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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1505412
The museum is very museum-like in the traditional sense, albeit one that favors glass and stainless steel over marble and granite. For the most part, the hardware is there for you to look at and there’s only a modicum of interaction with the exhibits. It is actually a bit refreshing amid the growing trend of science museums catering to short attention spans. But there are some surprises, especially those that the kids will like. Turn a corner and you’re in a room with a reasonably well done-in Ford Taurus attended by a collection of crash test dummies. The exhibit explains how high-speed computing has served to save lives by making cars safer. Learning by testing and simulation can be a lot healthier than learning by experience. Making it Count Though science and the military were fertile grounds for cultivating computer technology, the broader impact of the devices came from the business world. That got its start when a statistician named Herman Hollerith came up with a way for a machine to tabulate copious quantities of data. Like a lot of technical geniuses, he was inspired by a very old idea that had become tried-and-true technology, the Jacquard loom, which used a chain of wooden cards to create designs woven into fabric. The concept was later appropriated by Charles Babbage for his Difference Engine, credited as being the first actual computer. His longtime friend, Lady Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and daughter of poet Lord Byron has been credited (with some controversy) as being the first computer programmer, beginning with a lengthy appendix she wrote to an article attempting to explain how the Babbage’s newest creation, the Analytical Engine, worked. It contained a set of written instructions on how to perform a reasonably complex calculation on the device. Computers weren't the only things crashing