MECHANICAL MINDS: CLOCKWORK TO C128
START HERE

The premise of this archive is simple:

Automation did not begin with electronic computers.

Long before vacuum tubes, transistors, microprocessors, or BASIC, people built
machines that carried out sequences, tracked astronomical cycles, produced music,
performed repeated motions, calculated tables, and sometimes imitated living
behavior. The mechanisms were physical: gears, cams, pins, cylinders, weights,
springs, escapements, linkages, punched media, and eventually large mechanical
calculating engines.

That is the bridge to the Commodore 128 material in this archive. A BASIC program
is not mystical. It is another way of arranging a machine so that, once started,
it follows a set of rules. The material changed. The scale changed. The speed
changed beyond recognition. The old urge did not.

SUGGESTED ROUTE

1. /archive/mechanical-minds/history/AUTOMATION-BEFORE-ELECTRICITY-FAQ.txt
2. /archive/mechanical-minds/mechanisms/CAMS.txt
3. /archive/mechanical-minds/mechanisms/CONTROL-VS-CALCULATION.txt
4. /archive/mechanical-minds/history/BABBAGE-DIFFERENCE-ENGINE.txt
5. /archive/mechanical-minds/c128/WHY-C128-FEELS-MODERN.txt
6. /archive/mechanical-minds/c128/WATCH-THE-COMPUTER-THINK.txt
7. /archive/mechanical-minds/recovered/INDEX-NOTE.txt

The last route may not be the last route.