{"id":125,"date":"2003-06-26T06:50:49","date_gmt":"2003-06-26T12:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/?p=125"},"modified":"2003-06-26T06:50:49","modified_gmt":"2003-06-26T12:50:49","slug":"incan-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/2003\/06\/26\/incan-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"Incan Computers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not really.  But they had binary code!<\/p>\n<p>No, really!  According to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.independent.co.uk\/world\/science_medical\/story.jsp?story=418049\">this news story at the Independant<\/a>, the Incas had a kind of knot code that was very similar to our own binary coding.  They seem to have kept fairly detailed messages in a seven-bit binary code knotted into decorative textiles.  So, now we know how it was they had such a detailed, complicated society and legal systems without seeming to have a written language!  They just had a kind of writing that we never considered.<br \/>\nI guess it was too hard to imagine a &#8220;primative&#8221; culture capable of creating binary code.  And, really, knotting thread is a pretty inventive and creative way of recording information.  The tie-closure on a bag could describe its contents and owner. Shoot, it could even have a shipping address included in it!  Such a code could have been woven into other textiles as well.  Even the simplest of fabrics could have had messges in them.<br \/>\nObviously, this is pretty exciting to me.  The ideas that this spawns for a created culture are almost endless!  And, think of how original it would seem to the average reader of fantasy fiction.  After all, this has sat in front of <i>experts<\/i> for ages before they figured it out, so to we who are less experienced in such things it&#8217;s nothing short of brilliant and new and, well, fantastic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not really. But they had binary code! No, really! According to this news story at the Independant, the Incas had a kind of knot code that was very similar to our own binary coding. They seem to have kept fairly detailed messages in a seven-bit binary code knotted into decorative textiles. So, now we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,29,18,14,28],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constructed-languages","category-fantastic-and-surreal","category-invented-worlds","category-news-and-current-events","category-science-and-technology","tag-legal-systems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}