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526 Years On, Da Vinci's Clockwork Car Constructed

Posted by timothy on from the bright-fella dept.

SimianOverlord writes "The Guardian (and several other news outlets) report on the attempt by Professor Paulo Galluci and his team to build a working model of Leonard Da Vinci's clockwork powered car, designed in 1478. Previous attempts have been made to create the vehicle, but they failed to work properly. This is thought to be due to a misunderstanding of the original design, which is corrected in the new model. Apart from the 1/3 scale replica, the team have also made a full size model but have not dared to test it. Professor Galluzzi explained "It is a very powerful machine. It could run into something and do serious damage.""

6 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Found a picture by insanechemist · · Score: 5, Informative

    Was curious about the drawing and found a copy here (Google cache)

    --
    I thought it was a good idea
    1. Re:Found a picture by steveha · · Score: 4, Informative

      Clickable link:

      http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/l/leonardo/12engine /4device3.html

      You can click on the drawing and get a toolbar that lets you resize it, even past 100%. It's convenient.

      Straight to the drawing:

      http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/l/leonardo/12engine/ 4device3.jpg

      No toolbar, but if you click the drawing you zoom it to 100% size.

      steveha

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  2. Re:fascinating by Seekerofknowledge · · Score: 5, Informative
    // |/| 4 1 (| |/| 3-3 _| + + 1 _| 0 + '| 3 =| =| |_| 8 3 |-| +
    // 2 |V| '| 0 =| 2 |/| 4 '| + |/| 0 1 + ) |/| |_| =| 2 1 |-| +
    void to_little_endian(void * buffer) {

    Whew, I finally figured out what that said. It only took about 5 mins, a mirror, and some head-scratching.

    For all of those who don't have a mirror handy, or are too lazy (who are we kidding :), it says:

    the buffer to little-endian
    this function transforms


    One more thing:
    I guess this function knows how big a buffer to convert? I mean, is it converting some words to little-endian or dwords? hmm, what about 64-bit ints? Doesn't seem very clear. I hope this didn't come out of the Linux kernel :P
  3. Here is a pic of the machine.... by cowmix · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/automobile/

  4. Re:Turns only to the right? by CrowScape · · Score: 4, Informative

    They can make that claim, but it wouldn't be true, as the first computer predated Da Vinci by about 1500 years. It's called the Antikythera Device which could calculate the positions of the sun, moon and planets.

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    common sense: noun
    What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
  5. Re:Picture of car by chevybowtie · · Score: 5, Informative

    For a hires version, try here