14 comments

[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 3.4 ms ] thread
Reproductions are still produced, see the wikipedia page.
Really cool! Will we ever construct Babbage's Analytical Engine?
Wait til you see the DigiComp II! It has flip-flops driven by marbles and gravity. Truly astounding.
I had one! One of my favorite possessions in elementary school. It came with a nice booklet introducing the theory. Because I studied that booklet, I was probably the only brat in my 2nd grade who knew about number bases. I entertained myself by converting decimal numbers into binary.
It's cool to see Chris Staecker's channel getting some love, he brings a a kind of joy I miss from the old internet. I know it's still around, but it certainly feels more difficult to find and suppressed in many ways.
I think the algorithm recommended Chris to me because of his topology videos, and from there I watched all his "old computing devices" stuff. Something about the Boston accent, the dry humor, and the occasional audio jump-cut make his stuff quite funny.
I bought one of these from Edmund Scientific when I was a kid. I wasn't able to figure out how it worked. I've thought about it occasionally over the years. Enjoyed the video
I still have my Digi-Comp I, as well as Dr. Nim and Think-a-Dot.
Wow. didn't know mechanical computers could be so simple.