Hi, I am guessing allot of you have already heard of this thing, but I just found about it while I was listening to a philosophy audio-book. Its called The Analytical Engine, and basically what it is is the first real fully functional computer. It was designed, though never built, by Charles Babbage around the year 1837. When I heard of it I thought to make a thread because I know there are a good number of computer buffs on the forums who may be interested in it/be able to explain it a bit better then I can. Here is a pic of a model.



I'm not 100% on how it was supposed to work, but I know that through a system of 3 punch cards it would have been capable of doing any math problem imaginable. It was to be powered by steam and would have weighed tons.

For more on The Analytical Engine, check this page out http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/contents.html they even have a java emulator, though I am lost as to how it really works.

Another thing Charles Babbage made, before the analytical engine, was The Difference engine.

The first one was Difference engine one. Babbage began work on engine one with money on loan from British Parliament, but after spending more then the cost of about 12 locomotives, not to mention difficulty machining the thousands and thousands of parts needed, Engine one was scrapped. He then went on to design the Analytical engine, and also Difference Engine 2. Engine 2 was a "more efficient" design, but was still never completed in his life time.

A few years back a rich man had one built. Here is a video.


Lastly, before any of these was an adding and subtraction machine built by Blaise Pascal. While it was by todays standards a simple machine, this was, as far as I know, the first of its sort. It was called La Pascaline and a simulator and more info about it can be found here. (It is in French, so I can't read it, or else I would know a bit more.)

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/therese....aline.htm#haut

Anyways, just thought that was some cool shiz.

lol, the lag would be defendant on the amount of steam power, or how fast you turn the crank :P

But yes, like seanmarq said, without that there would be no toribash. If you look into it a bit more you see that many of even the more modern computers were in large part based on similar ideas, inspired by these engines.

What?

No, a computer is really nothing more than an device that does math. If you want to get technichal you could say that ancient Chinese abacus' were computers.

The engines were not mere curiosity. These were huge, government funded projects, started to streamline buisnes and remove human error from the figuring of very complex mathematics (a function that makes up a bulk of all business computer application today). If I run my computer on a hand pump, it is still a computer. What makes these plans for builds so incredible is that they were dreamt up, in completely working blueprints years before any sort of modern computer came about. It was genius.

Im unclear on what you are arguing here man, are you saying that this isnt a precursor to modern day computers? If so, I am sorry but you're wrong. In fact it is safe to say that this very idea WAS in fact used as a concrete model for computer systems in recent times.

Which brings me back to when you said it was false that the analytical engine would have been capable of doing any math problem. How do you figure? While I don't know the fine inner workings of the machine, this does not seem like an impossible concept at all. Though the mode of delivery would be different, it sounds completely feasible to me.