Progress Continues On Recreating the Babbage Programmable Computer

Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: A project to create a working example of [english mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage's] original "steampunk computer," referred to by Babbage as the "Analytical Engine 30," is continuing. The update comes via a "Spring 2021 report" to the Computer Conservation Society.

The main news is that a new series of plans, dating from about 1857 have been found and are being examined for incorporation into the final design. "One remarkable feature is the extension of the Store to 1000 registers, and most intriguingly various methods of mechanically addressing the store contents," reads the update. This would compare well with electronic processor design... not that anyone is expecting this machine, when built, to be blisteringly fast.

Could a steam-powered Analytical Engine support backup DNS services in a post-apocalyptic world? Is this Cloudflare's ultimate plan?

AnalyticalX.

[Ostracus]

3D print a Babbage Engine.

Re:Or just create it in CAD.

[RockDoctor]

It's not "baffling" "them". The problem is that the original designer (Babbage) produced around 30 sets of plans, of varying degrees of completeness, of different components, with differing interfaces and capabilities, over a period of several decades, and left inconsistent and incomplete notes accompanying some of them.

The problem is primarily that of working out what his actual design was, given that some important elements changed between plans. For example, the "Store" I mentioned in TFS of 1000 "registers", which would have been one bit wide, in modern parlance.

Did you see the story a week or so back about the Antikithera Mechanism - which presents rather the inverse problem - we've got some the hardware for that, but are still trying to work out it's intended function. (Yes, there is a leading hypothesis, but there are other interpretations of the evidence.) I would link to the story, but the search function has gone from the site for some reason.

The Chinese can't eat "our" lunch since there is no "our" which doesn't include the Chinese. Indians likewise.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

I thought the store was 1000 registers of really wide decimal numbers (many tens of digits).

Also regarding your signature, you might as well write: mammals are not fish descendants;mammals are fish, for all useful meanings of "mammals", "are" and "fish". And yet I would not be happy if the chippie gave me battered sausage when I asked for fish.

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[RockDoctor]

I'm not sure what definition of "register" Babbage was using at that time. Which is the sort of problem that this decade-long searching of the many generations of plans is really all about. Probably Babbage knew what he was thinking about at any one time (or thought he did), but what he wrote down changed over time, and it's not clear when the contents of his mind changed without the data being synced to ink-on-paper storage.

I agree with you about mammals being bony fish (well, we're not sharks after all -

Re:

[azcoyote]

Also regarding your signature, you might as well write: mammals are not fish descendants;mammals are fish, for all useful meanings of "mammals", "are" and "fish". And yet I would not be happy if the chippie gave me battered sausage when I asked for fish.

lol.

The horror

[Areyoukiddingme]

...Charles Babbage's] original "steampunk computer," referred to by Babbage as the "Analytical Engine 30"...

Oh my god someone from Mozilla went back in time and perpetrated their versioning system on Charles Babbage! The horror!

Re:

[RockDoctor]

Nope. Babbage travelled forward in time and implemented his versioning system from his Dark Lair under Mozilla Towers.

It's the parsimonious solution - it requires no new physics (but plenty of interesting chemistry to defrost his brain intact).

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[ZiggyZiggyZig]

Well if Mozilla and Charles Babbage are working hand in hand for the future of technology, I can't wait to see Firefox running on this device!

Re:

[RockDoctor]

(mutter mutter) Beowulf cluster (mumble mumble)

Re:

[azcoyote]

Haha. Only if later iterations of Babbage's machine get worse and worse, eventually losing anything that made them worthwhile and unique. Perhaps Analytical Engine 57 became nothing more than a glorified egg timer?