<p>For your alternative question: try <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Turing_machines">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Turing_machines</a></p>

<p>(There are several images there that are similar to the one you show, and everything on Wikimedia Commons must be in some form of commercially-usable open license with known provenance.)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-15T03:04:17.187Z
2014-09-15T03:04:17.187Z
David Eppstein
<p>The figure appears to come from the paper "Games, Logic, and Computers" by Hao Wang, which appeared in Scientific American, Volume 213, Number 5, November 1965, pages 98-106.  There is a copy online here:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cs.virginia.edu/cs200/readings/wang.pdf">http://www.cs.virginia.edu/cs200/readings/wang.pdf</a></p>

<p>In case you're wondering how I found it, I googled 'Turing machine "memory dial"'.  None of my Turing machines have a memory dial, so I was hoping to learn where to buy one.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-18T16:48:15.130Z
2014-09-18T16:48:15.130Z
Jeffrey Shallit
<p>I am writing a computer science textbook and want to use an illustration showing a Turing machine.  Images are all over web, but almost always without authorship/illustratorship credited. I need to attribute authorship (and perhaps also clear rights).</p>
<p>Does anybody know where the image reproduced below first appeared?</p>
<p>Alternative: Can anybody point me to a similar illustration of a Turing machine where authorship is known?</p>
<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Ocipd.jpg" alt="Image of Turing machine" /></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-16T08:24:04.530Z
Why not produce your own diagram? That way, you don't have to explain to your readers what a "memory dial" is. What on earth *is* a memory dial, anyway? And what does "?1" below it mean?
David Richerby
<turing-machines>
Source of Turing-machine illustration
Free Radical
# Source of Turing-machine illustration

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-09-14)

I am writing a computer science textbook and want to use an illustration showing a Turing machine. Images are all over web, but almost always without authorship/illustratorship credited. I need to attribute authorship (and perhaps also clear rights).

Does anybody know where the image reproduced below first appeared?

Alternative: Can anybody point me to a similar illustration of a Turing machine where authorship is known?

![Image of Turing machine](https://i.sstatic.net/Ocipd.jpg)

**Tags:** turing-machines

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Why not produce your own diagram? That way, you don't have to explain to your readers what a "memory dial" is. What on earth *is* a memory dial, anyway? And what does "?1" below it mean?  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2014-09-18. Score: 20 | Accepted answer

The figure appears to come from the paper "Games, Logic, and Computers" by Hao Wang, which appeared in Scientific American, Volume 213, Number 5, November 1965, pages 98-106. There is a copy online here:

<http://www.cs.virginia.edu/cs200/readings/wang.pdf>

In case you're wondering how I found it, I googled 'Turing machine "memory dial"'. None of my Turing machines have a memory dial, so I was hoping to learn where to buy one.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2014-09-15. Score: 8

For your alternative question: try <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Turing_machines>

(There are several images there that are similar to the one you show, and everything on Wikimedia Commons must be in some form of commercially-usable open license with known provenance.)


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