origins of "kludge"

[Bob Shannon]

Um, bellcranks are still used to control planes today.

It works perfectly well in my Cherokee 180.

I think your way off base here.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" <jim.isbell at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Cc: "Tom Jennings" <tomj at wps.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: origins of "kludge"


> Actually the term goes back much further than that.  Back in the early
> days of flying machines the French were in the forefront of aircraft
> design.  In the early days the use of a "stick" to control the flying
> surfaces used various levers and lines.  The French used a system
> whereby the "stick" was connected to a bell shaped device with lines
> connected to both the forward and aft sides of the bell that
> controlled the elevators and lines connected to the right and left
> sides of the bell to control the ailerons.  When the bell was pushed
> forward at the top the forward edge went down and the line was
> extended and the rear edge went up, pulling on that line.  This
> deflected the elevator..etc...etc...
>
> This was a rather unwieldy system to say the least....but hell, what
> would you expect from the French?
>
> The French word for "bell" is "cloche" which is pronounced not
> un-similarly to kludge.  Thus, this word was bastardized by the
> Americans and an unwieldy arrangement came to be known as a cloche or
> later as a Kludge.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:57:18 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> 
> wrote:
>> I know this could be the start of YET ANOTHER thread "Oh I think
>> it's older than that..." but to avoid that, let's raise the
>> standard from opinion/hearsay to printed word.
>>
>> Man I wish I had a collection of pre-1980 DATAMATIONs!
>>
>>   From _ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMPUTER SCIENCE_(Van Nostrand), 1976:
>>
>> KLUDGE
>>
>> The word "kludge" is a term coined by Jackson Granholm in an
>> article "How to design a kludge" in _DATAMATION_ (February 1962).
>> The definition is given as "an ill-sorted collection of poorly
>> matched parts, forming a distressing whole". The design of every
>> computer contains some anomalies that prove to be annoying to the
>> users and wghich the designer wishes he had done differently. If
>> there are enough of these, the machine is called a "kludge".
>>
>> By extention, the term has come to be applied to programs,
>> documentation, and even computer centers, so that the definition
>> is not "an ill-conceiverd and hence unreliable system that has
>> accumulated through patchwork, expediancy, and poor planning".
>>
>> The first kludge article triggered five others ("How to maintain a
>> kludge", etc) in subsequent issues of _DATAMATION_. Four of the
>> articles may be found in the book _FAITH, HOPE AND PARITY_ edited
>> by Josh Moshman, Thompson Book Company, 1966.
>>
>>                 -- F. Gruenberger
>>
>> [Said book found at abebooks...]
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Jim Isbell
> "If you are not living on the edge, well then,
> you are just taking up too much space."
> W5JAI
> UltraVan #257
> CAL - 27   #221
>