A 1985 conference paper about the Paige machine , available through ERIC. I also vaguely remember some discussion of it , perhaps in a publication at Cornell. I will look. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED265544 Another citation (I haven't tracked this one down) Lee, J. Y., Anatomy of a Fascinating Failure. American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Summer 1987, pp. 55-60. More about that -- https://circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/noncastcomp/paige/index.html On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:50 PM, Carl J. Chimi <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I'm just reading the section of the recent edition of the Autobiography in > which Clemens discusses to some extent his perception of how the typesetter > worked. His description is valuable, not only because he had considerable > experience as a compositor, but also to show how he could have been so > taken > by the machine as to invest so heavily in it. > > I've read descriptions of the machine that range from roughly "hopelessly > incapable of the task" to "hopelessly complex given the task". I've seen > it > depicted in the 1940s biopic as a truly silly and ridiculous device. I > believe I even saw some version of the actual machine in the basement of > the > Hartford house the first time I visited back in late 1972. Nothing like > the > Rube Goldberg thing in the movie. Not being an expert, but being > mechanically inclined, I remember the machine I saw as "plausible". > > All this has me wondering if anyone has ever written a study of the > technical aspects of the machine. How it worked. How it perhaps drew on > and related to other technology of that period. That Clemens said such a > machine would have to "think" is fascinating, and makes me wonder how Paige > created something that did apparently work and did, apparently, give the > illusion of "thinking". > > I figure if anyone has written on this topic, this is the forum that would > know about it. > > Thanks, > > Carl > Grandfather of Olivia >