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1935 Meccano "Dam Busters" Computer Restored
rob1959 writes "A 1935 analog computer, built at Cambridge University and used to help plan the Dam Busters attacks on the Ruhr hydro dams in World War II, has been restored and put on display at Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology. The computer came to NZ around 1950 and was used, ironically, to build hydro dams there — and to calculate rabbit population numbers."
Never underestimate the rabbit. It's only defences are speed and reproduction.
That just shows that you don't understand about rabbits - one of the major plagues down under. I'm not sure if it's as bad in NZ as it is in Australia but it's far from trivial.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
TFA also mentions the recent sad death of Donald Michie - a major force in early British computing. I had the honour of working with him on 'Freddy' the robot back in 1973 - back when the UK led the world in robotics.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I'd heard of the famous skipping bombs, and knew basically how they worked. But I'd never heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise, nor the book (or movie) "The Dam Busters". Additionally, it seems that Robert Jackson will produce a remake of the 1954 movie. Most fascinating to me, though, is this Meccano computer. Those engineers were brilliant.
A woman about 20 years older than me told how her dad took the family on a holiday to Adelaide when she was a kid. All the way there and back (to Melbourne) they had to stop every 50 miles to scrape the rabbit carcases out of the wheel bays.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Operation Chastise did not have the military effect that was at the time believed. By 27 June, full water output was restored, thanks to an emergency pumping scheme inaugurated only the previous year, and the electricity grid was again producing power at full capacity. The raid proved to be costly in lives (more than half the lives lost belonging to allied POWs), but in fact no more than a minor inconvenience to the Ruhr's industrial output.
In his book Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer expressed puzzlement at the raids; destruction of one of the dams served no purpose at all, he claimed, and the failure to follow up with additional raids represented a major lost opportunity for the Allies.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I am 41 and my Grandfather was the right age to be working on this during WW2.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If you actually bother to look at the linked articles' pictures, you will see that it is indeed the very same Meccano kids toy.
Churchill's main support base was the opposition and not his own party.
The opposition cheered him and wanted him as PM after Sir Neville Chamberlain was unable to halt Hitler by appeasement.
Please read the six volumes of Second World War written by Churchill.
Am right now reading Gathering Storm after reading Heinz Guderian's Panzer Leader.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
If you want to see a short clip (in color) of one of those devices in action, watch the George Pal version of "When Worlds Collide." (1951) In the script, one is used to verify the trajectory of the approaching planet.
The entry for Bouncing Bomb has a helpful animated illustration. And, of course, the entry for Operation Chastise is head and shoulders above the site that TFA links to.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Don't forget the 'US ignorance' (little rubber bouncing incendiaries!) and complete unwillingness to actually read the indicated post!
Seriously, though, the US completely ignored earthquake bomb technology for over 60 years, because it 'wasn't invented here'. Then, when they needed it against Iraq/Iran, no one knew anything about it! They are now busy re-inventing it as an American weapon.