More than the title of a prototypical steampunk novel, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine remains a marvel. Designed by Babbage in the mid-1800s but never built in his lifetime, the engine was the world's first computing machine. This mammoth and ingenious undertaking -- first built in 2002, more than 150 years after being designed -- is 11 feet long, five tons and 8,000 parts of steam-era computing power.
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. will exhibit the piece through May 2009. More details including a jaw-dropping video can be found here.
More detailed and interesting coverage can be found from the folks at io9 here and here.
Here's another video:
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1 comments:
You know Mountain View is not far from here--could be a short road trip on your visit out this way.
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