John Dee (1527 - 1608) (bigger picture)

John Dee was a philosopher, mathematician, technologist, antiquarian, teacher, and magus, was one of the most celebrated scholars of Elizabethan England. Although he lived at a time when magic and mathematics were often confused, as magic and programming are confused today, he was amongst the first to recognize the importance and usefulness of mathematics in everyday life. His Mathematicall Preface (here is page 1), written for the first English translation of Euclid's Elements, contains the earliest account of mathematics as a practical and useful skill.

Dee

Dee (postscript) (PDF) is a statically typed, dynamically bound, object-oriented programming language. Amongst other object oriented languges, it is most similar to Blue, Eiffel, and Sather. It is, however, simpler than these languages.

There is an implementation of Dee for the IBM PC/DOS and clones. This implementation is described in the Reference Manual (postscript) (PDF). If you are not interested in the details of the PC/DOS version of Dee, there is an extract from the reference manual that describes just the syntax and semantics (postscript) (PDF).

There is a zip file containing the compiler and libraries for the PC version. This version was written for DOS 3.1 and may not run under recent versions of Windows.

An Musike he (the architect) must needes know; that he may haue understanding, both of regular and mathematicall Musike. Moreouer, the Brasen Vesels, which in Theatres, are placed by Mathematicall order under the steppes, and the diuersities of the sounds are ordered according to the Musicall Symphonies and Harmonies, being distributed in ye Circuites, by Diatessaron, Diapenete, and Diapason. That the conuenient Voyce of the players' sound, when it comes to these preparations, made in order, there being increased; with yt increasing, might come more cleare and pleasant, to ye eares of the lokers on. John Dee, Preface to Elements of the Geometrie, London, 1750.

John Dee invoking a spirit

Peter Grogono. 21 October 2001. Resources for this page are provided by the Department of Computer Science at Concordia University in Montreal.