Plans to build Babbage's Analytical Engine
#1

Hi all!

This might seems a bit OT, but it really sounds interesting, at least for me!

Please check out Plan28 for the plans to actually build the ideas of Charles Babbage, who had the idea of a "steam engine driven calculator/computer", dating back to 1837! This was the machine that Lady Ada started to write "programs" for, and she will for ever be remembered by the programming language Ada. But she never got the opportunity to "execute" them on a working machine ...

The Difference Engine has previously been build and proven, but never the Analytical Engine, and this might be an oppertunity to see it happen.

I have already made my pledge ... :)

Best regards!

#2

The closest I ever got to anything like that was programming the Mechanical Differential Analyzer at UCLA in 1960-61. Huge thing, about 6-7 feet wide and 40 feet long. Multiply was by gear ratio, add-substract were geared differentials, integration by a little wheel rolling on a larger disk. Not all that similar to Babbage's analytical engine, but it stimulated memories. We solved dif eqs with it.

Ed



Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  WP 34S New Build with older GCC Marcus von Cube, Germany 4 1,793 06-22-2013, 05:12 PM
Last Post: Marcus von Cube, Germany
  HP-15C Simulator / Release 3.2.00, Build 5319 Torsten 10 2,783 05-11-2013, 05:19 PM
Last Post: Thomas Klemm
  Debug4X and "divide by zero" when attempting build Joe Veazey 3 1,367 11-25-2012, 08:45 PM
Last Post: Han
  they build their calculators like they build their words db (martinez, ca.) 22 5,011 10-30-2012, 05:57 AM
Last Post: Frank Boehm (Germany)
  [WP34s] Build error on linux 64bit Nobby K. 9 2,546 04-08-2012, 02:11 PM
Last Post: pascal_meheut
  WP34s V3 - Build Number recommended? Thomas Chrapkiewicz 27 6,382 01-28-2012, 01:22 PM
Last Post: Marcus von Cube, Germany
  WP34s build compiler David Griffith 19 4,251 01-06-2012, 08:49 AM
Last Post: Marcus von Cube, Germany
  Matrix functions on the WP 34s Build 1685: in a word "incredible" Gene Wright 78 15,095 10-06-2011, 09:16 AM
Last Post: Crawl
  WP34s: new build with Matrix functions? fhub 2 1,017 10-03-2011, 01:02 PM
Last Post: fhub
  WP-34S build problems on Linux Eric Smith 5 1,761 10-03-2011, 01:27 AM
Last Post: Marcus von Cube, Germany

Forum Jump: