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What If Babbage Had Succeeded?
mikejuk writes "It was on this day 220 years ago (December 26 1791) that Charles Babbage was born. The calculating machines he invented in the 19th century, although never fully realized in his lifetime, are rightly seen as the forerunners of modern programmable computers. What if he had succeeded? Babbage already had plans for game arcades, chess playing machines, sound generators and desktop publishing. A Victorian computer revolution was entirely possible."
The Difference Engine. We'd eventually get to the same place.
Two words for you: "Difference Engine". Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. That's what would happen if Babbage had succeeded.
Stephen Stirlings "Peshawar Lancers" has the British Empire move to India after an catastrophe, and they had an analytical engine as well. Eric Flint's alternate history might make better reading if you're postulating "what if." Flint covers "gearing down," because in order to make advanced technology, there's a logical procession. Many of the things that we take for granted are the result of incremental improvements and discoveries.
Simply put, there's no way to make the leap from a mechanical "analytical engine" OR a mechanical "difference calculator" even to to the original IBM PC. (Or for that matter, the first Z80-based 8 bit computers.)
There's no doubt that Babbage might have moved technology forward a few decades. But what you and I know of as "computers" nowadays are based on a number of discoveries, from physics (Quantam Theory, in particular) to electromagnetism to advanced fab technologies for silicon to you name it.
I love reading alternative history, but I prefer those that are realistic. If you and I were to find ourselves as the "Yankee In King Author's Court," we'd actually be frustrated more than anything else. There's so much technology that even our grandparents took for granted that wouldn't be available.
Just the ability to measure down to microns (and smaller) is vital when making a great deal of modern technology.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Bear in mind that even consistently-good, moderately priced steel wasn't available until the 1880s. That's why fine machinery was made of brass until the 20th century.
As an amateur machinist guy I can assure you that fine machinery was made of brass because steel/iron/etc was a nightmare to machine with the tools of the day, but brass is OK, not so labor intensive.
Bulk steel was actually pretty cheap. Not cheap enough to make a bridge out of it, but cheap enough to fill the world with rifles and swords. Before 1880 steel was too expensive to make a steel bridge over every river, or a steel locomotive rail thru every little two horse town, or a steel computer in every house, or a steel computer based internet, which is just as well because they didn't have the proper carbides and HSS to machine it anyway at any affordable rate.
Brass was, is, and probably always will be terribly expensive but it machines and wears (self lubricates, to an extent) like a dream. And the finish is quite attractive and simple, unlike steel or aluminum finishes. To this day, the amateur machinist guys make homemade steam engines out of brass, not steel, if they can afford it, anyway. I certainly prefer to work with brass. There are some issues with the cutting angles on lathe tools etc but its all really no big deal.
Brass is much closer in cost to being a precious metal than it is to being a structural metal. Always has been. This explains the fascination brass holds with the local meth user population, a little pocket sized outside water hose fitting is worth darn near as much as a small iron sewer/drain grate at the recycler.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The mechanical approach was still a dead end that was not on the path to anything like where we are today. He was like the guys, previous to the Wright Brothers, who spent their (short) lives working on flapping wings. You could argue they had the right idea - heaver-than-air powered flight - and thus inspired those who came after - but the fact remains, they were barking up the wrong tree.
The difference (ha!) here is that the flapping wings didn't work for powering manned flight while the Babbage machines would have. Sure they'd have been limited but they would have worked ! From there, as TFA says, refinements would have been implemented. It isn't as though modern computers are what was first designed, implemented or even conceived of. Great progress such as we've seen typically requires LOTS of folks putting their own mark on things.
Somewhat OT but imagine what would have happened had the Greeks realized the true power of steam. That they were tinkering with it is well known. We might have had flying chariots by now!
You know the thing about UDP jokes? I don't care if you get it or not.
I am an atheist and I hate fucking atheists so much. This idea is completely ludicrous and clearly you're just some weirdo who loves blaming bad things on religion. Possibly as a child you were forced to go to Sunday School when you wanted to play video games and now this is your infantile way of striking back. Anyway keep in mind the Albigensian Crusade was less than a thousand years ago and that many scientific developments of the Roman Empire were preserved in the Indian and Arab empires. Certainly some was lost, but nowhere near a thousand years of progress. Anyway what makes you think the Cathars had loads of advanced scientific knowledge, the idea makes no sense.
The library of Alexander was mostly destroyed by Julius Caesar, and while it was partially rebuilt it slowly grew smaller and smaller over time as the Roman Empire broke down and Alexandria ceased to be the greatest city of the world. Maybe it's fun to blame it on yucky Christians but it's ahistorical.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The library of Alexander was mostly destroyed by Julius Caesar, and while it was partially rebuilt it slowly grew smaller and smaller over time as the Roman Empire broke down and Alexandria ceased to be the greatest city of the world.
Actually, scholarly opinion is divided, so don't take it as established fact. The available evidence is ambiguous and rarely first-hand or unbiased, so it's likely to remain controversial.
The fire set by Caesar's troops among the Egyptian navy vessels spread onshore, but only into the port of Alexandria. Many thousands of "books" were burned in the port as a result, but most of them were commercial ledgers and suchlike. The Great Library was not in the port, and likely was relatively unscathed by this fire.
A better case can be made that the Library was destroyed during Emperor Aurelian's conflict with Queen Zenobia, which actually did devastate the requisite part of the city. Of course, being a repository of flammable materials (papyri) with lighting by candles and oil lamps, occasional fires at the Library probably reduced their holdings from time to time.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire