from the Greeks, Science History Publications, New York, 1975.
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珍しく、手で打ち込まざるをえなかったので、誤謬があるやも知れません。ご指摘の程を。Avalon Professor って何だ？誰か教えちくり。それはさておき、翻訳は、各自行うように。
この本の出版は1979年7月。1983年9月3日、Derek de Solla Priceは逝去する。当時としては最新の情報といえるだろう。一方、「アンティキテラ 古代ギリシアのコンピュータ」では、この時点で半分。後半は、Ｘ線撮影技術の向上、新たな断片の出現、ＣＴの誕生、ＣＧの発達などで更なる解明が為されるのだが、それは読んでのお楽しみ。
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