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Everyone knows that records sound better than CDs. Too bad they don't sell video content on records.

What about these?

If you're in London you can see the original structural model of DNA (retort clamps and all), models of several other significant molecules, some early computers, and the Apollo 10 command module (!) all in one gallery at the Science Museum:

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

DNA structure

... at the University of Leeds in the UK demonstrating his video recorder and his stereoscopic television (3D TV to you and me).

Baird's recorder used an alumin(i)um disc rather like an LP running at ~80rpm to record the images. The machine, like his television, was an electro-mechanical affair build from bits including old hat boxes and bicycle parts. His machinery is exhibited at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television a short way away from Leeds, in Bradford.

Whilst researching the links I found the NMPFT's TV heaven page and top ten list of requested television programs from the archives. The August list is below:

• 1. Goodness Gracious Me
• 2. World Cup Final 1966
• 3. Dangermouse
• 4. The Wrong Trousers
• 5. Mr Bean
• 6. The Clangers (The Iron Chicken)
• 7. The Sooty Show
• 8. Bob the Builder
• 9. Bottom
• 10. Rainbow

This says something about the visitors although you have to account for it being the school vacation.

Actually, they _did_ have precise enough manufacturing capability to build Babbage's machines - this has already been proven by the building of Difference Engine No. 2 at the Science Museum in London. Scientific American had an article on it, discussing how they built the parts to the tolerances specified, and the resulting machine worked excellently. Portions of the machine were built after Babbage's death, proving that it could be done (more info on this and other interesting Babbage info can be found here).

It is my opinion (shared by a lot of researchers) that Babbage failed primarily for two reasons; a) He could never "settle down" and build any one of his calculating machines, he was constantly dreaming of improvements and never committing to one design, draining his resources to the point of where they abandoned him (.com failure?), and b) his machines simply weren't practical for the time period, for their huge cost. People at the time didn't have a pressing need for enormous amounts of calculating power, that couldn't be provided for by cheaper human labor (so called later "computers"). It wasn't until the late 1800's that the need for real mechanical/electrical computing power began to be felt (look into Hollerith and the 1890 census for one take - there are others, of course, notably Lord Kelvin's Tide Predicting machine of 1876, while being analog, does demonstrate the need for mechanical models of complex computing problems - in fact, this particular use was not overtaken in any large part by digital computers until the 1950's), in fact, this was the time during which many "inventors" came forth with their own takeoffs of Babbage's machine - it should be noted that these were all portions of "Difference" engines, some original, some of Babbage's design. None were of the scale and complexity of his Analytical engine, though I believe a portion of the mill was completed by one of his sons after his death. It actually worked rather well, computing the successive sums of PI (though with errors, some tracable to machine problems, most likely spring related, but the major problem being that the input for the initial value of PI was off in one digit - thus, perhaps one of the first examples of GIGO as it relates to computers).

Thus, we have two points of failure: One, a character "flaw" (something that affects many hackers even to this day), and the second a lack of practical need.

It's too bad - his machines could have radically shaped our world...


Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Any geeks visiting "London, England" as you so quaintly call it in the colonies, should definitely check out the Science Museum. They actually finished one of his Difference engines.
Try http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/186 2-89.html

In one of the more delightful of life's little ironys, the only way they could make it precisely enough to work was to use computer controlled machining. ;-)

Back on topic, a big Lig is Ulster Scots for a very foolish person or idiot.

The original engine that was built by Babbage's engineer, Joseph Clement, consisted of about 2000 parts but was only a small portion of the envisionaged differential engine. The engine was never completed and most of the parts produced were later melted for scrap. The engine later built by the London Science Museum was completed in 1991. Information on this system can be found at the following sites ;

http://www.museums.reading.ac.uk/vmoc/babbage/
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/186 2-89.html

And where's the source, I mean blueprints

Don't know about the printer, but then all the Babbage papers can be purchased here.

Sorry, not free as in "no money", but I guess the copyright will have expired now so free in that sense?

It's a neat hack :-)

The Brits get us colonials back in their own British Museum of Science & Industry in London, which was (and may still be) running an exhibit on the history of computers this summer when I visited. It mentions various developments in America here and there, but you'd think that computers were invented in Britan if that's all you saw.

Alan Turing devised most of the theoretical basis for computers in mathematics, but all the modern computers that we use are called Von Neumann machines for a reason.

Yes, actually, someone did - the London Science Museum, finished in the early 90's.
Pretty amaizing actually, 4000 pieces of cast iron, bronze, and steel (3 tons worth)
calculating upto 32 decimal places! 'Course, it isn't exactly portable.

The LSM has a pic of it here.

There's more info about Colossus here, where they make the obvious point that "The question of what is the worlds first computer is less a question of history than a question of definition."

My personal vote goes to the "Manchester Baby", which has an extensive homepage all to itself.

Of course, Babbage can claim not only to have invented the first computer, but also the first printer - they're in the process of building it at the Science Museum in London (UK) right now. No reference to it on their web page, unfortunately.