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Building Babbage's Analytical Engine
An anonymous reader writes "Anybody think 3-D printing technology will have enough moxie to pull off a construction of Babbage's analytical engine by 2021, the 150th anniversary of Babbage's passing? The Guardian reports, 'Plan 28 – named after one set of Babbage's plans – has assembled the leading technical experts on his designs and just started fundraising. The first stage of the project involves studying the thousands of pages of handwritten notes that Babbage left behind, to determine what exactly needs to be built. Once the study is complete, we'll be building a 3D physical computer simulation of the analytical engine to verify that his design is workable. Reaching that stage is likely to cost about £250,000. Only once the feasibility of building the machine has been established will the much larger fundraising effort needed for the actual construction to begin. But what we hope to do is create a working monument to the man who conceived the computer, and to inspire today's scientists and engineers to dream a century into their future.'"
Yes.
Another rebuild that has progressed way further: http://www.meccano.us/analytical_engine/index.html I suspect this will end up a lot cheaper too....
Mitt Romney says the military doesn't have enough Babbage Computing Devices. We gotta catch up to the Bolsheviks!
Table-ized A.I.
plenty of 3D model enthusiasts are making very complex files as a hobby on consumer grade computers, but these "pros" can't seem to be able to replicate a 19th century design without needing hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Babbage would probably have been able to finish it too, for 250000
No one has built this in Minecraft, yet!?
Last great finished work: B minor mass. Big CATHOLIC mass in old rite. Inconceivable to play in his own protestant church. Inconceivable to play in catholic churches any more. At that point of time, inconceivable to play sacred music in secular circumstances. He was dead for longer than he had lived (and he lived to a reasonably long age) when this thing saw its first full performance.
And what a work.
As contrasted to Babbage, he most certainly was aware that the time for his magnum opus was quite not ready.
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.
Will it run Linux?
...in 2041 3D printing will surely be good enough :-)
Can an expert on modern English comment on the summary's use of the word "moxie" as presumably meaning "capable". I have always thought "moxie" to be something only a person could have and mean "strength of character" or similar. Is there a difference in American versus British English?
"There is market for maybe five Babbage machines in the world."
Apologies to Thomas Watson for misusing his quote for a cheap laugh.
I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
If a bunch of very similar parts are required, how about publishing their specs and having individuals machine the parts to specified tolerance and ship them to a central location? If you don't have the machine yourself, it'd be an interesting exercise to contract with somebody who does. Let a thousand packages with little brass widgets bloom! Maybe there would even be space for a vanity engraving on some of the wheels, as is sometimes done with bricks for walkways around churches, stadia, etc. Of course many of the wheels would be right next to eachother, obscuring such vanity; but just knowing it's there would motivate some people.
Steampunk retro mechanical computing stories on Slashdot.
To be more specific: with so many toothed wheels it's not just a problem in recreating logical process flow. What are the allowable tolerances for the thing not to jam? What are the necessary tolerances for the thing to move at all, lubricated or not? Is there even a window of tolerance where the thing can complete its moves without jamming?
-wb-
We'd need a revolution in 3D printing to make printing an Analytical Engine feasible.
A machine like the Analytical Engine puts significant stress on its gears and shafts. The current crop of metal printers use sintering, which does not yield a very strong part. You'd need a printer that can create parts that rival the strength of cast parts.
The first time I ever read anything of Charles Babbage was in reading Godel, Escher, Bach. Is it coincidence that you thought of Bach in connection to this story?
... for the accomplishments of Mr. Babbage, but was he really influential?
While Babbage is rightfully admired for his invention, it really had no legacy. No subsequent computer pioneer was either inspired by him, or further pursued his inventions.
Can anyone provide a quote or other evidence that early computer pioneers drew upon Babbage's invention for their own work?
Well, don't tell any of the few remaining Yiddish speakers, they'll be terribly upset when they find out.
I think this one made with Lego pieces are interesting and maybe cheaper (if you have already the pieces around) http://boingboing.net/2006/02/07/difference-engine-me.html
"The first stage of the project involves studying the thousands of pages of handwritten notes that Babbage left behind, to determine what exactly needs to be built."
I know "starting from the beginning" has its merits, but in this case, that's kind of a weird place to start. Instead, why don't you ask for the notes from the Universities who have already done that, and have already built working portions of his machines?
That should save you -- ahem -- "a little bit" of time.
What you say?