The Greatest Machine Never Built

mikejuk writes "John Graham-Cumming is the leading light behind a project to actually build the analytical engine dreamed of by Charles Babbage. There is a tendency to think that everything that Babbage thought up was little more than a calculating machine, but as the video makes 100% clear the analytical engine was a real computer that could run programs. From the article: 'Of course Ada Lovelace was the first programmer, but more importantly her work with Babbage took the analytical engine from the realms of mathematical table construction into the wider world of non-mathematical programming. Her notes indicate that had the machine been built there is no question that it would have been exploited just as we use silicon-based machines today. To see the machine built and running programs would be the final proof that Babbage really did invent the general purpose computer in the age of the steam engine.'"

I'm not sure it is even a controversy any more

[Kupfernigk]

A lot happened in the first part of the Victorian era in the UK - I am referencing the UK because (a) that's where Babbage was and (b) I know a little of the history. This was a period when blacksmith engineering was rapidly giving way to scientific engineering. In essence, just as now with silicon, engineering techniques were developing fast as a response to new requirements for precision and metallurgy. So "the technology of the time" would itself have been different if the Government of the day had grasped just what it had, and made a real push for it. I would go out on a limb and suggest that if Prince Albert hadn't died when he did, the Analytical Engine would probably have been built. He was a major proponent of technical development and ruffled a lot of Establishment (classically educated) figures, but his Great Exhibition was a huge success. He died in 1861, in his early 40s. Babbage in 1871.

What if...

[AliasMarlowe]

A nice "what if" novel was written by Gibson and Sterling, based on a posited successful adoption of the difference engine [amazon.co.uk] in Victorian times. It's classed as Sci Fi, but is more of a novel set in an alternative history. Definitely worth reading.

Re:erm.. it was built

[Anonymous Coward]

To expand: the Difference Engine is a digital computer, but it's a special purpose one, like a simple calculator, except made out of gears and cogs. It can do certain mathematical calculations which had previously been laborious and error-prone. The government wanted a Difference Engine to make tables for indirect fire with guns, these tables (previously calculated by hand), allow you to hit things far away on the first shot if you know how far away exactly they are. The Difference Engine's promise was fulfilled actually just a few decades or so after it had been conceived, mechanical computers became quite widespread and only died out when the transistor made them uneconomic in the late 20th century.

The Analytical Engine is a general purpose computer. It can work on any computable problem. Nobody ever built anything like that, the first general purpose computers were electronic.

Re:I'm not sure it is even a controversy any more

[MightyMartian]

I think that if the British Navy had had half a clue as to what Babbage's work could produce for them, it would have thrown what was then the most substantial military resources in the world at it, and the computing revolution would have happened in Victorian Britain.

Great idea, probably not happening

[Animats]

It's a great project, but I don't think it's really happening. The guy behind it is into PR, not cutting metal. "The project hopes to have a working machine before the 2030s."

There's a simulator for the Analytical Engine. [fourmilab.ch] It runs in a Java applet, and you can write and run programs. It's not that hard to program. The Analytical Engine is comparable to a low-end programmable calculator, without trig functions.

The machine itself isn't that complicated; just big. It's big because Babbage specified 1000 memory locations of 50 decimal digits each. So you need 50,000 memory wheels. That's all for data; programs are on cards. The "mill" part of the machine is roughly the complexity of a good mechanical desk calculator.

That's actually far too much memory for what the thing can do. Nobody seems to know why 50 digits, either. Babbage had figured out shifting, and understood scale factors, so it's not that he wanted to put the decimal point in some fixed place and work in fixed fractional mode.

If the thing were built with 100 memory locations of 10 digits each (a typical configuration for an 1980s programmable calculator), it would be equally capable, and 1/50th the size. That's enough capacity for navigational tables and astronomy. Built with full memory, it would be the size of a locomotive, and most of the memory would be idle. The extra memory wouldn't make it useful for bookkeeping or business; the I/O isn't there for that.

I wrote in and asked how many part numbers (different parts) the machine has, which gives a sense of how much manufacturing effort is required. There probably aren't that many; all 50,000 memory wheels will be identical, and most of the "mill" is repeats of a 1 digit mechanical adder. I didn't get an answer.

Somebody should model the machine in SolidWorks or Autodesk Inventor. (Or upgrade the mechanism support in Minecraft and let that crowd do it.)

Dear Roman Mir,

[Kupfernigk]

Please go and learn some actual British history, including the history of technology, before posting any more of your Cato Institute bunkum. Were you to do so, you would discover that the early technical lead of the British, due largely to non-university educated Dissenting craftsmen, was lost later in the 19th century because of a failure to make practical use of the theoretical work done in the universities. By the start of WW1, Germany had better explosives, better shells, better rangefinding and aiming equipment, better artillery, and arguably better logistics. "Better navigation and better gun aiming tools" for the British armed forces would have been a bloody good start towards ending WW1 in 1916 when a reasonable peace was still possible.

I think I'll take my chances with Government and taxes versus Libertarians and giant corporations, thank you. I can at least vote for Governments and pay an accountant to ensure I don't pay too much tax. But in your world, where the price of food and oil is set by whoever can buy up all of it and dole it out at will, I don't have a vote.

What about Thomas Fowler? He p0rned Babbaged!

[m1bxd]

Thomas Fowler actually built a calculation machine in wood, presented to the Royal Society in 1840!!!!

http://www.thomasfowler.org.uk/ [thomasfowler.org.uk]

This only fault was not to have the social background that Babbage had...

I quote from the front page of the site dedicated to him:

Fowler writes to Airy:

        "I had the honor in May 1840 to submit the machine to the inspection of many Learned Men in London among whom were the Marquis of Northampton, Mr Babbage, W F Baily and A de Morgan Esq with many other Noblemen and Gentlemen, Fellows of the Royal Society etc and it would have been a great satisfaction to me if I could have had the advantage of your opinion also. They all spoke favourably of my invention but my greatest wish was to have had a thorough investigation of the whole principle of the machine and its details, as far as I could explain them, in a way very different from a popular exhibition:- this investigation I hope it will still have by some first rate men of science before it is be laid aside or adopted.
        I am fully aware of tendency to overrate one's own inventions and to attach undue importance to subjects that preoccupy the mind but I venture to say and hope to be fully appreciated by a Gentleman of your scientific achievements, that I am often astonished at the beautiful aspect of a calculation entirely mechanical.
        I often reflect that had the Ternary instead of the binary Notation been adopted in the Infancy of Society, machines something like the present would long ere this have been common, as the transition from mental to mechanical calculation would have been so very obvious and simple.
        I am very sorry I cannot furnish you with any drawings of the Machine, but I hope I shall be able to exhibit it before the British Association at Devonport in August next, where I venture to hope and believe I may again be favoured with your invaluable assistance to bring it into notice. I have led a very retired life in this town without the advantages of any hints or assistance from any one and I should be lost amidst the crowd of learned and distinguished persons assembled at the meeting without some kind friend to take me by the hand and protect me."

Charles Babbage, Augustus De Morgan, George Airy and many other leading mathematicians of the day witnessed his machine in operation. These names have become beacons in the history of science yet nowhere will you find reference to Thomas Fowler. Airy asked that he produce plans of his machine but Fowler, recalling his experience with the Thermosiphon, refused to publish his design.

The machine was superior in many respects to Babbage's calculating machine, the Difference Engine, generally regarded as the first digital computer. Fowler's machine anticipated the modern computer in its design by using a ternary calculating method. This is in contrast to Babbage's machine which performed a decimal calculation, an approach which made his machine very complicated. The government of the day became increasingly disillusioned by the money they were having to pour into its development. So much so that the government refused to even look at Fowler's machine. Had Thomas Fowler published his design he would no doubt have won the support of many leading mathematicians of the time. Unfortunately, it took several decades before his approach was re-invented and in the mean time his name had slipped into obscurity.