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Mechanical Computing

Posted by timothy on from the meccano-punk dept.

FTL writes "Tim Robinson has built a computer capable of solving polynomial equations -- using Meccano. His difference engine (mirror) uses a similar approach to Babbage's design. He's also created a differential analyzer (mirror) complete with a GUI. Both could be scaled up indefinitely to handle larger problems. 'Computing by steam' is possible."

1 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. MIT's 1930s differential analyzer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mechanical computers were built and used over 60 years ago to solve differential equations and other analytical type problems. I know MIT and UCLA had pretty good mechanical computers in the WWII era. Check out MIT's famous mechanical differential analyzer for and idea of what was and is and awesome piece of hardware.