Svoboda Antonin. Computing Mechanisms and Linkages

New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948. — 359 p. — (MIT Radiation Laboratory Series. Volume 27)The work on the linkage computers described in this volume was carried out under the pressure of war. War gives little opportunity to the advancement of abstract knowledge; all efforts must be concentrated onmeeting immediate needs. In developing techniques for the design of linkage computers, the author has therefore been forced to concentrate on tinding practical methods for the design of computers rather than on developing a unified and systematic analysis of the subject. The war has thus given to this work a special character that it might not otherwise have had.
The impulse to the development of the methods presented in this volume for the mathematical design of linkage computers grew out of a collaboration of the author with his friend, Dr. Vladimir Vand. That collaboration was begun in France in 1940, and was brought to a premature end by the progress of the war. Though these ideas and methods have largely been developed by the author since that time, he wishes to emphasize that credit for the initiation of the work is shared by Dr. Vand. It must be mentioned also that the techniques described in this book were for the most part developed before the author became associated with the Radiation Laboratory.