He invented the computer. Yet when he died only three people went to his funeral.

Superrad: I'd bet that some nerd will build it out of Legos cheaper and faster.

Yes but because it is going to be made in England it will be hand made from brass. Real brass.

Superrad: FTFA: Researchers in Britain are about to embark on a 10-year, multimillion-dollar project to build a computer...

I'd bet that some nerd will build it out of Legos cheaper and faster.

I built a Pascaline out of LEGOs. Does that count?

vossiewulf: "Did an eccentric mathematician named Charles Babbage conceive of the first programmable computer in the 1830s, a hundred years before the idea was put forth in its modern form by Alan Turing?"

This really totally ignores the naval ballistics/fire control computers/directors created for battleships which had become extremely sophisticated by 1918. These were capable of real time input of multiple variables (data from range finders plus own ship course, own ship speed, target ship course, speed, and bearing, various atmospheric corrections. cross roll, wear on individual guns), averaging the rangefinder data and plotting it, then using that plot with the correction variables to extrapolate aim points for the weapons (angle and elevation) and transmitting those aiming points in real time to the turrets to the aimers in the turret so they just had to follow pointers to be on target. By 1918 battle ranges were up to 20k yards, time of flight of rounds in excess of 30 seconds, so serious math was involved in where you aim the weapons to have the rounds land where the enemy ship is going to be 30 seconds from now, especially when both firing platform and target were moving in different directions at 20kts +.

Dreyer Fire Control Table at the Dreadnought Project

The problem with using that is that it's not a general purpose machine. It's built to solve a particular problem. You can change the inputs, but you can't "reprogram" it like you could with a difference engine.

Flint Ironstag: He invented the computer. Yet when he died only three people went to his funeral.

So, basically a typical nerd.

/One of them myself.

Stormneedle: This is relevant to my interests.

Mine too. I love mechanical computing. I carry a slide rule instead of a calculator. I built an analog calculating machine out of LEGOs that can be used to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

/Programmer-analyst by trade.

meh: 150-100 B.C. (new window)

wjllope: meh: 150-100 B.C. (new window)

That's another special purpose machine, and one actually more limited than the Dreyer table mentioned above: You can't even change the inputs.

The physics/mechanics of this are so simple that it could be 100% accurately modeled by computer. It is a waste of money to perform the experiments with real materials ... build the final unit when you perfect the model.

/also, solving this mystery by computer model would be very meta

wjllope: meh: 150-100 B.C. (new window)

While that's an amazing find, it's hardly a programmable computer -- it's more like an early mechanical clock.

dittybopper: The problem with using that is that it's not a general purpose machine. It's built to solve a particular problem. You can change the inputs, but you can't "reprogram" it like you could with a difference engine

It reaches the point of getting vague though. I mean you could argue that the fire control table could be reprogrammed via the physical changing of gears and parts. What matters is if the concept behind it can produce any kind of computer desired. Like if Dreyer had some mathematical model you could go to. Say "Oh I want to make it do this, I can figure out how to build the physical device via this model."

Basically reprogramming it in the absence of electronic media/memory for a coding language. Instead of flipping bits on a board, you move around physical module. So building it is programming it.

dittybopper: wjllope: meh: 150-100 B.C. (new window)

That's another special purpose machine, and one actually more limited than the Dreyer table mentioned above: You can't even change the inputs.

yeah... but still....

just don't bring up the Apraphulian Computer (logic via rope knots). Was actually an april fool's joke (hence the name) although it did appear in SciAm (i remember reading it) and also I think the base logic operations (new window) make sense...

cheers

Farking Canuck: The physics/mechanics of this are so simple that it could be 100% accurately modeled by computer. It is a waste of money to perform the experiments with real materials ... build the final unit when you perfect the model.

/also, solving this mystery by computer model would be very meta

Yeah, but building it by computer, then manufacturing it, won't give you an accurate idea of the roadblocks and problems they'd have faced building it. I mean, I can just *MOLD* an arrowhead out of glass, but I won't know what it takes to make it like an original. That takes whacking flint or obsidian with a rock, an antler, and then pressure flaking it.

If only there were some sort of machine that could be fed data points about Babbage's design, process them, and then simulate the results of various scenarios where those parts of his design work together. "Compute" them, if you will.

Marine1: If only there were some sort of machine that could be fed data points about Babbage's design, process them, and then simulate the results of various scenarios where those parts of his design work together. "Compute" them, if you will.

Abacus?

wjllope: Marine1: If only there were some sort of machine that could be fed data points about Babbage's design, process them, and then simulate the results of various scenarios where those parts of his design work together. "Compute" them, if you will.

Abacus?

Eh, no... I was thinking something more along the lines of a slide ruler.

Lego version of the Antikythera mechanism (new window)

apparently the lego version correctly predicts the solar eclipse 2024 8 April 1630hrs GMT...

I bet the same jerk will try to steampunk the shiat out of it!

Great, Now apple will sue his descendants...

azmoviez: Man I hated buying video games there. They never had any selection. Granted you could take games back, but that store just was weird.

/probably not related

Not unless your games look like this.


/gears of war, steam punk edition.

ha-ha-guy: dittybopper: The problem with using that is that it's not a general purpose machine. It's built to solve a particular problem. You can change the inputs, but you can't "reprogram" it like you could with a difference engine

It reaches the point of getting vague though. I mean you could argue that the fire control table could be reprogrammed via the physical changing of gears and parts. What matters is if the concept behind it can produce any kind of computer desired. Like if Dreyer had some mathematical model you could go to. Say "Oh I want to make it do this, I can figure out how to build the physical device via this model."

Basically reprogramming it in the absence of electronic media/memory for a coding language. Instead of flipping bits on a board, you move around physical module. So building it is programming it.


Alan Turing had all this figured out before any of the modern way of flipping bits on transistors, mathematically you can see if a machine is turing-complete, and so you can know if it can pass for a computer.

Farking Canuck: The physics/mechanics of this are so simple that it could be 100% accurately modeled by computer. It is a waste of money to perform the experiments with real materials ... build the final unit when you perfect the model.

/also, solving this mystery by computer model would be very meta

Indeed, as I said, can't they just check if the machine is turing-complete?, is a little embarrassing but I work with computers all day and I'm not sure I got the turing-complete concept thing right.

This headline reminds me of how much I miss Babbage's.

No love for Jacquard?

Farking Canuck: The physics/mechanics of this are so simple that it could be 100% accurately modeled by computer. It is a waste of money to perform the experiments with real materials ... build the final unit when you perfect the model.

/also, solving this mystery by computer model would be very meta

It reads like they are going to do that. There are no blues for this machine... well completed blueprints. There are several revisions and none are complete. They are going to take some time to hash out which version to start from, rework them in 3d, if works goto full scale.

42

How is Babbage Analytical Engine formed?

I thought they already built a functional babbage machine, in spite of babbage about 3-5 years ago? They even ran the code that chick made up for it and everything?

Farking Canuck: The physics/mechanics of this are so simple that it could be 100% accurately modeled by computer. It is a waste of money to perform the experiments with real materials ... build the final unit when you perfect the model.


Not really, no. For one thing, there's no single complete set of plans -- Babbage was continually evolving the design and never documented a final blueprint, so the first job is to arrive at an acceptable guess at what he intended.

Even then, you have to figure out whether the plans that do exist are correct. In the process of recreating the Difference Engine the builders discovered one mechanism that appeared to be reversed. It took them a lot of head-scratching to finally convince themselves that Babbage really had made a mistake, and more agonizing to convince themselves that it was a mistake that Babbage would have caught.

Once you get past those challenges and actually know with reasonable confidence what you plan to build, only then do you get to the question of whether the engine actually implements the task it is designed to do. This part you probably could easily simulate, although even then you have to be careful about timing since it's a mechanical device. When they recreated the Difference Engine, the first time they tried to set up a calculation they discovered a bug in the setup procedure that Babbage had defined but never been in a position to try himself (or he would certainly have caught it) that required a last minute mechanical modification.

Then you have the question of whether it could be built: can you make gears and other pieces to the necessary precision and with the necessary strength in the required quantities using only resources available to a Victorian engineer? The tolerances on the components have to be tight enough that it works accurately, but not so tight that it binds.

Even IF you get past all of that, there is still the question of whether the mechanics will work without stripping teeth, shearing levers, cracking welds, or warping gearwheels. Or the machine may simply lock up completely because of binding in the mechanisms. When each part is crafted by hand from raw materials that themselves may be of inconsistent quality, you can't just model it.

So no, I doubt very much you could model this thing 100% before actually building it.

/The Difference Engine by Doron Swade is a good read
//Growing up in a digital world, it's easy to underestimate how hard physical engineering is

How in the hell would this be a a 10-year, multimillion-dollar project? We have machines that can stamp out most the parts nowadays.

ha-ha-guy: dittybopper: The problem with using that is that it's not a general purpose machine. It's built to solve a particular problem. You can change the inputs, but you can't "reprogram" it like you could with a difference engine

It reaches the point of getting vague though. I mean you could argue that the fire control table could be reprogrammed via the physical changing of gears and parts. What matters is if the concept behind it can produce any kind of computer desired. Like if Dreyer had some mathematical model you could go to. Say "Oh I want to make it do this, I can figure out how to build the physical device via this model."

Basically reprogramming it in the absence of electronic media/memory for a coding language. Instead of flipping bits on a board, you move around physical module. So building it is programming it.

Under that definition, wouldn't any physical machine become a "computer?" I mean, you can swap gears and have a clock output half seconds instead of seconds, that doesn't really mean you reprogrammed the clock - it means you built a different clock.

Cerebral Knievel: I thought they already built a functional babbage machine, in spite of babbage about 3-5 years ago? They even ran the code that chick made up for it and everything?

IIRC, those were the Difference Engine, not the Analytical Engine.

What is 6 x 9?

Flint Ironstag: He invented the computer. Yet when he died only three people went to his funeral.

No that was Mozart, and he invented the player piano

I remember when you could return computer games to Babbages as long as you said "I didn't have enough memory" or '"my video card isn't compatible". They were the first gamefly and I made weekly rentals. One day I was scolded that my clouds of xeen map looked a bit too well used and I shouldn't wait a month to return a game that didn't work.... but they still let me trade it in.

Better Video (new window) of the Difference Engine here

I thought the Antikythera mechanism was already determined the winner: