Valery V Shilov
email: vshilov@hse.ru

Sergey A Silantiev
email: ssilantiev@hse.ru

'Machines à Comparer les Idées' of Semen Korsakov: First Step Towards AI

Keywords: Semen Korsakov, logical machine, intellectual machines, Homeoscope, Ideoscope, Comparator

This paper is devoted to forgotten Russian scholar Semen Korsakov and describes his life and scientific activity. The particular attention is paid to Korsakov's main achievement -invention of five "intellectual machines". These machines could be considered as the very first attempt to design a mechanical device capable to perform such intellectual operations as data analysis, comparison, and selection.

Introduction

The scientific discussions on the theme "can the machine think?" (i.e. on the possibility of creation of artificial intelligence) began in 1950s when after the development of first electronic computers Alan Turing published his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (1950; later this paper was published under the title "Can the Machine think?"). Philosophical (and quasi-philosophical!) discussions on these problems reached their peak in 1960-1970s. But in fact, when at the end of 1970s the program to design the fifth generation computer had been announced in Japan (so called "Japanese challenge") and appropriate programs also had started in USSR and USA the main aspect of these discussions was the necessity of computer "intellectualization". It meant not only the extending of fields where computer can solve various tasks effectively but also the rising of the level of communication between a computer and a man (even up to the level of natural language).

Logic machines are very interesting phenomena in the history of logic and computer technology. Martin Gardner gave a remarkable review of the history of logical machines in his classic work [START_REF] Gardner | Logic Machines and Diagrams[END_REF]. However, he did not describe some of them because of various reasons. Logical machines built in Russia are practically unknown abroad. Gardner did not mention them in his book. The most complete history of logical machines is described in [START_REF] Shilov | Istoriya logicheskikh mashin (История логических машин)[END_REF] and its short description can be found in publication [START_REF] Shilov | Logical machines: Predecessors of modern intellectual technologies[END_REF]. In our previous work [START_REF] Shilov | Reasoning vs. Orthodoxy, or, The Lesson from the Fate of Russian "Reasoning Machine[END_REF] we described life, scientific activity and logical machine of Russian Professor Alexander Schukarev. In this article we tell about the five extremely original logical (or intellectual) machines invented by his predecessor Semen Korsakov (Fig. 1). Nikolay Korsakov was not only a military man but an outstanding civil engineer. For example, he was the head of construction of the Kherson fortress and developed a ten-year plan for the construction of Sevastopol. Actually this city, famous in Russian history, was built according to his plan. Prince Potemkin wrote in his letter to the Empress Ekaterina the Great: "Korsakov, Mother, is an engineer we had never before ... This man should be preserved".

Colonel Nicolay Korsakov perished on August 24, 1788 during the war between Russia and Ottoman Empire. After the death of her husband Anna Korsakova and her son lived in the family of her brother Nikolay Mordvinov who was taking care of them all his life and fully replaced the father to Semen Korsakov. Count Mordvinov (1754-1845) was a Russian naval commander and prominent public and state figure. He was the author of several books on economics, finance, banking and agriculture. In 1825-1840 he was a Chairman of the Free Economic Society and in 1829 Mordvinov received the title of academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

In 1805 Semen Korsakov served as a "collegiate junker" in the Archives of Collegium of Foreign Affairs with other boys from noble families who preferred the civil service to the military one.

At the beginning of 1807 he became adjutant of his uncle who was the Head of militia of Moscow Province established according to the Manifesto of Emperor Alexander I "On the preparation and formation of widespread temporary home guard or militias" from November 30, 1806 in one of the most tense moments of struggle with Napoleon. However, after the signing of Treaties of Tilsit on July 7, 1807 it was no longer a need for the militia, dismissed at the beginning of the next year. Korsakov who during the service in militia received the rank of titular councilor returned to Collegium of Foreign Affairs. Soon he was promoted to the rank of collegiate assessor and then retired.

Semen Korsakov had joined the St. Petersburg militia in the beginning of the mobilization in 1812 and on 5 th September marched against Napoleon. He participated in the assault of Polotsk (8 th October), Chashniki battle (29 th October), battles under Smolyans (13 th  14 th November) and on the Berezina river (26 th  29 th November). After the expulsion of Napoleon from Russia he took part in all foreign campaigns of the Russian army. He was contused during the siege of Danzig but finally succeeded to enter Paris. Korsakov was awarded the Order of Vladimir of IV degree, as well as the Prussian Order "For Merit" ("Pour le Mérite"). Later, the Order of Anna of II degree was added to his other military awards.

In fall of 1817 Korsakov began to serve in the Ministry of Police where he worked as a statistician and then continued his service in the statistics department of the Ministry of Justice. There Semen Korsakov died on December 1 st , 1853 and was buried in the churchyard of Trinity Church of the neighbouring village Troitsa-Vyazniki (Fig. 2).

Semen Korsakov as Researcher

Although Korsakov never received a formal education, he was a very educated man. In his youth in Moscow he attended particularistic courses of physics and mineralogy, which were delivered at home by gymnasium professors. He was fluent in German, French, English and probably knew Latin. Later, in St. Petersburg he attended lectures on natural law and in May 1811 successfully passed exams in law, economics, physics, mathematics, history, geography and statistics at the Pedagogical Institute (most likely, it was the certification required for the service and advancement in rank). Scientific instruments, machines and mechanisms caused particular interest of Korsakov. He wanted to understand the principle of their action and always acquainted himself with the various production technologies at the factories he visited during the service. He built the home laboratory and carried out various experiments.

Korsakov was also an inventor. For example, his pocket astrolabe Nikolay Mordvinov "found very useful". The lack of academic education sometimes left its mark on his work. Thus, trying to explore the hidden possibilities of a man Semen Korsakov in 1828 invented a device that was named "Dinamoscope". It consisted of coloured wax balls suspended on strings to the grid. Participants of experiments tried to force these balls to swing, or to stop by their willpower ... In addition to scientific experiments, Korsakov enthusiastically studied also medicine and especially homeopathy. Homeopathy at that time was still little known in Russia. Semen Korsakov became not only a promoter of homeopathy, but made a significant contribution to its development. Already at the beginning of 1829 on his estate he began to practice medicine. In a special notebook, which Korsakov was carefully keept for five years it was marked 11725 requests for help! He pondered on the nature of homeopathic remedies and their effects, conducted many experiments, trying to achieve the maximum efficiency. And very soon the practical results of his work were widely recognized. Several articles of Korsakov were published in Germany in the world's first journal about homeopathy "Archiv für die homöopathische Heilkunst" (Fig. 3).

Founder of homeopathy German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) who was in correspondence with Korsakov highly appreciated his achievements in this field. Hahnemann wrote to Korsakov in March of 1832:

"I admire the zeal with which you have dedicated yourselves to the beneficent art of therapeutic, not only to be able to treat members of your family and others, but also in order to penetrate in the secrets of nature that is proven by your valuable notes" [2, p. 93].

Correspondence with another respondent Nikolay Muravyov (1768-1840) whom Korsakov himself drew in homeopathy had very important consequences. Nikolay Muravyov was not only a famous military and public figure but also had serious knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences. In one of his letters to Korsakov Muravyov explained "methodical table of painful symptoms cured by each drug": "All of these symptoms (say, 1000) are supposed to be arranged alphabetically by numbering each one of them. After that, on the sheet divided into columns according to the number of drugs with the inscription of the specific drug in each column, one should mark by numbers all the symptoms cured by the drug in alphabetical order. Then, during the treatment for a correct choice of drug all seizures of the patient should be written on a special sheet and designated by numbers. After that they should be compared with the table and the drug with the more coincided numbers must be chosen. This idea [Korsakov] probably later tried to use for the development of his Homeoscope. Twenty tables found in his papers with graphic designations for review of the action of various plant and mineral drugs, acids, alkalis, leaves, roots, crusts, etc. on the different parts of the human body could be the reason for this conclusion" [2, p. 95].

Fig. 3 The cover of the journal and the first page of the Korsakov's article Muravyov's idea had come on already prepared soil. Statistics studied by Korsakov during his service stipulate extremely labor-intensive processing of large amounts of data. It is very difficult (and sometimes virtually impossible) to perform manually. Therefore, we may assume that his thoughts to store such data in a structured (tabular) form appeared earlier. Korsakov put in tables the information about the victims on December 14 th , 1825, his patients, their diseases and medicaments. And it is clear that his innovative idea of mechanization of the laborintensive process of search and selection of necessary information finally took shape in connection with his interest of homeopathy.

The Letter to St. Petersburg Academy of Science

On September 11 th , 1832 collegiate councillor Semen Korsakov sent a letter (in French, which was the common language of communication for Russian scientists at that time) to the St. Petersburg Academy of Science of the following content:

"I have discovered the new very important in its applications investigation method. Taking to account that its immediate publication will be useful for human knowledge I felt it my duty to present five models of intellectual machines. All of them work on common principle. I hope the Academy can evaluate my own free will to reject the exclusive privilege I might have demanded. I also expect from Academy to establish special Commission for consideration of my method and results of its application for various actions of human mind.

Your obedient servant, Semen Korsakov, collegiate councillor St. Petersburg September 11, 1832" [5, p. 557].

The four-page document (also in French) under the title "Report about the new investigation method" was attached to the letter. Korsakov described in details his proposals. Next day the letter was received and read. Academicians treated it seriously and reacted quickly. A week later the General Assembly of Academy considered the Korsakov's proposals and decided: "To establish the Commission of Mr. Parrot, Mr. Kupfer, Mr. Ostrogradsky and Mr. Brandt for examination of new invention. Secretary will inform Mr. Korsakov and invite him next Saturday 24 th September at 11 o'clock" [5, p. 579].

Machines à Comparer les Idées, or Machines Intellectuelles

What did Korsakov propose? He presented five "machines for comparison of ideas" or "intellectual machines". Each of them according to the inventor's opinion could compare various complex scientific conceptions. Properties of these conceptions should be previously organized in a special table. Let's describe these machines and method of utilization as their inventor had done in the brochure published in French in St. Petersburg [START_REF] Karsakof | Aperçu d'un procédé nouveau d'investigation, au moyen de machines à comparer les idées[END_REF]. The brochure consists of two parts. The first part, from the first to eighth pages, was textually almost identical with the above mentioned "Report about the new investigation method". The second one (pages from 9 to 22) contains sufficiently detailed description of the device and operation of all five "intellectual machines".

First of them is the Rectilinear Homeoscope with immovable parts (Fig. 4). Korsakov described it so: "among many table presentations it finds one that contains another given complex presentation in all details. Machine gives this result by stopping itself during the operation. <…> Number of details could be hundreds" [5, p. 559].

Korsakov supposed that this device could have found its application in medicine. Properties of complex presentation in this case are the symptoms of disease. Result of the work is the appropriate medicament. This process is depicted on Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 Rectilinear Homeoscope with immovable parts

Every column of table III describes the disease. Its symptoms are presented as the holes in table cells. Pins (the pin position number coincides with one of the disease symptom numbers) are stuck in rectilinear bar I (specifically this bar Korsakov calls Homeoscope). Height of the bar is equal to the height of the table column. Pins corresponding to the disease symptoms are stuck in the bar with protruding ends (II). Then the bar moves along the table from left to right parallel to the columns with down pin ends (IV). The bar falls down on that column where all pin ends coincide with the holes. "Device stops itself" (see column E) and we may read the appropriate medicament for the disease with given symptoms.

Rectilinear Homeoscope with movable parts (Fig. 5). This is designed for the same purpose as the above described device but in addition "lists and immediately distinguishes all the appropriate and non-appropriate properties from given complex presentation during their contact with the table properties" [5, p. 559].

Homeoscope in this device is not a bar but a rectilinear wooden frame (V on Fig. 5). The shaft from thick steel wire penetrates through frame short crossbars. Movable rotating parts (small levers) made from thinner wire, are fastened on the shaft. Numbered round paper label is installed on the long arm of every lever. Another end of the lever arm is a short hook curved on 90 degree. In initial position all the levers are rightward and rest on Homeoscope frame crossbar (VII on Fig. 5). The properties of every set of complex presentations are introduced as the holes in the table column. The table is similar to the table of Homeoscope with immovable parts. Properties of the presentation comparing with the table presentation are installed so: if the presentation has some property the appropriate lever is reclined left, in other case it remains rightward. The special rods vv (Fig. 5,X) are installed in the holes in Homeoscope side crossbars in order to divide two kinds of above described presentations. After that Homeoscope is installed on the left part of the table and moved from left to right. If there is no hole under the lever in the table cell than the lever would stay in position VIII (Fig. 5) resting on its short hook m. If the lever is above the table hole hook m would fall in it and recline on Homeoscope frame crossbar np in position IX. Thus, all the properties of compared presentation corresponding to the leftward levers are common to the properties of the table presentation current column (Homeoscope shaft tt is above of this column).

Fig. 5 Rectilinear Homeoscope with movable parts

It is worth mentioning the very interesting Korsakov's idea. He suggested not only to confirm the coincidence but to determine a degree of its significance. He wrote if "there is a need to express the importance of every property than this action could be done easily with the help of numbered labels. These labels can move along the pillar x of every part. So, by fixing them on the specific lever at various distances from the axis (see IX on Fig. 5) one may evaluate their importance" [6, p. 17]. Above this, Korsakov proposes to paint various table lines in different colours for greater visibility.

Plane Homeoscope. Korsakov wrote that this device "... immediately shows the difference between two complex compared presentations with more than ten thousand and even more properties" [5, p. 559]. Construction of the Plane Homeoscope is very simple. In fact, it consists of two tables A and B (Fig. 6). Every line in table B corresponds to some complex presentation. The presence or absence of properties in this presentation is determined by the presence or absence of the holes in the appropriate cell. In table A which has the same dimensions as table B the presence of some property in complex presentation is fixed by the pin installed in an appropriate hole. There are holes in all cells of table A in contrast to table B. Both tables are organized in the form of platens but "legs" for table A are longer. Let the letters a, b, c etc. are related to the human body parts: "head, nose, eyes, belly, etc.". Various human "diseases: tumor, pain, redness, weakness, gripes, fever, chills, etc." [6, p. 19] are numbered. Thus, the hole in one of the table B cell corresponds to some disease symptom. "For example, if letter e corresponds to chest and number 4 is gripes then the cell e4 will designate the chest gripes" [6, p. 19]. Table B contains the full collection of disease symptoms and determines the appropriate medicament. Such tables could be produced for various medicaments. Then the pins must be installed to all the holes of table A corresponding to the disease symptoms. After that table A must be consequentially put on table B. Table, which pins fall to all the holes, will determine the medicament. Korsakov suggested indicating the importance of every symptom by the pin heads of various dimensions (XIV on Fig. 6). It is a very interesting idea. In this case the doctor has the opportunity not to consider less significant symptoms if some pins don't fall in the table B holes. On Fig. 6 the conception e from table A coincide with conception e from table B according only to the four signs (1, 4, 7, 10). 10,000 properties mentioned by the inventor mean that the dimension of each table could be 100×100.

Ideoscope (Fig. 7). According to Korsakov this device can just in several minutes compare large a number of complex presentations from a special table. Ideoscope is a wooden bar working with the table as in both Rectilinear Homeoscopes. But this bar and the table are constructed in another way. There is a set of quadrangular through holes in Ideoscope located on equal distances from each other. Tetrahedral metal pins are installed in the holes. The upper part of the pin is round and contains the shaft c with the wire lever lh and paper numbered label (XVI B on Fig. 7). Shafts can move freely up and down without friction in their holes. Holes have buttresses ff which force the lever to move accordingly to the pin's movement. The main difference of this table from the others is that quadrangular holes have various depths. A hole's depth is proportional to the importance of the property depicted in the table. Above this, the bottom of the hole has the 45 degree angle incline. Thus, if there is no hole under the pin the lever can stay in one of two positions (XVII A)on the left or right bar side. If there is a shallow hole under the pin then the lever would take horizontal position on the left or right bar side (XVII B) as well. Finally if there is a deep hole the lever would rise up (XVII С). Work of Ideoscope is similar to the work of Rectilinear Homeoscope with movable parts. In order to compare some presentation with table presentation it is necessary to move on left all levers whose label numbers correspond to the numbers of presentation properties. The special rod is installed in Ideoscope rack. This rod divides leftward and rightward levers (v on XVII C). Finally, Ideoscope is installed on the left side of the table and moved from left to right in parallel to the columns. The position of the levers displays the results of comparison when Ideoscope is above of the next table column. Ideoscope determines not only coinciding and mismatching properties of two presentations but also the difference between them. Korsakov so described the possibilities of Ideoscope:

Property which is discovered in some conception of the table but not in that table where Ideoscope is; Property which is discovered in the given conception but is absent in the compared conception; Property which is common for the two compared conceptions; Common property which has high importance for the conception from the table; Property of high importance which is absent in the given conception but is present in the conception from the table; Property which is absent in the given conception but is present in the conception from the table [6, p. 23]. Herewith it is very important that there is a possibility to "determine the relative degree of property significance" [5, p. 559]. This could be done by two methods. Firstly, the significance degree of the properties of compared presentations is determined by the angle of lever inclination. Secondly, this degree could be set by shifting the labels nearer or father from the lever axis (see XVIII).

Simple Comparator "...gives the same results as Ideoscope but can work only on two complex presentations compared with each other. It covers only several dozens of properties but ... it doesn't need a table" [5, p. 559]. For example, it is needed to compare two objects B and C (Korsakov compared two men according their "physical abilities". The number of these abilities is not more than a number of plates in the frame). Let take the frame B and if man B has some physical ability then appropriate plate is moved to the left to stop. The same action should be done with frame C. After that, frame B is laid on frame C and Korsakov wrote about four possible results:

 All properties a in left plates under the holes of frame C left plates fall in these holes pointing which physical abilities are common for the both men.  Other properties a of left plates not under the holes rise pointing which physical abilities have man B in contrast to man C.  Remaining on right properties a rise. They point which physical abilities have man C in contrast to man B.  Remaining on right properties a fall in the holes of frame C plates and point which physical abilities are absent for both men.

Academy Commission Decided…

Four academicians were the members of Academy Commission: physicist Egor Parrot (1767-1852), mineralogist and physicist Adolf Kupfer (1799-1865), mathematician Mikhail Ostrogradsky (1799-1865) and zoologist Fiodor Brandt (1802-1879). Korsakov thought that his devices could be used in medicine for choosing the medicaments and for classification of plants and animals. So, the members of Commission were not the casual people: exactly zoology (or botany) and mineralogy could have been the main field of Korsakov's devices application. Mathematician and physicist had to evaluate the possibility of devices realization. Commission had no chairman but probably E. Parrot was responsible for decisions. He later redacted Commission Decision and presented it at an Academy conference.

Commission met with Korsakov on September 24 th and asked several questions. It is interesting that on this same day, September 24 th , permission was obtained of censor Semenov to print the brochure [START_REF] Karsakof | Aperçu d'un procédé nouveau d'investigation, au moyen de machines à comparer les idées[END_REF]. The text of the first part of the brochure is dated 13 th September by the author, i.e. after Korsakov's appeal to Academy. Naturally, there is a question: what was the reason for Korsakov to present so quickly his invention to the Academy without waiting for so soon brochure issuing? It is quite possible that if academicians had a detailed description of Korsakov's machines, there would have been much less questions ... It is also interesting to know if the members of Commission had seen brochure before the announcement of their decision. Or, maybe Korsakov did not even submit it to Academy. Most likely this is true, otherwise the brochure would have to be preserved in the Academy archives.

However, it seems that the introduction with the brochure could hardly force the members of the Commission to change the prevailing opinion ... This is confirmed by the next episode. To one of the Commission's questions Korsakov replied in the letter written next day 25 th September. It concerned a possibility to improve the design of Plane Homeoscope.

"Dear Sir, You suggested me to find a way to determine the various degrees of significance of the disease symptoms, which could be expressed in Plane Homeoscope. I thought about it and consider that this could be done by using numbered labels, which could be shifted from the axis to a greater or lesser distance <...>" [5, p. 560]. So fast reply was produced undoubtedly due to the fact that this method had already been invented and described by Korsakov (although in relation to Ideoscope) in his brochure: "More or less degree significance could be set by shifting the labels nearer or father from the lever axis" [6, p. 23].

On September 27 th , Academician Parrot handed answer of Korsakov to the other members of Commission asking them to decide if it could "affect the opinion they will give of this invention". Because, as we know, it was not affected on the decision of academicians it is likely they hardly would have changed their opinion even after the familiarity with the full text of the brochure.

But the decision was being delayed and Parrot on 13 th October asked his colleagues to inform him about their resolution "as soon as possible". However, academician Ostrogradsky had already made his opinion: "I believe that the invention of Mr. Korsakov cannot deserve the approval of the Academy. Though, I wish that a condescending attitude should be shown to the inventor in our report" [5, p. 580].

Commission Decision dated 24 th October was presented at the conference of Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Science and it was adopted on the same day. Certified copy of the Decision was sent to Korsakov. Unfortunately for him, the Decision was negative. Academicians positively evaluated the originality of the idea and ingenuity of the inventor. However, they fully rejected the practicality of the idea and decreased Korsakov's optimism about its possibilities. Indeed, Korsakov wrote: "...it would be naturally to suppose that the invention of the method which can extend the applications of the higher human organ -mind -must have... important sequences. It's only necessary that outstanding scientists should understand the principle and make tables for its application to the various branches of human knowledge" [5, p. 560].

Thus, we may see that Korsakov did not think to restrict the application of his machines only for searching and comparing. He thought he proposed something greatermethod of investigation and instrument for receiving of new knowledge. But Commission absolutely fairly did not agree with that: "Members of Commission did not adopt application of this method of investigation to the other branches of science. First of all, not pure, nor applied mathematics cannot get any benefit from these methods because their essence is impossible to reduce to the tables. The same thing is for physics and chemistry" [5, p. 562].

The reason is simple. It is evident that you can extract from the table only what you have previously placed in it. The same logical error was made by Raymund Lull five hundred years before Korsakov. In fact, the emergence of new conceptions is the result of scientific cognition of the world, but not its precondition. Commission pointed out that Korsakov's machines couldn't be used if speaking about some new conception: "If somebody untutored in science (exactly for these people the author invented his method) will find plant, animal or mineral absolutely unknown or not contained in the table he cannot give it the name or include in the general system according to the method" [5, p. 562]. Even "...if the table is correct and it is possible to find the medicament..." however "...practical medicine usually see in symptoms the reason for using several medicaments simultaneously. That is why this method cannot be used. Moreover, this method doesn't take into account the force and relative significance of symptoms" [5, pp. 562-563].

But, at the same time Commission noted the possible applications of Korsakov's ideas: "Zoology, botany and mineralogy if to consider only their system aspect determined by nomenclature could use this method". However, Commission also pointed out on the problems in practical realization: "… almost countless number of objects doesn't give any hope on its (Korsakov's method -Auth.) full utilization". For example, it was mentioned that more than 60,000 plants were known in botany. That is why, "Forming of the table could be tremendous and time consuming work. It is doubtful that one botanist or even the whole society of botanists would do this. The same thing is for other branches of natural science" [5, pp. 562-563]. The dimensions of such a table containing all known characteristics would be 1666×14 ft. according to the very moderate estimations of academicians! The cost of this table would have been about 5-6 thousand rubles that was colossal sum for these times.

The Commission summarized: "If these considerations prove to the members of Commission (and a number of such considerations could be easily increased) that the method of investigation proposed to their attention in any way cannot be approved, but it is by no means a reason to disappoint the author. On the contrary, it is desirable to offer him to apply his talent and his diligence to the methods more applicable in practice. Mr. Korsakov has spent too much mind to teach others to live without mind" [5, p. 564].

Semen Korsakov never undertook more attempts to publish his inventions and ideas after that time.

The Fate of Korsakov's Heritage

The homeopathic community is cherishing the memory of Korsakov, though his pioneering work on "intellectual machines" has been completely forgotten.

The first publication of several important documents about intellectual machines of Korsakov [START_REF]Iz istorii vychislitel'nykh ustroistv (po materialam Arkhiva AN SSSR) (Из истории вычислительных устройств, по материалам Архива АН[END_REF] had been done only in 1961. Then, after 40 years (!) it was issued a small article of Prof. Gellius Povarov in English [START_REF] Povarov | Semen Nikolayevich Korsakov. Machines for the Comparison of Philosophical Ideas[END_REF], in which the author announced the discovery of Semen Korsakov's brochure (in French) [START_REF] Karsakof | Aperçu d'un procédé nouveau d'investigation, au moyen de machines à comparer les idées[END_REF] in the Russian State Library. This brochure with the description of intellectual machines was issued in 1832 in St. Petersburg. Then, one more article [START_REF] Nitussov | Semen Korsakov i "mashina dlya sravneniya idey" (Семен Корсаков и "машина для сравнения идей[END_REF] based on the materials of Povarov has appeared. Due to this paper the wide public in Russia has learned about Korsakov machines. Moreover, illustrations of the part of "intellectual machines" and some biographical information about their inventor were published for the first time. These drawings allowed to give exact description of the functioning of Korsakov's machines [9, pp. 13-15]. Finally, two different translations in Russian of Korsakov's works appeared in 2009.

Today the person of Semen Korsakov is attracting an increasing attention of Russian scientists: historians, specialists in computing and homeopathy. At the beginning of 2012, the first book dedicated to Korsakov was published. It was a collection of articles "The warrior, scientist, and citizen. To the 225 th anniversary of the birth of S. N. Korsakov" [START_REF] Voin | K 225-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya S. N. Korsakova (Воин, ученый, гражданин. К 225-летию[END_REF]. In this book, as well as in number of other publications ( [START_REF] Mikhailov | Teoretiko-mnozhestvennaya interpretaciya raboty intellektual'nykh mashin S. N. Korsakova (Теоретико-множественная интерпретация работы интеллектуальных машин[END_REF] and others) some very interesting articles were issued. For the first time the biography of Semen Nikolaevich Korsakov was reconstructed and various interpretations of his inventions based on the vast archival materials were presented.

Nevertheless, a detailed study of intellectual machines of Korsakov (unfortunately, nothing is known about the fate of the models submitted to the Academy, nor about the fate of drawings and descriptions stored at the estate near Moscow) and real understanding of their place in the history of computer science, artificial intelligence and information technologies yet have to be done.

Semen Korsakov was undoubtedly a dilettante in science, but he could be rightly called as a dilettante brillante. Though brilliant insights of the amateurs are often combined with surprising and inexplicable professional scientist prejudices and misconceptions (it is enough to recall "Dinamoscope"). Korsakov's passion of homeopathy is also characteristically in this regard. On one hand, some of his results (in first turn the process for preparing dilutions in the single test-tube) were widely used and are still being used. However, some of his proposals were naive. For example, outstanding Russian physician Karl Boyanus (1818-1897) who highly appreciates Korsakov as a homeopath notes the "immaturity and imperfection of Korsakov's research and observations over the actions of various drugs on different parts of the human body". Some other proposals of Korsakov are also the subject of criticism from the representatives of homeopathic medicine.

Of course, the question of establishing the truth between the views of various schools of homeopathy (as well as the question of the value of homeopathy as itself) is not the theme of this paper. However, having agreed with the high estimation of Korsakov as homeopath, we should not uncritically consider any of the thoughts he had expressed ... Similarly, the work of Korsakov in designing of "intellectual machines" is highly original, interesting, and important per se. It is not necessary to attribute to him the design of the world's first punch-card tabulator and neural computer, nor the invention of the conception of the algorithm, or successful use of Korsakov's "intellectual machines" in modern homeopathy and so on as some enthusiastic authors have done.

It is not necessary also to oppose the works of Korsakov to the works of Charles Babbage and Herman Hollerith. On the contrary, it would be very interesting to compare the project of Korsakov with the projects of above mentioned scientists, as well as with other investigations of his predecessors and contemporaries.

From the viewpoint of philosophy of the XVIII century (Era of Enlightenment) the use of methods of mechanics for the mechanization of the method was quite logical.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Semen Korsakov

Fig. 2

 2 Fig. 2 The grave of Semen Korsakov In 1827 Korsakov purchased Tarusovo estate in the Dmitrov district of the Moscow province, and settled in it. However, since his duties did not require his constant presence in St. Petersburg, he continued to serve in the Ministry of Justice. Beginning from 1835, he was serving as an officer for special assignments at the Ministry of the Interior and from time to time visited St. Petersburg and other places. In 1842 Semen Korsakov received a high rank of State Councillor (that corresponds to the military rank between the Colonel and Major-General) and retired. But next year he was invited to lead the Department of Statistics in the Ministry of the Interior and the family had to move to St. Petersburg for some time. However, already by 1845 Korsakov again retired and finally settled in Tarusovo.

Fig. 6 .

 6 Fig. 6. Plane Homeoscope Korsakov in his brochure gives the examples of Plane Homeoscope application.Let the letters a, b, c etc. are related to the human body parts: "head, nose, eyes, belly, etc.". Various human "diseases: tumor, pain, redness, weakness, gripes, fever, chills, etc."[6, p. 19] are numbered. Thus, the hole in one of the table B cell corresponds to some disease symptom. "For example, if letter e corresponds to chest and number 4 is gripes then the cell e4 will designate the chest gripes"[6, p. 19]. Table B contains the full collection of disease symptoms and determines the appropriate medicament. Such tables could be produced for various medicaments. Then the pins must be installed to

Fig. 7 .

 7 Fig. 7. Ideoscope

Fig. 8

 8 Fig. 8 Simple Comparator

  Table A is put on table B. Pins fall in the holes in case of property coincidence and doesn't fall in other case.

This idea was considered by the outstanding French philosopher and mathematician Nicolas Condorcet (1743-1794) who suggested that machine could be utilized for solving the problems of scientific knowledge classification. He wrote in one of the sketches, which was first published only in 1962: "I will not speak here about mechanical means that could be applied; it is easy to imagine them, but this mechanism will seem funny until experience shows the usefulness of these tables for discovering relations and general laws between actual entities, observed facts and phenomena options…" [12, p. 120].

It is clear that Korsakov could not be acquainted with the manuscript of Condorcet. But in any case, he obviously tried to make something that Condorcet had not even begun.

If Condorcet in some aspects anticipated Korsakov, Alfred Smee (1818-1877), on the other hand, could be considered as his successor. One of the authors of this article in his works [START_REF] Shilov | Mechanical brain in the XIX century: Logical machines of Alfred Smee[END_REF][START_REF] Shilov | Prostoy komparator Semena Nikolaevicha Korsakova i mashina razlichiy Al'freda Smi (Простой компаратор Семена Николаевича Корсакова и машина различий Альфреда Сми)[END_REF] pointed out the obvious similarity of one of the hypothetical logical machine of Smee and the Simple Comparator of Korsakov.

Unfortunately, intellectual machines of Semen Korsakov are practically unknown outside Russia. A short publication in English [START_REF] Povarov | Semen Nikolayevich Korsakov. Machines for the Comparison of Philosophical Ideas[END_REF] still remains the only one dedicated to his inventions. We hope that our article will help to draw attention to the pioneering work of Korsakov, which must occupy its rightful place in the history of computing and artificial intelligence.


Roger G Johnson

APERC Andrew Booth

There and Back Again -Andrew Booth, a British Computer Pioneer, and his Interactions with US and other Contemporaries

This paper explores the interchanges between Andrew Booth, an early British computer pioneer and contemporary US and other pioneers. The paper records how funding from the US Rockefeller Foundation supported Andrew Booth's research work in the UK and allowed him to

Background

The story starts slightly improbably in the world of the crystal structure of explosives. In the closing days of World War II, the leading British scientist, J D (Desmond) Bernal was planning his return from war service to the quieter world of academia. He held the Chair of Physics at Birkbeck College, London University and decided to form a group of academics to examine the structure of crystals using X-rays, work which contributed in the 1950s to the discovery of the double helix. This involved solving large sets of equations which, before computers, had to be done largely by hand using mostly simple electro-mechanical calculators and it took weeks to complete just one set of calculations.

Bernal decided that one of the four groups in his new department would be devoted to the mechanisation of these calculations. His attention was drawn by Douglas Hartree, then a mathematics professor at Manchester and builder of a large differential analyser before the war, to a talented young man, Andrew Donald Booth (born Feb 11 th 1918 and died Nov 29 th 2009), who had a PhD on the crystal structure of explosives and an enthusiasm for mechanising the calculations. In 1975, in an interview with Christopher Evans for the London Science Museum, [START_REF] Evans | Pioneers of Computing. Audio interview with A D Booth[END_REF], Booth related how during the war he managed a small team of women doing calculations derived from x-rays of crystal structures and being by temperament a mathematician I don't like arithmetic. …. I didn't think much of the methods they were using and I tried to do two things. In the first place I devised some better mathematical methods … but I also made one or two small hand calculators.

Joining Birkbeck in late 1945 to head Bernal's new group on mechanising the calculations, Booth proved an excellent choice combining a first class mathematical mind capable of working on the complexities needed to handle the mathematics of Xray crystallography to obtain but most importantly for computing, he was described by those who later worked with him as a "natural engineer". His engineering skills were perhaps derived from his father who was a retired marine engineer and part time inventor.

He was then working on a mechanical Fourier synthesizer, [START_REF] Booth | Fourier Technique in X-ray Organic Structure Analysis[END_REF]. However, at an early stage he incorporated relays into the device and named it the Automatic Relay Calculator (ARC). Due to a lack of space at Birkbeck, which had been badly damaged by bombing in 1941, the calculator was built at the British Rubber Producers Research Association (BRPRA) in Welwyn Garden City who sponsored the project and where Booth had worked briefly before joining Birkbeck.

First Visit to the USA 1946

Hartree had visited a number of US computing projects in 1945 and was aware of the EDVAC project. On his return to the UK he shared his observations with the nascent UK computing community, including both Wilkes at Cambridge and Booth at Birkbeck. Hartree suggested to Bernal that, in view of the lack of funding available in the UK, a grant should be sought from the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) in the USA (from whom Bernal had already received several grants) to allow Booth to make a short visit to the USA starting in May 1946 to attend the conference of the American Society for X-Ray and Electron Diffraction and visit a number of crystallographic and computing projects.

The RF archives reveal that Booth made a very good impression on Warren Weaver, Director of the RF's Natural Sciences Division. Weaver's notes of their first meeting on June 20 th 1946, [3], record He appears very young (under 25) [he was actually 28] and is most attractive in every way. He seems to be equally interested and competent in the mathematical and instrumental aspects of his subject.

After attending the conference Booth was able to visit a number of researchers along the eastern seaboard. So soon after the end of the war and with much of the research funded by the US government it is unsurprising that Booth felt some of those to whom he talked were rather reticent in their comments. An exception was John von Neumann, although the latter's friendship with Bernal may well have been helpful. In the cover letter, dated July 3 rd 1946, to his final report Booth,[4], notes that In addition to purely crystallographic projects I have seen most of the special calculating machines. With the exception of that of Dr von Neumann, the techniques are well known to me. I had a long discussion with Dr von Neumann and came to the conclusion that a machine built in accordance with some of his ideas would revolutionise crystallographic computing, and would be especially applicable to problems of biological interest. I should very much like to discuss with you the possibility of my spending six months to Princeton and, if possible developing such a machine.

Back in the UK 1946

Following the end of World War 2, four groups in the UK were looking at building digital computers. The best known were at Manchester (associated with Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn) and at Cambridge (led by Maurice Wilkes). The third group was at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington (led by Jim Wilkinson and Ted Newman using a design by Alan Turing).

The fourth group was that of Booth at Birkbeck College, London University. He was working with limited resources, both human and financial, and concentrating, as a result, on building smaller machines. He had a radical ambition for that time of building a computer that was cheap enough that each university could own one! This was at a time when the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) ACE computer was being talked of (at least at NPL) as sufficient for the whole of the UK's computational needs!

Second Visit to USA 1947

Obtaining the funding for a six month US tour in 1947 was difficult due to the continuing severe currency exchange controls in the UK. The basic funding for expenses within the USA was provided by the RF while the University of London paid Booth's fare on the SS Aquitania. Booth chose to base himself at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton with John von Neumann. Booth was accompanied by his research assistant, Kathleen H V Britten, who was soon to become his wife. In order to provide additional funding for the trip, Bernal put Booth in touch with Isidor Fankuchen, an Adjunct Professor of Physics at Brooklyn Polytechnic who organised for Booth to go on the lunch lecture circuit right across the States talking about contemporary life in Britain, [START_REF] Evans | Pioneers of Computing. Audio interview with A D Booth[END_REF]. This enabled them to visit all the major centres of research on x-ray crystallography and, more importantly, computing across the whole country.

This visit was transformative for Booth and Britten. It can be difficult for the modern reader to appreciate the challenge faced by the computer pioneers lacking any consensus "blueprint" for the architecture or components of a computer. From their discussions with John von Neumann, they were introduced to what we now regard as the standard architecture of a computer and which is widely known as the "von Neumann" architecture. Inspired by this discussion, on the liner on the return trip, he redesigned ARC to have a von Neumann architecture which he referred to as ARC2. This machine used 800 high-speed relays to form a parallel operation single address code computer.

The Challenge of Memory

Computer architectures have to be realised using electronics and at that time there was no consensus on the appropriate technology even for fundamental components, such as the computer memory or input and output. Booth and Britten set out the technological options for the components of a computer with a "von Neumann" architecture in a paper which circulated among the growing community of computer pioneers during 1947. Such was the interest, they produced a second edition later that year [START_REF] Booth | General Considerations in the Design of an All Purpose Electronic Digital Computer[END_REF].

The heart of the "von Neumann" architecture is the memory. In their paper the Booths evaluated all of the physical properties including heat, light, sound and magnetism and concluded that magnetism offered the best prospects because of its persistence.

Fig. 2. Brush Mail-a-Voice dictation machine

Booth was committed to building a low cost computer and so he needed low cost components. The two immediate options for a memory were mercury delay lines and CRT display tubes both of which were very costly. On his trip around the USA he had seen a simple recording device, called the Brush Mail-a-Voice, Fig 2, which was sold for use in commercial offices to enable managers to record letters on to magnetic oxide coated paper discs for typing by their secretarial staff. However, in order to achieve the performance needed to act as the memory of a computer he had to rotate the paper disc much faster than for simple voice recording. At this higher speed, it proved impossible to keep the disc flat and so he had to abandon this first attempt at a "floppy disc".

Undaunted he decided to try a different approach and designed a memory using a brass drum with a nickel coating around the outside. The first drum was mounted on a horizontal axle and about the size of a cotton reel, being 2 inches in diameter with a modest packing density of just 10 bits per inch, Fig 3. In a paper at a conference on international communities of invention and innovation it is worth noting that Booth gave the design of ARC2 to Adriaan van Wijngarden in Amsterdam for the construction of ARRA, the first computer in the Netherlands.

Building Electronic Computers

During 1948, Andrew Booth redesigned the ARC2 as an entirely electronic machine which he called the Simple Electronic Computer (SEC). This was built by Norman Kitz (formerly Norbert Kitz) in 1949/50 see Figure 4.

An interesting historical footnote is that Norman Kitz left Birkbeck to work for English Electric at NPL on the DEUCE computer. From there he moved to Bell Punch and designed the world's first electronic desktop calculator, called ANITA. While Booth never completed a desktop calculator, it seems likely that he inspired one of his students to do so. computer was moved to Birkbeck, construction of a larger version, known as APE(X)C, X for X-ray, for the Birkbeck X-ray crystallographers began in Warwickshire. Both these machines used 500 valves. APE(R)C had a drum with 512 words of 32 bits rotating at 3,000 RPM and ran at 30KHz. By removing some redundant logic, APE(X)C used only 420 valves but ran at 60KHz and had a much larger drum with over 1,024 words of 32 bits. Input/output on APE(X)C was by either teletype and paper tape.

In 1950 Booth provided the design of APE(R)C to Norwegian researchers led by Thomas Hysing who named their computer NUSSE (Norsk Universell Siffermaskin, Sekvensstyrt, Elektronisk) and was Norway's first electronic computer. This machine is now in the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, Oslo, Fig 6.

Booth Multiplier

If the drum reflected Booth's engineering talent, then the Booth multiplier was a demonstration of his mathematical skill. A key component of any computer design is the arithmetic unit and to provide fast arithmetic it is necessary to have hardware multiplication and division. When Booth visited von Neumann in 1947 he obtained details of von Neumann's design for both a hardware multiplier and divider. Booth described them in his interview with Evans as "a beautiful divider" but the multiplier as "an abortion" [START_REF] Evans | Pioneers of Computing. Audio interview with A D Booth[END_REF]. When Booth asked von Neumann why he had not used a similar approach in his multiplier as in the divider, von Neumann assured him it was a theoretical impossibility and Booth accepted the great man's opinion. Booth told Evans that when he was designing the APEC computer series he realised that von Neumann was wrong and Booth recollected how, over tea with his wife in a central London cafe, he designed a non-restoring binary multiplier which, with a subsequent minor modification by a colleague, is the Booth multiplier which is still in use today.

Basically the Booth multiplier follows the usual method for long multiplication of summing partial products. However, it also uses a "trick" that to multiply in decimal by a string of 9s it is possible to left shift an appropriate number of places and subtract the multiplier from the result. This approach works even better in binary where it results in a simple rule for multiplying by a string of 1s:

• Examine each pair of digits in the multiplier starting at the least significant digit creating the first pair by appending a dummy 0 at the least significant end of the multiplier, then i. If the pair is 01, add the multiplicand ii. If the pair is 10, subtract the multiplicand iii. Otherwise, do nothing • Shift both the partial product and multiplier one place right and examine the next pair of digits • Repeat as many times as there are digits in the multiplier. This was submitted for publication in August 1950 and published the following year [START_REF] Booth | A Signed Binary Multiplication Technique[END_REF].

Natural Language Translation

As quoted above from the covering letter to his final report of the 1946 visit, Booth raised the possibility of the RF funding the construction of a computer in London to support the work of x-ray crystallographers.

On August 11 th 1947 Booth visited Warren Weaver and asked him if the Foundation would fund an electronic computer for London University. Weaver said that the Foundation could not fund a computer for mathematical calculations which he felt had been done but that he had begun to think about using a computer to carry out natural language translation and that the Foundation could fund a computer for research in that area. As a result, Birkbeck became for the next fifteen years a leading centre for natural language processing research. On May 23 rd 1948 Weaver accompanied by Gerard Pomerat visited Booth's laboratory, Figure 7, still housed in the premises of the British Rubber Producers Research Association at Welwyn Garden City. The tiny memory on early computers meant it was very difficult to do any serious natural language processing. Booth gave them a demonstration of the machine, despite a faulty relay! Weaver in his note of the meeting expresses surprise and disappointment that the very small machine simply performs a simple word lookup and that the researchers had not yet considered the problem of a word which has multiple meanings, [6]! The Booths, with their research students, developed techniques for parsing text and also for building dictionaries. They published numerous books and papers on text processing including creating Braille output and natural language translation. On November 11 th 1955 the laboratory gave an early public demonstration of natural language machine translation, Fig 8 . Their wider contribution to this community has been assessed by John Hutchins in his paper [START_REF] Hutchins | From first conception to first demonstration: the nascent years of machine translation, 1947-1954[END_REF].

Commercial Success

As noted earlier, the Booths built their computers in a barn at their home in Warwickshire where Andrew Booth's father also lived. So it was to this barn in a freezing March 1951 that a three man team led by Raymond "Dickie" Bird from British Tabulating Machines (BTM) came to visit. BTM were the UK's leading supplier of punch card systems throughout the British Commonwealth and their management had decided that they needed a small computer to improve the calculating power and flexibility offered by their tabulators.

At the time that BTM joined forces with Andrew Booth there were, as described earlier in this paper, three other electronic computer projects in the UK. However, two of the other three, Cambridge and Manchester Universities, already had commercial partners while the third, the government National Physical Laboratory (NPL), was not seeking a commercial relationship. Further, Manchester and NPL were building large and expensive scientific computers while Lyons were already building a commercial computer, LEO, with assistance from Cambridge. Consequently, BTM had little option but to cooperate with Andrew Booth.

In just a few days Raymond Bird's team had copied Booth's circuitry from APE(R)C. Returning to BTM's factory at Letchworth they added extra I/O interfaces and named the resulting computer the Hollerith Electronic Computer (HEC), see Figure 9. This prototype computer is one of the world's earliest surviving electronic computers, unlike so many early machines which were dismantled when no longer needed, and is now on display at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. BTM moved ahead rapidly, completing the construction of HEC1 by the end of 1951 and having it operational later in 1952. BTM management then decreed that the HEC would go to the Business Efficiency Exhibition, the major UK tradeshow, in June 1953 and so a new pre-production prototype (HEC2) was built contained in a smart metal cabinet suitable for demonstration to the public. Two pieces of software were written to attract public interest at the exhibition, one read in 13 out of 52 specially prepared punched cards each representing a different playing card and proposed an opening contract bridge bid while the other played noughts and crosses.

Eight similar machines were built as the HEC2M starting in 1955 mainly for technical applications with a sale price of £25,000. One of these machines was India's first electronic computer, [START_REF] Rajaraman | History of Computing in India[END_REF]. The successor was the HEC4 which was for commercial data processing with nearly 100 being sold in the UK and abroad. At the end of the 1950s this was the UK's best-selling computer by volume. After BTM merged with Powers SAMAS in 1958 to form International Computers & Tabulators Ltd (ICT) it became the ICT 1200 range. For many companies, and in some cases for whole countries, this was their first electronic computer and opened the door to delivering the wider benefits of effective IT.

End of the Story

One notable landmark was Kathleen Booth's book on programming the APE(X)C computer, [START_REF] Booth | Programming for an Automatic Digital Calculator[END_REF]. Published in 1958, this was among the early books on programming and unusual in having a female author. Throughout their partnership, she focussed on the programming while Andrew Booth concentrated on the design of their computers.

Andrew and Kathleen Booth resigned from Birkbeck College at the end of the 1961/62 academic year. Andrew Booth moved to Canada where he continued his distinguished academic career initially at the University of Saskatchewan and subsequently as President of Lakehead University, Ontario. While they continued their research the only machine built in Canada was an updated version of their final British design.

Conclusions

From the perspective of this conference Andrew and Kathleen Booth were both initially substantial beneficiaries from and then substantial benefactors to the international computing community. The initial support from the Rockefeller Foundation, especially in 1946 and 1947, gave Andrew Booth access to US researchers and John von Neumann, in particular, at a critical time in the development of his ideas for the design and construction of a computer.

He shared his designs with others, notably in the Netherlands and Norway, enabling them to build their own computers. The design of his APEC computers was used to provide the initial design of the highly successful ICT 1200 series computers, primarily used for commercial data processing and which gave access to the benefits to humanity of effective IT for the first time to many places.

The results of Andrew Booth's successful demonstration of connecting a drum to a computer were shared with others in the UK and USA. Although the drum was to be superceded by the disc, the successful use of a magnetic oxide coating for the storage and retrieval of data by a computer was a critical step.

Their contribution to the early work on natural language processing and translation is clear from the review literature. Andrew Booth's initial interest was aroused by Weaver's conversation with him. Much natural language research is by necessity an international collaboration. In this paper there has been time to do little more than note the work of both Andrew and Kathleen Booth on this topic, including their extensive international collaborations.

However, if impact is to be measured by volume, then Andrew Booth's publication of his paper on the Booth multiplier is his major achievement and it remains the basis for multiplication circuits used by chip manufacturers in billions of chips worldwide each year.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Andrew Booth and Kathleen Britten (in the foreground) at work in December 1945

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Booth's first drum Feb 1948 (Photo courtesy of NMSI, London)Thus it was that Andrew Booth built the world's first rotating electronic storage device connected to a computer albeit a drum rather than the now ubiquitous disc. The drums were built by his father and together they created a company called Wharf Engineering Ltd which manufactured drums and other computer peripherals commercially until the Booths left the UK in 1962. Having proved the drum concept worked, the Booths built a larger nickel-plated brass drum with 256 words of 21 bits to provide the memory for ARC2. It was completed by the end of 1947 and became operational and was still in service at Birkbeck in 1954. The prototype drums are now in the care of the Science Museum, London.In a paper at a conference on international communities of invention and innovation it is worth noting that Booth gave the design of ARC2 to Adriaan van Wijngarden in Amsterdam for the construction of ARRA, the first computer in the Netherlands.

Fig. 4

 4 Fig. 4 SEC with Booth's first practical drum in the foreground 1950SEC used a comparatively small number of 230 valves in its construction and employed a two address set of operation codes. It had a memory of just 256 words of 21 bits. Although Norman Kitz completed its construction the machine never became operational, and using the lessons learnt from SEC, Andrew Booth moved swiftly on to create his best known computer design, the All-Purpose Electronic Computers series of computers, (each identified as APE(*)C where the * is the initial letter of the sponsoring body).

Fig. 5

 5 Fig. 5 APE(R)C whose circuit designs Booth shared with others 1952 The first machine of the series, known as APE(R)C, ran successfully for the first time in May 1952, Fig 5. The (R) signified the British Rayon Research Association for whom it was built. It was constructed at the Booths' home in the small village of Fenny Compton in Warwickshire before being moved to Birkbeck for commissioning and subsequent delivery to the BRRA in Manchester in July 1953. Once the APE(R)Ccomputer was moved to Birkbeck, construction of a larger version, known as APE(X)C, X for X-ray, for the Birkbeck X-ray crystallographers began in Warwickshire. Both these machines used 500 valves. APE(R)C had a drum with 512 words of 32 bits rotating at 3,000 RPM and ran at 30KHz. By removing some redundant logic, APE(X)C used only 420 valves but ran at 60KHz and had a much larger drum with over 1,024 words of 32 bits. Input/output on APE(X)C was by either teletype and paper tape.In 1950 Booth provided the design of APE(R)C to Norwegian researchers led by Thomas Hysing who named their computer NUSSE (Norsk Universell Siffermaskin, Sekvensstyrt, Elektronisk) and was Norway's first electronic computer. This machine is now in the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, Oslo, Fig 6.

Fig. 6

 6 Fig. 6 NUSSE Norway's first computer derived from Booth's design 1954

Fig. 7 .

 7 Fig. 7. Warren Weaver and Gerard Pomerat visit ARC May 1948

Fig. 8 .

 8 Fig. 8. Output from an early public demonstration of natural language translation 1955

Fig. 9

 9 Fig. 9 BTM HEC1 copied Booth's APE(R)C circuits 1951

Andrew Booth (1918Booth ( -2009) ) is largely unknown outside the specialised world of the computer historian but he, together with his wife Kathleen, deserve far greater recognition by anyone whose computer writes to a hard disk or executes a multiplication instruction.

refine his ideas on computer design by visiting US pioneers each year from 1946 to 1948. of the Booth hardware multiplier which is the basis of the multiplier used in billions of chips each year.


Herbert Bruderer
email: bruderer@retired.ethz.ch

The Birth of Artificial Intelligence: First Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Paris in 1951?

Keywords: Paris conference on artificial intelligence, Spanish chess automaton by Torres Quevedo, Turing's impact

The 1956 Dartmouth conference is often considered as the cradle of artificial intelligence. There is a controversy on its origin. Some historians of computing believe that Turing or Zuse were the fathers of machine intelligence. However, the first working chess-playing automaton was developed by Torres Quevedo by 1912. Moreover, there was a large and important (but forgotten) European conference on computing and human thinking in Paris in 1951.

195Paris International Computer Conference

There were three conferences on calculating machines in Britain in 1949 (University of Cambridge), 1951 (University of Manchester) and 1953 (National Physical Laboratory, London). However, the most important early European computer conference took place in Paris in 1951. This international congress organized by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) is almost forgotten despite its famous participants. The 35 papers were translated into French which seems to be quite unique. The reason why this international meeting is nearly unknown is probably the fact that the voluminous proceedings (589 pages) were published only in French, they do not contain English essays.

Demonstration of Several Automata

There were several demonstrations: automatic chess player, Telekine and analog calculator, all operated by Leonardo Torres Quevedo's son Gonzales, artificial animals by W. Grey Walter, Homeostat by W. Ross Ashby.

Both the chess automata still exist in Madrid. The Austrian pioneer Heinz Zemanek (transistorized computer Mailüfterl) who died in 2015 played against the second version at the world fair of Brussels in 1958. Arnold A. Cohen writes in his introduction to a significant historical book: "Although the ERA book may have been the only one of its kind published in America, it was not alone in the world at the time. Rutishauser, Speiser, and Stiefel's comprehensive review "Program controlled digital computing devices (Electronic computing machines)", appeared in four installments (1950)(1951) in the Swiss journal Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Physik. This excellent tutorial, with its extensive bibliography, was not widely available in the U.S." (see Engineering Research Associates, Inc.: High-speed computing devices, Tomash publishers, Los Angeles, San Francisco 1983, page XIX).

Papers on Computers and Human Brain

At the Paris conference, Francis Morley referred to Turing's abstract universal machine but he did not recognize a connection between the stored-program concept and modern electronic digital computers. Obviously, there was no Turing revolution concerning the construction of stored-program computers.

Conclusions

Was Acknowledgment. The author is grateful for discussions with Jürgen Schmidhuber.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig.1. The Spanish engineer Gonzales Torres Quevedo presented his father's chess machine El ajedrecista at the Paris conference on computers and human thinking. Norbert Wien played on 12 or 13 January 1951 against the automaton (picture from Vernon Pratt: Thinking machines. The evolution of artificial intelligence, Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford 1987, page 191, original source unknown).

2 Famous Participants from Europe and USA

	 Colebrook (London)
	 Couffignal (Paris)
	 Hartree (Cambridge)
	 Kilburn (Manchester)
	 McCulloch (Chicago)
	 Picone (Rom)
	 Stiefel (Zurich)
	 Torres Quevedo (Madrid)
	 Uttley (London)
	 van Wijngaarden (Amsterdam)
	 Walter (Bristol)
	 Walther (Darmstadt)
	Among the participants from ten countries were:
	 Aiken (Harvard)
	 Ashby (Gloucester)
	 Booth (London)
	 Bowden (Manchester)

The gathering combined computing machines and human thinking. Its meaningful title was «Les machines à calculer et la pensée humaine.».  Wiener (Cambridge, Mass.)  Wilkes (Cambridge)  Williams (Manchester)  Womersley (Letchworth).

  Francis Morley Colebrook (National Physical Laboratory, London): ACE. Göran Kjellberg (Sweden) and Eduard Stiefel (Switzerland) reported on the first continental European computers (Bark and Zuse Z4). Paul Chauchard, Louis Couffignal, L. Delpech, A. Fessard, Henri Gastaut, Warren S. McCulloch/Walter H. Pitts, W. Grey Walter, and Norbert Wiener lectured on the relations between the machine and the human brain (for details see references).

	5	Turing's Revolution?
	It is remarkable that Alan Turing did not attend the Paris conference. At this time he
	was living in Manchester (after leaving the ACE project in London). There is a new
	book entitled "Turing's revolution" (Springer 2015). In 1951, 15 years after his 1936
	paper on the universal Turing machine, Turing's work was almost unknown. His
	impact on the building of the early stored-program computers was rather small. In a
	leading European book on program controlled electronic digital computers
	(Rutishauser, Heinz; Speiser, Ambros Paul; Stiefel, Eduard: Programmgesteuerte
	digitale Rechengeräte (elektronische Rechenmaschinen), Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel
	1951) Turing's universal machine is not even mentioned.

Many pioneers presented their relay and electronic computers, for example: Howard Aiken (Harvard University): Mark IV, Maurice Wilkes (University of Cambridge): EDSAC, Frederic Williams (University of Manchester): Manchester Mark,

  the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence (John McCarthy, Marvin L. Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, Claude E. Shannon) which took place in 1956 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire the first major event for AI? This seems rather doubtful. The Paris congress, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, included several contributions on digital and human computers.

Bruderer, H.: Computing History outside UK and USA: some selected Landmarks from Continental Europe, in: Communications of the ACM (forthcoming)

Chauchard, P.: La commande centrale de la machine nerveuse, in: Joseph Pérès (ed.): Les machines à calculer et la pensée humaine, Paris, 8-13 janvier 1951, Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Nr. 37, Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris 1953, pages 531-536

Couffignal, L.: Quelques analogiques nouvelles entre structures de machines à calculer et structures cérébrales, in: Joseph Pérès (ed.): Les machines à calculer et la pensée humaine, Paris, 8-13 janvier 1951, Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche

Fessard, A.: Sur un "défaut" propre à la machine nerveuse, in: Joseph Pérès (ed.): Les machines à calculer et la pensée humaine, Paris, 8-13 janvier 1951, Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Nr. 37, Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris 1953, pages 517-528

Gastaut, H.: Les machines à calculer et le cerveau humain, in: Joseph Pérès (ed.): Les machines à calculer et la pensée humaine, Paris,

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