Slashdot Mirror

I'm another who knows what Ampex means. My father worked for the BBC engineering dept in the 1950's and was closely involved in developing VERA, the BBC's own video recorder. It recorded linearly using huge high-speed tape reels. However the Ampex spinning head technology, developed about the same time, was adopted instead as it allowed a slow tape speed and smaller reels. VERA was scrapped but I still have bits of it at home, and there is a reel that my father probably made in the London Science Museum.

I like your argument and agree with your conclusions, but dentures are millennia old at least. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u...

Padova, not Florence Galileo moved thee in 1592 and he stole Hans Lippershey telescope in 1608. The Galilean moons where discovered in 1610 with a telescope that had a magnification that was roughly 30x (from the original 3x of Lippershey design)

The telescope is now in the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale, in Florence

Last time I visited the Science Museum there were steam engines running. That was less than a year ago, but I don't think they run every day -- perhaps only at weekends.

The shipping gallery is available online: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u... -- I don't know what is now in that location (or if it's ready yet). It's certainly not a gift shop, as that's on a different floor.

The Babbage difference engine model is in the Computing section, on the 2nd floor: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u...

Perhaps you should have asked for a map?

(The museum is free, funded from tax and donations. The Deparment for Culture, Media and Sport is facing big cuts from the current government, and all the tax-funded museums are being told to cut costs as much as they can, and generate as much income as they can. I don't like this, but there's not much I can do about it.)

Last time I visited the Science Museum there were steam engines running. That was less than a year ago, but I don't think they run every day -- perhaps only at weekends.

The shipping gallery is available online: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u... -- I don't know what is now in that location (or if it's ready yet). It's certainly not a gift shop, as that's on a different floor.

The Babbage difference engine model is in the Computing section, on the 2nd floor: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u...

Perhaps you should have asked for a map?

(The museum is free, funded from tax and donations. The Deparment for Culture, Media and Sport is facing big cuts from the current government, and all the tax-funded museums are being told to cut costs as much as they can, and generate as much income as they can. I don't like this, but there's not much I can do about it.)

That project is starting to sound like a boondoggle. Lots of PR and fundraising, no hardware. They have a contribution system, a mailing list, a Twitter feed, and press coverage. They've been blithering about this for two years now. But they haven't built so much as one single demo part.

We know what the Analytical Engine was supposed to do computationally. There's a simulator. It's a rather straightforward machine. It's roughly comparable to a programmable calculator of the 1970s. There are 1000 memory locations, each of which stores a 50-digit decimal number. These are separate from the program and data, which are on chains of punched cards. It can add, subtract, multiply, divide, shift, and compare, which is all you need.

Parts of the Analytical Engine have been built, and there's a working Difference Engine. So the components are understood.

There's no good reason for the 50-digit precision, and 1000 memory locations is too much for the compute power available (about 1 IPS). Like programmable calculators, 10 digits and 100 memory locations would have been enough for most problems. Babbage's own trial model of the "mill" (the ALU) has only 25 digits. Building a memory of 50,000 wheels about 3 inches in diameter means building something the size of a locomotive, most of which will just sit there. Trimming it down to 25 digits and 100 locations would make for a large desk-sized machine.

A question I once asked of the project was "how many part numbers"? That is, how many different parts are required? They didn't know. I suspect not that many. The existing model of the mill doesn't have a high part number count. The "store" (the memory unit) is inherently repetitive. Most of the parts can be die-cast and finish-machined, which is the most economical way to produce good metal parts in medium quantity. Many of the lever-type parts are cut from flat sheets of brass. Those you make with a CNC mill or a water jet cutter. 3D printing isn't really appropriate as a way to make brass parts, and making a plastic copy of the Analytical Engine would be rather tacky.

You're probably thinking of the Difference Engine that the London Science Museum built in 1991 (output mechanism added in 2000). Afaik nobody's constructed an Analytical Engine, which is considerably more complex to build.

...there's a robot exhibition on now.

Jolly good to hear this project can be actually done but in 1985, The Science Museum in London built his Analytical Engine No. 2. It weighs 2.6 tons and has 4,000 moving parts http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/babbage.aspx Take your kids to see it when you are on holiday in London and tell them to leave their laptops at home....

It looks to be an old lady, so its entirely possible that what he is seeing is something like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ardent_hearing_aid.JPG which is part of this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkney_Wireless_Museum also seen here http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=6713

The first trains and planes tended to be just for demonstration as well: check out Trevithick's 1808 Catch Me Who Can circular railway in London. People paid to see and have a go on this novelty ride. Others took the concept on from there.

In other words, the Duke Nukem Forever of Steampunk. ;-)
Not coming to a Weird Stuff Warehouse near you anytime soon.

It's little sibling (not a general purpose computer) is actually working since they did build it to 19th-century specifications: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/computing_and_data_processing/1992-556.aspx

Go get your picture taken with the Babbage Difference Engine, or a host of other analog computers.

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

Definitely ... taking the water taxi from Embankment to Greenwich is something my mother always does when she visits. It's a great way to see the sites of London.

I'll add my voice to the chorus for the Science Museum, and also the Natural History Museum. No geek should avoid going to these two! The British Museum is great fun, too.

Overall, it largely depends on what sort of geeky things you go for. Check out Pollock's Toy Museum if you're into games and construction toys. If you're into trains, check out the London Transport Museum. If you're into military, there's the Imperial History Museum, or the Royal Air Force Museum. The Design Museum is pretty cool, too. If you're into history, checkout the Museum of London, which is a history of the city. Also, the Victoria and Albert Museum is also pretty interesting. More about arts and crafts, though.

Otherwise, there's also loads of art stuff, like Tate Modern, the National Gallery ...

Have fun!

One must-see for a geek trip to London has to be the Science Museum http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum.aspx

Take your laptop, the freedom to transfer your photos locally, and ready internet access with wifi will make it worthwhile. There are internet cafes around, but it'll be more fuss to find one and time out of your vacation, rather than just packing a power convertor and changing your wifi settings.

Other things you might want to do in London could include:

• The Tate Modern
• The London Eye (book in advance!)
• The Science Museum

Of course, there are many other things too as people will list below, London is a big place with lots to see and do, enjoy your trip!

-- Pete.

I don't know about the US, but maybe the largest ones in big cities would be better?

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
(There are exhibits for kids, but I'd guess 8 is the youngest that anything is targeted at.)

Also, the adjacent Natural History Museum: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/
The "kids only" section has mostly "take a look at the [x] exhibit".

Both are free (so is the Victoria and Albert Museum, opposite, but that's human history/artefacts.)

"So, they're implying that evolutionary traits should disappear after a relatively short period? Why? I'd suspect they may fade away over centuries, but not necessarily."

Evolutionary formed genetic trails can hang around for a very long time. For example, human embryos still have a tail. (We all had a tail when we were forming :). It obviously doesn't normally stay for long during the time the embryo forms, but genetic instructions are very clearly there to form a tail on a human embryo and in rare cases, some humans are still born with remnants of a tail.

For example: Here's a good photo of a human embryo, http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/lifecycle/50.asp

Also if you can stomach it, google for human tail.

If a evolutionary trait presents no evolutionary disadvantage, then its likely to stay even for millions of years.

Remember when Motorola went from the MicroTac (which was anything but micro) to the StarTac?

The first StarTacs were $1200. Next gen was $600, then $250, then $99, then they went away, now Motorola is going away too.

As far as I am concerned, the StarTac was the height of evolution of the cellular phone.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I033/10303308.aspx

Phillip's Economic Computer, 1949. The machine was conceived by Bill Phillips (1914-1975), a New Zealand-born engineer turned economist. Phillips designed the machine to demonstrate in a visual way the circular flow of money within the economy. Approximately fourteen machines were built, and this particular machine was used as a teaching aid at the London School of Economics. It ran until May 1992.

London Science Museum shop http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/shoponline.aspx
May be unusual stuff, may be stuff you can get near you, but if Dad got it sent From Abroad...
Of such things is Street Cred made.

I know its on display at the LSM, but it was built and owned privately. It's just being displayed at the LSM.

Who owns it? According to the LSM site they built it. Are you thinking of the copy they made for Nathan Myhrvold

>> But nevertheless, that guy had _something_ working to show for his work

Babbage, actually, had built a 1/7th model of his Difference Engine 1 (built by Joseph Clement). It is on display in the London Science Museum. He used it to demonstrate sudden changes in expected behaviour. Something only God was thought to be able to do. So he did have something.

Link: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/ManualSSPL/10303373.aspx

>> asked for more funding

Babbage thought of the machine as a public good. That is why he asked for the money. However, there were other businesses represented in the governement that were, for obvious reasons, not interested in that of Babbage at all.

Secondly, Difference Engine No.1 costs to the government were £17,470. But Babbage was not particullarly poor as he inherited a substantial amount of money from his father. He could have build 5 Difference Engines if he wanted to and still live a good life without ever having to work.

>> Now before I sound too damning to Babbage, it wasn't only his fault.
>> He got into a conflict with the company actually building it, and that
>> was the chief reason why the V1 was never completed.

That's true. In that age of custom made tools it was close to impossible to find another manufacturer as everything whould have been remade then. It would not retrofit.

Here is the pic of the UK version.

Um...

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/babbage.aspx

Try looking in the Science Museum (Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/computing_and_data_processing/1992-556.aspx?keywords=babbage

Here's one that definitely should have made the list: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/launchball/
Very very addictive. I just wish there were more levels to play.

A replica?

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I033/103033 07.aspx
"This engine was constructed by the Science Museum in London from designs made by the British computing pioneer Charles Babbage (1791-1871) between 1847 and 1849. The main part of the engine was completed in 1991 for the bicentennial year of Babbage's birth, and the printing mechanism was completed in 2000."

The US may start to cut emissions rather soon. There are market forces: rising energy costs, that make efficiency look more and more attractive. One CFL saves about $60 over seven years (pays for itself in 6 weeks), and insulation pays for itself pretty quickly too. The big 3 are having lots of trouble these days with their product lines because companies that have concentrated on efficiency are starting to see the payoff in their investment. It is not too hard to get a 20% reduction in per capita energy use over 15 years much less 30. Rising fossil energy costs are also making room for more renewable energy leading to scale in this sector and lower prices for these. One interesting development is an improved method for refining solar grade silicon http://pesn.com/2007/05/02/9500469_RSI_Silicon_win s_MIT_contest/ that should lower material costs for panel fabrication down quite a bit in a short time. Getting 30% energy conversion in thirty years is pretty simple.

It seems likely to me that the most industrialized countries are going to go this route, may are already on track to meet Kyoto. The question is, will developing countries have the ability to make these conversions? There, efficiency does not have such a large impact because energy using technology is still being adopted. The reliance on coal is pretty natural as well since they can cookie cutter their new plants. But, owing to the structure of Kyoto, there is little incentive to jump past coal even if it would cost less in the long run. China set itself back with its policies in the past and is only beginning to find something that seems to work. They may be open to further improvement, or they may dig in fearing to mess with success. This is really the coming issue with emissions reducing or not.

Reducing concentrations does not happen without our active intervention. Some folks are thinking about this: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/CO2hoover/ .
--
Rent solar power; utility competitive rates: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

...seasonal electrical storage isn't feasible.

This reminds me of a story I heard about printing circuits on a sheet of pasta.

Pasta PCB

Once the protective coating is removed, the board quickly biodegrades, and the ICs and metal coatings can be easily reclaimed.

And here's a Pretty pasta picture

Phillips economics computer (1949)
Science Museum, London
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/galleries/E2221.as p

a tube pass and a crowbar (Game-On exhibition)

Well, there's the videogaming exhibit at the Science Museum, if you happen to be in London sometime.

See this page: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/atomclocks /page6.asp

More information and pictures on the fossil on the museums homepage http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/fishfinger s/ Also a nice model of the fossil.

Oh, wait ...

19th century engineering wasn't really up to building the Analytical Engine. Babbage famously said, late in his life, that he would gladly give up the rest of his time if he could spend just three days 500 years in the future. Of course a man who was really out of this time was Leonardo DaVinci, who sketched a 13 digit cogwheel digital adder in the 15th century.

Its price and proportions would have been staggering, but much like by the IBM-sponsored collection of Leonardo's machines at Clos Luce, the myth that it wouldn't have been feasible has now actually been dispelled for the case of Babbage as well by building a working engine from the original designs to the tolerances of their time - these are the relevant excerpts from the project documentation:

The most widely accepted reason for this failure is that Victorian mechanical engineering were not sufficiently developed to produce parts with sufficient precision.
(...)
By previous standards these engines were monumental in conception, size and complexity.
(...)
Babbage failed to complete the construction of any of his engines. His failures were not failures of principle but of practical accomplishment. However, the legend of his work if not its technical detail remained part of the folklore amongst those who pursued the ideal of automated calculation after his death.
(...)
The advantage of using the method of differences is that it eliminates the need for multiplication and division in the calculation of a particular class of mathematical functions called polynomials. The Difference Engine only used addition which is easier to mechanise than multiplication and division.

Manufacturing parts for his engines stretched the standards of engineering practice of the time. The intricate shapes required special jigs and tools and the Engines' mechanisms demanded hundreds of near-identical precision parts. Babbage conceived his Engine designs at a time when production techniques were in transition between craft traditions and mass-production and there was not yet the means of producing repeated parts automatically.
(...)
Babbage conducted an extensive survey of manufacturing techniques and practice by visiting manufactures and craft workshops in England and on the Continent. He concluded that the precision and intricacy required for the construction of his Engine were beyond the capabilities of the technology of the day. This study, conducted during the 1820s, formed the basis of his influential book entitled On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, published in 1832.
(...)
Babbage benefited from substantial government funding - £17,500. But work on the Engine was halted in 1833 when Clement downed tools following an unresolved dispute over compensation for moving his workshop four miles to new premises near Babbage's house.
(...)
The reasons for his failure continue to exercise historians. Factors cited include Babbage's allegedly difficult personality, unconvincing progress, disputes with his engineer, Joseph Clement, political instability and the eventual withdrawal of government funding, though the view most often repeated in histories of computing is that Babbage's failure was due to limitations in Victorian machine tool technology.

To explore the thesis that the limitation of Victorian engineering was a contributory factor in Babbage's failure to complete any of his machines the Science Museum set about constructing Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 in 1985. Before the engine could be constructed the original design drawings were redrawn and expanded to provide the engineering detail needed for modern manufacture.
(...)
Modern techniques were used in the manufacture of repeat parts but care was taken to restrict limits of precisi

The Science Museum built a Difference Engine no 2 using materials and techniques that were available in Babbage's time. They succeeded, so that was that theory out the window. The other theory is more likely.

Is THIS what your computer looks like? You must work in the British Museum!

It was an attempt at humor but it obviously went over your head. LOTR probably has little direct scientific content (i.e. Frodo doing forensic analysis of Sting...) but if you think out of the box you could argue that the science of how the movie was created is interesting in itself. You posted as AC so probably just your average everyday troll so it wont matter in your bitter little world...

Btw its called Science Fiction and LOTR has also been popular enough to get displays in various science museums such as

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/lordof therings/index.asp.

You're not too bright... try learning something new about the brain. :P

At the expense of shops who were using no computer at all. Or abacuses.

I would laugh if the situation weren't so serious for my company. We are on the verge of a disaster.

Chisembop manual sales have been flat for 5 years.

Adding machine sales are down 38%.

Calculator sales are down 52%, including the newest hand held models.

Slide rule sales are down 79%.

Analytical engine sales are down 93%.

Tabulator sales are down 98%.

Our abacus miniaturization project is running into problems with prior art by a "major" competitor.

To top it off, our hope for a Multitronic breakthrough appears to have dangerous side effects after four models that were outright failures.

Unless we can pump up our mentat outsourcing service, or complete development of our Make me a Rainman! kit, we're doomed! Doomed I tell you! :(

You obviously didn't pay attention to the previous poster. He said qwerty was designed for a pre-1900 bucket layout typewriter and would still cause jams on a post-1900 typewriter like the Underwood you mentioned.

I'm not sure quite what the difference is between the "bucket" and the "arc"; maybe "bucket" is not a standard term for this concept, since it's not giving any useful Google hits. The Underwood I used (dating from right around 1900, and looking a lot like the one pictured here) had the strike bars arranged in an arc. I'm not sure whether the shape of the arc was a segment of a circle or some other curve. Either way, it was definitely prone to sticking.

babbage Not quite When first concieved in 1821 Babbage could find nobody with the skills to make the machine until 1832 see the rest below for why it wasn't completed.

The Difference Engine The Difference Engine was conceived in 1821 in an effort to mechanise the production of mathematical tables. Unlike the earlier calculators of Schickard, Pascal and Liebniz, the engine was not designed to perform basic arithmetic but to calculate a series of numerical values and automatically print the results. Difference engines were designed to calculate using the `method of finite differences', a well used principle of the time. The advantage of using the method of differences is that it eliminates the need for multiplication and division in the calculation of a particular class of mathematical functions called polynomials. The Difference Engine only used addition which is easier to mechanise than multiplication and division.

Manufacturing parts for his engines stretched the standards of engineering practice of the time. The intricate shapes required special jigs and tools and the Engines' mechanisms demanded hundreds of near-identical precision parts. Babbage conceived his Engine designs at a time when production techniques were in transition between craft traditions and mass-production and there was not yet the means of producing repeated parts automatically.

Babbage conducted an extensive survey of manufacturing techniques and practice by visiting manufactures and craft workshops in England and on the Continent. He concluded that the precision and intricacy required for the construction of his Engine were beyond the capabilities of the technology of the day. This study, conducted during the 1820s, formed the basis of his influential book entitled On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, published in 1832.

The design specification for the full size Difference Engine No. 1 required an estimated 25,000 parts which would have had a combined weight of some fifteen tonnes. The Engine, if completed would have stood eight feet high, seven feet long and three feet in depth. Babbage hired Joseph Clement, a skilled toolmaker and draughtsman, to build the Engine. This portion of the Difference Engine, 'the finished portion of the unfinished engine', was completed in 1832 and is among the most celebrated icons in the prehistory of computing. It is the oldest surviving automatic calculator and among the finest examples of precision engineering of the time.

Babbage benefited from substantial government funding - £17,500. But work on the Engine was halted in 1833 when Clement downed tools following an unresolved dispute over compensation for moving his workshop four miles to new premises near Babbage's house.

beagle 1, here's your answer.

The Age of Steam didn't really get going until Watt. Newcomen steam engines had been around for almost a century before Watt, but the approach was terrible. In a Newcomen engine, the cylinder was heated and cooled on every cycle. This is horrendously inefficient, but nobody knew that then. It took a huge engine to produce very modest power outputs. (Typical specs: 60-inch cylinder, 15HP) Watt built a Newcomen engine and started making measurements of the properties of steam and the heat capacity of the materials in the engine. Once he had some numbers to work with, he realized that a much simpler cycle would work much better.

Then the problem was making an engine that didn't lose all the pressure through leaks. It took until 1782 before Boulton and Watt built something that could rotate a shaft. By 1788, they finally had a good engine.

They also had a patent extension from 1775 to 1800, given them directly by Parlament. Boulton and Watt used this to become a big company. That's how the Industrial Revolution started.

Visit the Kensington Science Museum in London, and you'll see many of the earliest steam engines.

One of their projects was to build a clock that could last a thousand years.

Their current project is to build a clock that would last 10,000 years. It would tick once per year and the cuckoo would come out on the millenium.

More successful clocks are the ones in Salisbury and Wells Calthedral. They've been in more-or-less continuous operation since the 1380s and are working now.

The Wells clock looks like it was more ambitious than the Long Now project. "As well as telling the time on a 24-hour dial, it shows the motion of the Sun and Moon in the sky, the phase of the Moon and the number of days since the last new Moon."

The lesson for the Long Now folks is that if you want to build something that runs forever, build it out of cast iron and replace the parts every few hundred years.

One of their projects was to build a clock that could last a thousand years.

Their current project is to build a clock that would last 10,000 years. It would tick once per year and the cuckoo would come out on the millenium.

More successful clocks are the ones in Salisbury and Wells Calthedral. They've been in more-or-less continuous operation since the 1380s and are working now.

The Wells clock looks like it was more ambitious than the Long Now project. "As well as telling the time on a 24-hour dial, it shows the motion of the Sun and Moon in the sky, the phase of the Moon and the number of days since the last new Moon."

The lesson for the Long Now folks is that if you want to build something that runs forever, build it out of cast iron and replace the parts every few hundred years.