See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid



Message

outlier -> See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/10/2009 6:18:08 PM)

NPR Story:  Babbage 'Difference Engine'  

The accuracy of tables of calculations was as critical for the
Victorians as it is for satellites.  Only then it could take days
to run the calculations.  This so frustrated Charles Babbage
that he designed a machine in the mid-1800s.  But it was not
built until over 150 years later.

Using 20 design drawings left by Babbage a team built 2 of them
using only materials that would have been avaliable to Babbage.  
It took 17 years.  

One is in England and one is now on display in the Computer History
Museum in Mountian View, Calif. through 2010.

The machine is steel, cast iron, and bronze. There are 8000 parts.
and it weighs over 5 tons.  It is 7 feet high and 11 feet long,
including the attached printer.

It is limited to calculations of 31 digits long.  But, when printing
the results the machine can set the number of columns on a page,
the number of rows, and the spacing.  And it can print in two different fonts.

The story also talks about the woman who helped Babbage, Ada
Lovelace, daughter of poet Lord Byron.  She was the one who saw
the larger possibilities because numbers could also be used to
represent things besides numbers; letters, notes, chess pieces...etc.

Here is the link to the story, a photo slide show, and you can listen to
the 5 min. radio story.

NPR story:  Babbage 'Difference Engine'



Termyn8or -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/10/2009 10:00:29 PM)

Yeah but does the thing support Linux MCE ?

Seriously though I have a book around here (("somewhere")) which I found fascinating about old computers. This here example is neat, and think of the work that went into it. Anyone into machining here enough to take a stab at how much it would cost to reproduce today using modern CNC and all that ?

T



outlier -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/10/2009 10:15:13 PM)

Termyn8or,

The article says they used the materials that were avaliable.
It does not say they used the same tools and methods.

I suspect it was done on CNC machines, especially the
repetitive parts.  Look through the slide show at the close
ups of the parts and you will see a very high level of finish.

I think the reason it took so long was not that the time was
spent on hand labor, but the other stuff inherent in this sort
of enterprise.  Work space, logistics, machine time, fund
raising, etc.  That is my speculation.

I have sent the link to a friend of mine who is an experienced
machinist. I will post his reaction.

Outlier





Termyn8or -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/10/2009 10:50:26 PM)

Agreed, but I have a question.

By "Work space, logistics, machine time, fund raising, etc.  " do you mean now or back then ?

I believe this was before Leland (I think) pioneered interchangability.

I may have just discovered a deficiency in myself. As fascinated as I have been and am with old machines, I am not really familiar with the machines that made the machines in the past. If my Father and Grandfather knew they would be roling over in their graves, they were both among the more skilled of machinists, each in their own time. Details on request.

I mean what were they cutting with ? What was the power source ? I mean for any given era. I know some things, but not enough.

Thanks all for the curiousity, I won't get bored. I hope I don't have to go out and kill a cat now. LOL

T



outlier -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/10/2009 11:18:47 PM)

Babbage could never get it built.

The article said it took 17 years to
build the two modern ones.  Which are
the only ones ever built.  The delays in
my post had to do with the time to get
these two built. 

Did you notice that the one in Calif. is only
going to be on display until the end of 2010?
Then it goes to a private collector.

I will make another guess and say that the "collector"
who gets it after that helped finance the whole thing.
Further guess, part of the delay was finding that collector.

Outlier



LadyEllen -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/10/2009 11:48:33 PM)

as reported on BBC's "QI"

- there were two reasons Babbage couldnt build it, though he knew it would work;
1) absence of the right materials (if only he'd had Meccano.....)
2) he ran out of money
- because he couldnt build it but didnt want someone stealing it, he produced plans with deliberate mistakes in them so any machine built from them wouldnt work
- Babbage was apparently a forerunner of the modern nerd. Upon reading a poem "every moment a man dies, every moment a man is born" (or some such to that effect) he wrote to the poet to correct him "your poem is quite in error. I suggest that you correct it to read every moment a man dies, every moment 1.1245 men are born" (or some such)

E



Termyn8or -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/11/2009 6:47:25 AM)

I guess Babbage didn't want to grant him a poetic license. LOL

Typical nerd. Mmmmmmmm, better not say it........... fukit.

I wonder if that figure was gender selective.

T



thornhappy -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/11/2009 2:14:10 PM)

Once upon a time I heard that it couldn't work in Babbage's time due to machining tolerances of the time.

as a side note, Lady Ada had a programming language named after her, which is used in a lot of aerospace/defense systems (Ada). 



Hierodule -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/11/2009 2:27:01 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: outlier
NPR Story:  Babbage 'Difference Engine'  


A Steam Punk's wet dream!



Termyn8or -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/13/2009 3:57:41 AM)

A steam punk ?

If you're talking about what I think you are, I happen to have a couple of years worth of a magazine called Live Steam. All kinds of home brew steam engines built by hobbyists, retired machinists etc. If you'd like to intercept them on the way to the garage sale let me know.

T



LanceHughes -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/13/2009 9:05:12 AM)

Termyn8or: wiki the term steampunk for complete definition.  Maybe your mags can be sold on eBay.

outlier:  Thanks for posting this

ALL: Gee, guess who the "private" collector might be?  Located in Washington state....... Can you say "Bill Gates"?



Moonhead -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/13/2009 10:03:41 AM)

At the risk of sounding nerdy, wasn't Babbage's big deal an analytical engine he didn't build, rather than the cruder difference engine, which he also didn't build?



outlier -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/13/2009 11:05:56 AM)

Better Information and A MOVIE of this thing in action.

It is a sumptuous piece of engineering sculpture and an arresting sight in operation.

http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/

This quote about the original cost From the HISTROY section:

"His first machine, Difference Engine No. 1, was designed to automatically calculate and tabulate mathematical functions called polynomials which have powerful general applications in mathematics and engineering. Babbage worked closely with Joseph Clement, a master toolmaker and draftsman who was tasked with making the parts. Difference Engine No. 1 called for 25,000 parts and would have weighed an estimated fifteen tons.

Construction was abruptly halted in 1833 when Clement downed tools and fired his workmen following a dispute with Babbage over compensation for moving Clement's workshop closer to Babbage's house. The Engine was never built. Some 12,000 unused precision parts were later melted down for scrap. For the British Government that had bankrolled the venture, the project was a costly failure. When the final bills were paid the Treasury had spent £17,500 - the cost of twenty-two brand new steam locomotives from Robert Stephenson's factory in 1831 - a formidable sum."

A quote from the draftsman and builder Joseph Clement

"You ordered a first-rate article, and you must be content to pay for it."


quote:

ORIGINAL: Moonhead

At the risk of sounding nerdy, wasn't Babbage's big deal an analytical engine he didn't build, rather than the cruder difference engine, which he also didn't build?


This quote says you are correct.

"The Analytical Engine

In 1834, with the Difference Engine project stalled, Babbage conceived of a new more ambitious machine, later called the Analytical Engine - a general-purpose programmable computing machine. The Analytical Engine was a quantum leap in logical conception and physical size, and its design ranks as one of the startling intellectual achievements of the century.

The Analytical Engine features many essential principles found in the modern digital computer and its conception marks the transition from mechanized arithmetic to fully-fledged general purpose computation. Had the Engine been built, it would have dwarfed even the vast Difference Engine and cranking it by hand would have been beyond the strongest operator. 'Calculating by steam' would have been more than a figure of speech. It is on the Analytical Engine that Babbage's standing as 'the first computer pioneer' largely rests."

Lance: Your guess and mine about the benefactor were wrong.

The benefactor is identified.  It was not Mr.Gates but it was a Microsoft executive.
"Nathan Myhrvold, formerly chief technology officer and Group VP at Microsoft"

I am glad you enjoyed this. Now don't miss the movie.







Hierodule -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/13/2009 12:19:27 PM)

hey guys forget Babbage, I just downloaded the Difference Engine app for iphone (eye roll) [8|]



Hierodule -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/13/2009 12:27:47 PM)

I personally wouldn't be interested but there might be a market for them. I would try ebay and put "steam punk" in the auction description

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

A steam punk ?

If you're talking about what I think you are, I happen to have a couple of years worth of a magazine called Live Steam. All kinds of home brew steam engines built by hobbyists, retired machinists etc. If you'd like to intercept them on the way to the garage sale let me know.

T



Termyn8or -> RE: See the Babbage 'Difference Engine' a 150 year old 5 ton computer. (12/14/2009 10:48:50 PM)

Using FR

Many years ago I was asked to identify a machine.

It had an input shaft that was geared down greatly. This drove a desmodramic(sp?) cam. They worked finger, sort of like valve lifters in a car. They operated these fingers to go down sequentially and they were positioned over a sort of race maybe is the correct word ? I reasoned after some deliberation what it was. It was an artificial heart valve tester. The curve of the cam did not make sense any other way, nor did the apparent accomodations for the tubing.

It was fascinating. (understatement alert)

T



Page: [1]

Valid CSS!




Collarchat.com © 2025
Terms of Service Privacy Policy Spam Policy
1.367188E-02