The Dead Media Notebook by Bruce Sterling, Richard Kadrey, Tom Jennings, Tom Whitwell Read Free Book Online Page A

cross-reference other researchers’ additions to the user’s “specialized area” without sorting through irrelevant texts. Bush saw the Rapid Selector as an eventual replacement for card catalogues. Although Bush conquered his basic speed/retrieval problems, the required coding system to access information ultimately proved prohibitively complex. The specialized typewriter for the code-punch was also unworkable. Burke’s text is full of other useful information, follies, and successes that orbit around the development of these pre-digital machines.
    Source: Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex by Colin Burke; Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen N.J., 1994. LOC: HD9696.C772B87 1994
     

The Experiential Typewriter
    From Bradley O’Neill
    Built by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) in the winter of 1962-1963, Cambridge, Mass. An instrument for recording and charting the psychedelic experience.
    “The purpose of the ET was to deal with the ‘words cannot express’ aspects of accelerated-brain experience. The subject could indicate any of various levels of consciousness that they were unable to describe at the moment by pressing the appropriate buttons on the typewriter. The signal was recorded on a revolving drum, much the way temperatures are graphed in meteorological stations.
    “After the session, when consciousness was operating at slower speeds, the subject would have leisure to examine the recorded data and describe the sequence of events fully and precisely.”
    I’d like a more detailed account of this curiosity, as Dr. Leary does not elaborate in Flashbacks . But it’s definitely dead.
    Source: Flashbacks by Timothy Leary, 1983, 1990; Putnam Publishing Group, New York. LC# BF109.l43A3 1990
     

Dead Cryptanalytic Devices of World War II
    From Bradley O’Neill
    Here are various cryptanalytic machines developed before and during WWII. An “ notes those items for which I will submit more detailed working notes. I am listing all of them here beforehand, for purposes of scope, and to encourage any interested souls.
    BOMBE - Electro-mechanical machines built by Britain and the US to attack ENIGMA.
    COLOSSUS - Britain’s special purpose electronic computer to attack the German FISH system.
    COMPARATOR - Bush’s tape based-electronic cryptanalytic machines.
    COPPERHEAD - OP-20-G [Naval cryptology division] WWII advanced versions of tape-based electronic cryptanalytic machines.
    ENIGMA - German encrypting device.
    FISH - German teletype-like automatic encryption systems and devices.
    FREAK [no joke!] - U.S. electromechanical cryptanalytic machine, WWII.
    FRUIT - Special electro-mechanical adding machine built for OP- 20-G by NCR during WWII.
    GOLDBERG - OP-20-G advanced version of Bush’s Comparator.
    HYPO - Analog optical crypanalytic machine built by Eastman-Kodak, during WWII.
    ICKY - OP-20-G special microfilm machine.
    IC MACHINE - Film plate machines, MIT-Eastman made for OP-20-G, WWII.
    LETTERWRITER - Special data entry machines IBM built for OP-20-G, WWII.
    LOCATORS - OP-20-G and SIS [US Army Cryptanalytic Agency] machines built for identifying locations of code items, but not for counting or tallying. Built during WWII.
    MADAME X - SIS relay-based machine to attack German ENIGMA.
    MATHEW, MIKE - U.S. electro-mechanical cryptanalytic machines, WWII.
    PURPLE - SIS/OP-20-G analog machine built for attack on Japanese diplomatic ciphers.
    PYTHON - OP-20-G electrical analog of Japanese enciphering machine, during WWII.
    RAPID ARITHMETICAL MACHINE - An unbuilt Vannevar Bush computer of the 1930s.
    RAPID SELECTOR - Bush’s ill-fated bibliographic micro-film device.
    RATTLER - U.S. Navy electronic machine to attack Japanese automatic encryption systems.
    ROBINSON - Britain’s tape-based electronic machines, similar to the COMPARATOR.
    ROCKEFELLER ANALYSER - Vannevar Bush/MIT updated version of Differential Analyser, financed by Rockefeller Foundation, completed in late