http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/1994/10/03#automata Not to be confused with the <a href="computation.html">formal</a> or <a href="cellular-automata.html">cellular</a> varieties. Related to <a href="clockwork.html">clockwork</a>. <ul>Recommended <li>Edgar Allen Poe's "Maelzel's Chess-Player" is a famous examination of an automaton, marred only by the fact that Poe's solution is wrong, and lots of it is sloppy if not plagarized. Wimsatt's article "Poe and the Chess-Playing Automaton" is supposed to be the first real exposure, but there's an excellent chapter on this, based on Wimsatt, in Richard Wilcocks's <cite>Maelzel's Chess-Player: Freud and the Rhetoric of Deceit</cite> (Wilcocks compares the rhetorical strategies of <a href="freud.html">Freud</a> and Poe --- and the former comes out looking rather the worse). <li>Otto Mayr, <cite>Authority, Liberty and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe</cite> [<a href="../reviews/mayr-on-automata/">Review: Politics and Pendula</a>] <li>Joseph <a href="needham.html">Needham</a> has, of course, a quite encyclopedic treatment of Chinese automata, with brief yet thorough comparisons to the rest of the world, in <cite>Science and Civilisation in China,</cite> vol. 4, <cite>Physics and Physical Technology,</cite> part 2, <cite>Mechanical Engineering.</cite> This includes a remarkable device called the "south-pointing chariot," apparently one of the first feedback devices. <li>Derek J. de Solla Price, <cite>Science Since Babylon</cite> [essay collection, includes a number of important articles on the history of automata, of mechanistic philosophy and of their interconnection] </ul> <ul>To read: <li>Al-Jazari [+XII Islamic text on automta] <li>S. A. Bendi, <cite>Technology and Culture</cite> <strong>5</strong> 24-42 <li>Max von Boehn, <cite>Puppets and Automata</cite> <li>B. Boie, <cite>German Quarterly</cite> <strong>54</strong> 284 <li>Brett, <cite>Speculum</cite> <strong>29</strong> 477 <li>David Brewster, <cite>Letters on Natural Magic</cite> <li>James Douglas Bruce, <cite>Modern Philology</cite> <strong>X</strong> 511 <li>Carrera, <cite>Androids</cite> <li>Carroll, <cite>Great Chess Automaton</cite> <li>Chandler, <cite>Arts</cite> <strong>43</strong> <li>Alfred Chapuis <li>Claflin, <cite>Street Magic</cite> <li>Drachmann, <cite>The mechanical technology of Greek and Roman antiquity</cite> <li><cite>Encyclopedia of World Art,</cite> art. "Automata" <li>H. S. Hatfield, <citE>Automaton</cite> <li>Heron, <cite>Pneumatics</cite> [on-line version: <cite><a href="http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/hero/">The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria</a></cite>] <li>Mary Hillier, <cite>Automata and Mechanical Toys</cite> <li>David Hopkin, <cite>Automata</cite> <li>Huet, <cite>Representations</cite> 1, 4 (1983) 73-87 <li>Kayser, <cite>The Grotesque</cite> <li>Maskelyne <li>Otto Mayr <ul> <li><cite>Origins of Feedback Control</cite> <li><cite>Philosophers and Machines</cite> </ul> <li>Ord-Hume, <cite>Clockwork Music</cite> <li>Panet, <cite>Am. Lit.</cite> 48 (Nov. '76) 370 <li><cite>Antiquarian Horology</cite> <li>Derek de Solla Price <ul> <li><cite>Sci. Am.</cite> June '59, 60 <li><cite>Tech. + Cult.</cite> 5 (64), 9 <li><cite>Hist. Tech.</cite> vol. iii </ul> <li>Bruno Ray, <cite>J. Pop. Cult.</cite> 14 (1980) 60 <li>Sherwood, <cite>Studies in Philology</cite> Oct. 1947, 567 <li>Shumaker, <cite>Thought</cite> 51, 255 <li>Strandh, <cite>A History of the Machine</cite> <li>West, <cite>Flesh of Steel</cite> <li>Lynn White, <cite>Medieval Technology</cite> <li>Winter, <cite>Theatre of Marvels</cite> <li>Jessica Wolfe, <cite>Humanism, Machinery, and Renaissancew Literature</cite> [<a href="http://wwww.cambridge.org/0521831873">Blurb</a>] <li>Wright, <cite>J. Hist. Ideas</cite> 41, 232 </ul>