[uname_a]

I have to admit that I am surprised that neither the article nor any of the HN posters have mentioned Rube Goldberg, whose humorous cartoons involving improbable contraptions to solve everyday problems seems to me an obvious predecessor to Simone Giertz.

[morganw]

Rube Goldberg had a predecessor. The machine that came before Colossus at Bletchley was named Heath Robinson after him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Heath_Robinson