Interesting Videos on Mechanical Computing.

[Eddyde]

Prompted by the thread about the Antikythera Mechanism, I looked into mechanical computing and found these videos:

 

[hman]

Thanks for posting these. I loved them.... some REAL precision machining involved there!

I'd love to find one of those old computers somewhere on the "surplus" market.

 

[silence dogood]

Look up Charles Babbage and his mechanical computer. One has been built and is operating. It has all the elements of an electronic computer except that it is totally mechanical. Amazing to watch.

 

[Dabbler]

Look up Charles Babbage and his mechanical computer.

thank you! I didn't know someone had successfully built one - it looks fantastic!

 

[silence dogood]

I would also like to add the Franklin Institute. It has a Maillarlet's automaton. This mechanical device can make drawings.
There is also a book called "507 Mechanical Movements" that you can buy, but you can also see images of the movements on the net.

 

[Eddyde]

The Charles Babbage Mechanical Computer:

 

[Dabbler]

I would also like to add the Franklin Institute. It has a Maillarlet's automaton.

The movie 'Hugo' features a fictional description of rebuilding it. It took tons of work to make it work after 200 years and some (shoddy) repairs that rendered it nearly inoperable.

The youtube channel 'Fran Blanche' talks about her researches on it - here's a sample:

 

[bukwirm]

This website has some declassified Navy training material on fire control computer mechanisms and maintenance (and a lot of other stuff).

 

[EricB]

Thanks for sharing the videos! In my avionics career I worked with electro-mechanical air data computers and integrating periscopic sextants, among other obsolete equipment. Pretty cool stuff.

Eric

 

[Flyinfool]

I once worked for a place that made a lot of parts for the military. One of the things we made was a calibrator for the aiming system on the big 16 inch guns on the old battle ships.
It was a glorified 90° angle block. The tolerance on the accuracy of the 90° angle was plus or minus 0° 0' 6" or 0.001666667°.
The angle was 6 x 6 x 6 inches, that means that the allowable error over the 6 inches is 0.000017454 inches. It was amazing what things could knock it out of tolerance.