[aucompsci-discussion] Fwd: [AberLUG] Steam-powered computing

Iain Learmonth <adapa@xxxxxxxxxxxx> · Tue, 2 Nov 2010 12:09:07 +0000

You may be interested in this. Seeing as Aidan managed to miss out the
link, here it is: http://plan28.org/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aidan Karley <aidan_karley@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 7:16 PM
Subject: [AberLUG] Steam-powered computing
To: aberdeen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Many of you will already have heard of this, but since momentum seems
to be slowing ...

There is a proposition to build a full-blown Babbage Analytical
Engine. Not just the Difference Engine (which was built a decade or so
back, and can be viewed, but the full, incredibly powerful Analytical
Engine, a computer so monsterously powerful that the Difference Engine
is barely even worthy enough to calculate the operating parameters of.
/OK, that's enough Hitchhikers's Guide. - Ed/

The estimate is that it will cost in the order of a half-million
pounds to build, but courtesy of private committed funding, the
proponents only need to get public pledges of £100,000, which they're
doing by means of a PledgeBank proposition for 10,000 signatories to
pledge £10 each.

At the time of writing, a bit over 1/3 of the necessary pledges have
been made, which is pretty good going for a couple of weeks
campaigning.

Obviously, I'm trying to prompt yourselves, your friends, family,
colleagues and any passing cats to pledge your money too.

The way a PledgeBank pledge works is that nothing happens until the
original level of support required is reached (in this case, 10,000
people pledged to £10 each), at which point you're expected to make
good your pledge by whatever means (PayPal, credit card, postal order,
whatever), in the confident knowledge that the project will go ahead
with the bulk of the funding pledged appearing. It's worked before,
for various OS software projects, but this is hardware ; same
difference.

On the goodies side, many people have been saying how cool it would be
to get your own personalised "cog" in the machine ; that's being so
attractive that ideas of how to implement it in the manufacturing are
being looked at.

All the plans, from Babbage's designs to the production plans, will be
made publicly available.

Wallets out! Let the moths get a suntan. Or at least some fresh air!

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen,
Scotland

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-- 

Regards,
Iain Learmonth
Head of IT
Computing Science Society
University of Aberdeen
e: adapa@xxxxxxxxxxxx
t: +44 (7853) 027574

[aucompsci-discussion] Fwd: [AberLUG] Steam-powered computing

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