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Real Steampunk Computer Brought Back To Life
New submitter engineerguy writes We discovered a 100 year old 19th century computer that does Fourier analysis with just gears spring and levers. It was locked in a glass case at the University of Illinois Department of Mathematics. We rebuilt a small part of the machine and then for two years thoroughly photographed and filmed every part part of the machine and its operation. The results of this labor of love are in the video series (short documentary), which is 22 minutes long and contains stunning footage of the machine in action — including detailed descriptions of how it operates. The photos are collected in a free book (PDF). The computer was designed by Albert Michelson, who was famous for the Michelson-Morley experiment; he was also the first American to win a Nobel Prize in physics.
1914 is not the 19th century. I imagine this person still uses 'turn of the century' to refer to the 1900s, too. In a similar vein, an actual 19th century computer, there is Babage's Difference Engine (tighter shots here) which is very impressive to watch as well.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
Now OpenBSD if going to need to buy more old hardware to support builds...
I will watch the whole thing. He has a great presentation persona and all of his other videos are well worth watching as well. engineerguy is borderline the old show connections. If they were to remake that show they could do worse than use him.
A hundred-year-old computer would be a twentieth century computer. Just FYI.
We know. It was on Hacker News days ago.
When the guy publishes the videos of how to use it for Fourier analysis, that will be interesting. It's obvious how synthesis works, but not how the reverse operation works.
No steam, no punk.
Rather 'clockwork spectral analyser'
Don't repeat yourself.
"Computer", actually, has the meaning: "Machine that performs computations". In that sense, this contraption truly is a computer. It probably only has a memory size of only a few bytes, in modern terms, and can only do a few FLopS also. Yet, it is a computer, in all senses of the word.
Funny. I always thought of Michelson as of one of the two guys involved in the "failed" mirror experiments that allowed A. Einstein to come up with the theory of Special Relativity. Not so, it turns out now: the guy was an accomplished engineer. How great.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
| Like when Jesus was resurrected way back in the 19th century, or when the Chinese erected the Great Wall for fend off the Mongols, way back in the 19th century.
face palm
There are times when I do things that I think are pretty smart, and then I see something like this and am humbled. It staggers the imagination to envisage how this Albert fellow was able to design this incredible machine. It's marvellous to watch, and beautiful in its operation. This is how Fourier analysis should be taught! Nothing has brought it more alive for me than watching this documentary. I desperately want one; I don't think I've ever seen a machine more beautiful.
Wow, that was an amazing set of videos. Particularly how the machine can do decomposition. What a brilliant man who designed this machine.
All analog computers fascinate me. Apparently analog computers implemented fire control on navy ships for many years, compensating for the speed, direction, and roll of the ship in order to aim guns. The accuracy of such a system was impressive, and they were used up until the 1980s on some older ships. Digital systems simply couldn't get the accuracy for many years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Slide rules are very cool as well. I want to learn how to use one.
Is it just me or does Albert Michelson look the spitting image of Bill Murray?
Go to 1.20 of the first video to see his picture...
But does it run linux?
I learn new things the hard way.
Step 1.) Put a motor on the crank. Step 2.) Read the output into your computer with an optical mouse in place of the pen. Step 3.) Figure out a way to automate programming of the input. Step 4.) Sell it as a coprocessor! Step 5.) Profit!
It is pretty damn cool.
And anything "steampunk" is the other thing....
Now the audiophiles who stick to analog everything can get up with the times with compressed music.
Michelson designed the machine to run on luminiferous aether.
20th century, "gears," springs, part part.
Aside from that the writing is awkward and bad and I don't like it.
When Michelson attempted to create a square wave from Fourier series (on the gear machine prototype), he discovered what became known as Gibbs's phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbs_phenomenon. He mentioned the bug to Gibbs, who "discovered" it.
He was a master engineer and builder, improving many optical measurements. For example, measuring the meter by comparing the length of the metal bars to wavelength of light by counting lots of fringes. The Fourier analysis computer was made to calculate the spectra of gas emission lines from interferometer data. Yes, he was doing Fourier transform spectroscopy.
His book, Studies in Optics, was republished by Dover.
Although I don't think he had success due to the limits of engineering tech in the mid nineteenth century, I always thought Charles Babbage was considered the father of the computer, aka his analytical engine. Are there not blueprints to his failed machine available that can be worked on? BTW Bruce Sterling and William Gibson co-wrote a pretty interesting novel of how the world would could be circa late nineteenth century if the analytical engine had been successfuly built. Addiontally wasn't countess Ada Lovelace, a genius female mathematician of the same period the "father" or more realistically the mother of the 1st programming? Kudos still go to Alan Turings genius but we should give credit were due.