Banu Musa programmable automaton and automatic controls
Flautista automático programable y controles de los Banu Musa
- Date
- c. 850 · confidence medium
- Place
- Baghdad, Iraq
- Credited to
- The Banu Musa brothers (Muhammad, Ahmad and al-Hasan ibn Musa ibn Shakir)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
The Kitab al-Hiyal describes a hundred or so devices with conical valves, siphons and self-regulating level controls, and a mechanical flautist driven by water whose interchangeable pinned cylinder changes the melody. It is the oldest known programmable machine.
Its status as the first programmable machine was proposed by T. Koetsier (2001). The Banu Musa drew partly on Hero and Philo of Byzantium but added new automatic controls.
What it led to
- cylinder music boxes
- automatic feedback control in hydraulic devices
- tradition of automata by al-Muradi and al-Jazari