A Completely Mechanical Computer

[Nanook]

Charles Babbage drew up the first designs way back in the mid 19th century; however, it was fully built during his life time.

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

It would be interesting to see a full realization of his analytical engine.   Which would've ran programs that are more like what we think of now. 

The programs written by that young woman in the above cartoon.  Ada of Lovelace who was if not the very first then the second person to program a computer.  With the very first being Charles Babbage. 

[WildW_UK]

I would like to see a TV series set in an alternate reality in which Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace use a steam-powered analytical engine to solve crimes and unexplained phenomena, like a kind of steampunk X-Files.

[vf1000ride]

If you wanted something smaller that looks really cool look into all the old mechanical calculators.  I get an urge once in a while to buy a Curta but seem to always find a better use for my money for something that is built into my phone.

[Bombastinator]

There is apparently new interest in this field because of Venus.  The issue is that the surface of Venus is 500°c and current electronic and even most electrical systems just won’t work there.  Materials have different properties at those temperatures. Right now they’re trying to figure out how to build a simple radio that works at those kind of temperatures and pressures. I understand it’s really hard.

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, vf1000ride said:

If you wanted something smaller that looks really cool look into all the old mechanical calculators.  I get an urge once in a while to buy a Curta but seem to always find a better use for my money for something that is built into my phone.

yeah. but can your phone also grind coffee like this calculator obviously would?

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

Babbage, a great Briton, man, and inventor. 

[whm1974]

5 hours ago, vf1000ride said:

If you wanted something smaller that looks really cool look into all the old mechanical calculators.  I get an urge once in a while to buy a Curta but seem to always find a better use for my money for something that is built into my phone.

Looks like something out of the late 19th Century.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, whm1974 said:

Looks like something out of the late 19th Century.

My memory is it was something out of a nazi concentration camp.  The dude that invented it thought it up as some sort of prisoner in ww2. Things are supposed to be amazing.  

[bikemath]

Some ten years ago now, I read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I don't really believe the book has aged all that well, but his description of a fully mechanical computer designed around a church's pipe organ still makes me laugh occasionally. Like, I just imagine a bunch of very-serious allied intelligence officers trying to break an enigma-like cypher with this machine that sounds like a calliope, and without fail I'll end up laughing.

 

If you don't know what a calliope sounds like, there's a demo on Wikipedia.

[Yea, i use windows, W]

hmmmm..... i got an idea lol  

[Video Beagle]

5 hours ago, bikemath said:

I read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I don't really believe the book has aged all that well,

Hmmm.. troubling...it's been in my To be read pile for like 20 years...might have missed the boat, then.