[geeks] Difference Engine at the Computer History Museum

[Phil Stracchino]

Michael Thompson wrote:
>> Courtesy of nathan Myrhvold, a full-scale working model of Charles
>> Babbage's Difference Engine will be on display at the Computer History
>> Museum in Mountain View for six months beginning May 1.  The machine was
>> constructed to special order for Myhrvold by the Science Museum in
>> Kensington, London.
> 
> I visited the Science Museum in London when they build the first one. It 
> was right in the lobby by the main entrance. Even though there was a 
> sign that said not to talk to the builders, I had a nice conversation 
> with them. They were convinced that Babbage could have built the machine 
> if he had access to better machine tools.

Sometimes it's amazing what you can do just given good enough machine 
tools.  Victorian engineers and, heck, Leonardo da Vinci for that matter 
came up with some really advanced ideas, that would have worked if only 
the metallurgy and tooling available at the time had been up to the job.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.