Turning Points in the Analog and Digital World

This book presents “the digital age” as a central theme, covering digital transformation, social media, artificial intelligence, autonomous drones and mobile robots as well as self-driving vehicles. Among many other topics, the author also discusses quantum computers, DNA data storage, 3D printing, and the power and influence of technology giants.

Amid the wave of digitization and the fascination with generative artificial intelligence, it is easy to overlook the compelling world of analog technology. Hence the book also describes an extraordinary array of largely forgotten objects: magnificent musical automatons, amazing picture clocks (with and without musical movements), mysterious automaton figures, historical surveying instruments, superb astronomical clocks, elaborate astrolabes and armillary spheres, instructive terrestrial and celestial globes, mechanical looms, speaking and chess-playing machines, bead frames, counting boards, reckoning cloths, jetons, numbering rods, pocket calculators, cylindrical slide rules, sectors and proportional compasses, cash registers, differential analyzers, the German Enigma cipher machine and the Turing Bombe, the Colossus computer, clay tablets, notched bones, tally sticks, knotted cords, and finger numbers.

The work includes more than 500 illustrations (90% in color) from the fields of mathematics, computing, astronomy, surveying, time measurement, and the construction of automatons. The objects under discussion derive from Africa, America, Asia, Australia and Europe, in total from more than 20 countries. This universally understandable book is accessible to anyone interested in the history of technology and culture.