VMs: Re: More Fontana name trivia...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rafal,.

At 19:13 25/09/02 +0200, Rafal T. Prinke wrote:
> > >I found that page and it is quite interesting (in our context), as
> > >it refers to "letter-coded padlock", the invention of which
> > >is usually ascribed to Hans Ehemann of Nurnberg in 1551 - but
> > >their drawings also appear in a MS by Johannes Fontana from 1410-20.
> >
> > In an exhibition in Bruges last summer, I saw an extraordinary chest with
> > an amazing locking mechanism, commissioned by the Medici's as part of their
> > banking apparatus - very cool, very 15th Century. :-)
>
> I can now imagine a monk with an Enigma-like machine
> on his desk, encoding the VMS :-)

If you'd also seen Giovanni Fontana's drawing of a machine producing text 
on multiple strips of paper, you probably wouldn't have to imagine very 
hard. :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....