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Researchers in Britain are about to embark on a 10-year, multimillion-dollar project to build a computer — but their goal is neither dazzling analytical power nor lightning
Indeed, if they succeed, their machine will have only a tiny fraction of the computing power of today’s microprocessors. It will rely not on software and silicon but on metal gears and a primitive version of the quaint old I.B.M. punch card.
Computer Experts Building 1830s Babbage Analytical Engine
Seeded on Tue Nov 8, 2011 3:55 PM EST
Article Source: The New York Times
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Lovelace is known as the first programmer, because she designed a program for the unbuilt machine. The algorithm appears in a series of notes written by Lovelace after a friend of Babbage asked her to translate an Italian professor’s write-up of a lecture Babbage had given at the University of Turin.
The Lovelace notes are remarkable both for her algorithm for calculating the sequence known as Bernoulli numbers and for what would become known as the “Lovelace objection.”
- 2 votes
#1 - Tue Nov 8, 2011 3:57 PM ESTI suppose this isn't strictly "Steampunk"-- but since its related I clipped it to the NV group Steampunk!
- 2 votes
#3 - Tue Nov 8, 2011 4:01 PM ESTI'd say it serves as the basis for some of steampunk.
The Difference Engine was one of the very best Steampunk novels
- 2 votes
That looks like a really interesting novel-- I may get it and read it.
- 2 votes
It was my introduction to the genre and it doesn't hurt that it was written by Gibson and Sterling, two of my favorite authors.
- 1 vote
Great stuff Krishna. Really enjoying it.
Well-- I had to do something to try to escape from some of the more absurd NV political discussions! (I still go back to them occasionally-- but now there are more things we can escape to..! :)
- 1 vote
#5 - Tue Nov 8, 2011 11:53 PM ESTSeems kinda like a waste of time but ... OK ...
There are plenty of already built examples of mechanical technology that are unbelievably awesome.
http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/historyOfComputers.htm
Such as the Curta handheld mechanical calculator... you can operate it with one hand.
http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm http://www.vcalc.net/images2/Master20s-860x562.jpg
In 1623 Wilhelm Schickard built the first mechanical calculator... yeah, yeah ... not programmable but 1623... over 200 years earlier.
- 1 vote
#8 - Wed Nov 9, 2011 6:33 PM ESTSeems kinda like a waste of time but ... OK ...
Well-- it is interesting!
And probably most people here didn't know about that.
- 1 vote
#9 - Wed Nov 9, 2011 9:15 PM ESTWell-- it is interesting!
True enough... didn't mean to imply the article was a waste of time.
- 1 vote
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