Work Underway To Finally Build Babbage's Analytical Engine 86
mikejuk writes "Last year John Graham-Cumming launched a project to create a fully-functional implementation of Babbage's original design for a computer — the Analytical Engine. Now it looks as if the project is going ahead. The first phase is to digitize all of Babbage's papers and designs. These will be available to the general public in 2012. The machine to be built is no simple calculator: it is a full computer with a store for between 100 and 1000 values, each of 40 digits, and it was programmed using punched cards in a modern 'operator/address' format. There was even a plan to send the output to a printer. When this device is built it will make it clear that the computer age nearly began in the 18th century."
Watch out (Score:1, Funny)
It will probably turn out that apple or someone have a patent on a part of it and get it banned...
Re:19th Century? (Score:4, Funny)
The 1800s are the 19th century, how did this not get edited?
The same reason stuff like this [slashdot.org] gets posted.
I didn't care before, but I'm starting to dislike this timothy fellow now.