Computing by Steam

[@geoablesd188]

I laughed out loud in awe when those numbers came up. Great work! So privileged to live in an age when the mind of human genius can be visualised on youtube, anywhere in the globe on a modern computer, computers which follow on from the thinking of this mechanical beast! Top work team.

[@promisedmillennium]

well said.

[@stephenwing8247]

You're right, it had to be steam driven. It must have been amazing when the right answers clanked out the first time.

[@SirMikeyD]

There ought to be at least one comment for those of us who are left too dumbstruck by this greatness to comment - so please, allow me to leave this small placeholder on behalf of all of us!

[@emilianocaprili4160]

One day I will see a full scale Analytical Engine at work.

[@paulwomack5866]

It's possible. In the meantime: www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/emulator.html

[@KnolltopFarms]

Well, is it the height of folly to believe you understand how the space shuttle operates, and then realize you can hardly fathom this contraption? Humbling, and also heart-warming to know just how deep humankind's creativity fathoms!

[@gary.solexa]

Wow. That is really something. And it's great to see a 'model' steam engine doing real work.

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

When the teacher says no electronics in the class room.

[@amazingdecks1]

At 1:22 my old mind recalled the happy days when, along with many other rugby songs, we'd sing An Engineer Told Me Before He Died. Today, we design and manufacture with CADCAM. Back then, it was pencil, paper and a fantastic mind.

[@alexplummer]

Well done Dad! x

[@gort59]

Wow,a truly fitting homage to a great man!

[@tahahamzaoui5103]

this is mezmerizing, i can get the feel of a Thinking Machine.

[@lordfabri]

Truly Amazing

[@rjordans]

A great creation, well done!

[@austinfernando8406]

this is wonderful

[@SteamandThings]

A wonderful project. I am involved in organising a show in London where we are trying to tell the story of steam and its applications - the more bizarre the better (we had WW2 steam powered spy radios this year for example), and wonder if you'd be interested in bringing this along to demonstrate next year as part of the display?

[@PRmoustache88]

How much coal and water does it take per FLOP? ;)

[@ga1actic_muffin]

Does this have a Skyrim port yet?

[@wahoobear6588]

very beautiful machine.

[@themalaysiandude3903]

is this the new steam deck

[@youjuhwan9697]

True StimPunk!!

[@SirLiamTheGreat]

But does it run Doom

[@tadeorenearguelloecheverri6285]

The city must survive.

[@christernilsson1]

How big would the error propagation be, using floating point to calculate logarithms? After how many iterations would the machine had to be recalibrated?

[@paulwomack5866]

As I understand it, the machine itself uses integers, hence errors do not arise from the operation of the machine. If the user chooses to interpret the integers as fixed point numbers, that is the choice of the user.

[@christernilsson1]

Paul Womack, if you start with rounded numbers, there will be errors and they will propagate fast.

[@piotrmalewski8178]

Imagine overclocking it too much... The computer would literally explode killing everyone in the room!

[@AnnieP1]

Amazing!!!

[@disciplinenepal5081]

Good

[@spacefentionz]

but can it run Crysis 2

[@xizhao7367]

I think the answer is yes. First you need to expand this machine to a larger scale (maybe much much larger) to contain the Crysis 2 program, and you should have a good way to encode the program with those numbers(and actually it is not difficult), also you need to equip this machine with a monitor that can decode the numbers to images. Theoretically this type of machine should have the same computational ability (not efficiency) to modern computers as far as they are big enough because they are both realizations of Turing machine, though modern computers are made of digital circuits and this machine is made of gears.

[@tahahamzaoui5103]

@@xizhao7367 Not true, this machine is not turing complete, it only computes polynomials and roots i believe, no branching or loops for example. but Babbage had designed the analytical engine already by that time, juste after he finished designing the difference engine 2. The analytical engine is turing complete in theory, it had some 1kb of memory, registers, a logical unit...

[@diegoapto701]

try to distribute a "3d virtual machine" for students all world can use it. call 3d modeler to make this.