Spotted this in the news and thought others here might be interested. Would it not be wonderful to see a real Babbage analytical engine in operation? Well maybe one day we will!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11530905
http://plan28.org/
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh XD
schwaaay!
2 difference engines have been built, one spent a year at the computer history museum for a year, enroute to a dotcom millionaire’s living room. i had me daddy-o take the really long way to the airport so we could see it. They’ve also go a nonfuntioning cray, somebody turn off the bubble machine!
see and hear the video http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/
There is a working difference engine at the London science museum. They have even made the printer for it now. But this device is the much more complex analytical engine, which is closer to our modern computers in the way it functions.
I find the final comment most telling…
“The machine should never be built. It will unleash forces beyond our control. The world is in great danger.”
So, clearly, we should build one in New Babbage. It would be the crowning achievement of the City State. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the Church might worship it as the physical incarnation of the Great Builder’s spirit, and follow its orders blindly, I suppose…
((Obviously AE should design it))
Sounds to me like someone got this story mixed up with the Large Hadron Collector. *grin*
Someone made at least part of the mill of a Difference Engine out of an erector set (Meccano) The tolerances are probably way less than Babbage required, but as you can see, it does appear to work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL_wy-CxBP8
http://www.meccano.us/difference_engines/rde_1/
I hope they get the Analytical Engine built. It would be nice to have Ada’s cards finally run through it.
I’ve heard tell of a babbage engine made of tinker toys, I shall look into it (a graduate student’s project as I recall…).