The Hand That Counts: From Knots to Baudot, The Forgotten Systems of Analog Thought

The Hand That Counts: From Knots to Baudot, The Forgotten Systems of Analog Thought

Our dominant technological paradigm, the digital, is built on a foundation of discrete binary values. It's a system of presence and absence, of 1s and 0s. From the findings and researches of the Hangar, the very first computers were not digital at all, and used analog technologies to get through. Their designs were not born from silicon, they came out of human hand itself.

Take a look at the now rarely used principle of material memory. With it, the physical object itself ibecomes a computational device of its own¹¹¹. The Incan quipu, a system of knotted cords, was far more than a simple record-keeping tool². It was a sophisticated system whose three-dimensional arrangement encoded complex, multi-variable data³. Similarly, Native American tribes used wampum belts as a sophisticated system for recording complex treaties and historical records through bead arrangements⁴. These were not just mnemonic devices; they were physical information systems⁵.

Such a notion of physical encoding resonates with a suppressed branch of computational theory that proposed information could be processed through continuous analog systems rather than discrete digital ones⁶. The idea is not that these cultures were "primitive," in our research, It has shown that they had developed sophisticated "cross-cultural information systems" that were rooted in the tactile world⁷⁷⁷⁷.

During a recent discussion, one of the Hangar researchers asked to consider the Baudot code, which is an early 5-bit telegraphy code^888888888. This was a kind of non-decimal system; a base-5 system, and rooted in the idea of counting on a single hand. This makes a direct connection to these older, physical information systems. The Baudot code could be seen as an early, proto-digital system that retained a tactile, analog root. It was a bridge between the physical and the purely abstract.

Of course, this path was systematically marginalized. The Committee for Technological Integration (CTI) in the 1970s enforced a universal standardization around the binary system, and is often accused of actively suppressing these analog approaches to computing⁹⁹⁹⁹. They saw a threat in systems that couldn't be easily standardized, controlled, monitored or even seen¹⁰.

A lot of questions remain even after the efforts of multiple generations of researchers and of countering the harm done since the mid-70s. What happens if these indigenous information systems, these "natural computers," begin to bleed back into our world? What happens when the continuous, material memory of a knotted cord or a beaded belt begins to rewrite the discrete, binary logic of our modern devices? What was once forgotten may be rediscovered when needed. As such a part of analog technology, the wheel, it seems, always turns.