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Babbage's difference engine completed

io9.com — The London Science Museum finally completed work on the Victorian era's greatest supercomputer, the Difference Engine No. 2, 120 years after the death of inventor Charles Babbage. This five-ton machine is currently traveling across the pond to San Francisco, and will go on display in America for the first time starting May 10th at the Computer Hist

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grendelboogie 78 days ago, made popular 78 days ago

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ubernoggin, on 04/19/2008, -6/+36Yes, but is it 'Vista capable'?
- Craga89, on 04/19/2008, -2/+18Yes, but will it blend, run crysis, or run linux? There. I saved the rest of you the hassle =).
  - magicaltrevor, on 04/19/2008, -1/+13But can it play Doom?
- Nougat, on 04/19/2008, -0/+10Sure, but it won't run Aero Glass.
- MoofTheStoof, on 04/19/2008, -0/+7According to Microsoft, it is. Though there seems to be some trouble with the NVIDIA drivers...
  - grumpyrain, on 04/20/2008, -0/+1And apparently Creative's aren't much better.
- markdall, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1Only if Intel is selling it and pressures Microsoft into accepting it... like they did with the rest of their crap.
- grumpyrain, on 04/20/2008, -0/+3Windows dost needeth thy permission to ensue
  [Ensue][Cancel]
  - gak001, on 04/20/2008, -0/+1+1 for effort.
- gak001, on 04/20/2008, -0/+1Of course not, there's no GUI and it doesn't have a CD drive... man, diggers these days.
daithiocoinnigh, on 04/19/2008, -1/+26All Hail Babbage.... The Original Geek
- tidu, on 04/19/2008, -1/+6Babbage's? Like the gaming store?
  - WNW3, on 04/19/2008, -1/+3I think Gamestop bought them
  - Ademan, on 04/19/2008, -1/+2holy ***** i remember them, them and funkoland, i know funcoland was bought by gamestop, dunno what happened to babbage's.
- rodrigo74, on 04/19/2008, -1/+4Nah, Da Vinci predated him
- JettaMan, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1Damn, I just visited the Computer History Museum and now they get this? Bad timing. But yeah, Babbage is a God. So far thinking, he was ahead of his time.
- Chordinator, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1"He also wrote "Table of the Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate Glass Windows" after counting the broken windows on a nearby factory."
  
  Yeah that guy would fit right in with us on digg if he were still alive.
mymoustache, on 04/19/2008, -1/+37Sadly, it will have to be renamed the 'Electronics Boutique Difference Engine'...
- rezistance, on 04/19/2008, -2/+0you beat me to the punch-line. all hail the original video game store
talonstriker, on 04/19/2008, -6/+1WARNING: AVG detects that this website tried to download an infected file.
- Nougat, on 04/19/2008, -0/+5People are still pumping that stuff out via advertising sometimes, don't get freaked out.
- DeadlyTedly, on 04/19/2008, -1/+4This is why Firefox + Ad Blocker Plus is so kickass.
  I was puzzled trying to figure out what you were saying there... and then I remembered:
  "Oh yeah, some people still have ads" I had actually completely forgotten about them.
pujitk, on 04/19/2008, -9/+4But will it run crysis?
- nlight, on 04/19/2008, -5/+1The more important question is whether it will run crysis via Wine 9.60 on Ubuntu.
pegothejerk, on 04/19/2008, -2/+2Meh. Wake me up when the cow-catcher exhibit is coming through.
- pegothejerk, on 04/19/2008, -0/+2which was ALSO invented by babbage.
johnjenin, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1can't wait to see with my bare eyes
magicaltrevor, on 04/19/2008, -0/+3Hasn't this been rebuilt (and proven to work) several times? They did it once with Meccano.
DefaultGen, on 04/19/2008, -2/+1So wait this doesn't calculate the difference in price between trade-in value and floor price at the game store Babbages?
dsmx, on 04/19/2008, -0/+5I saw it being built at the science museum in London, it is truly a monster a machine but when it works it's a sight to behold with all the wheels, gears and cogs whirling round.
Beowulf2112, on 04/19/2008, -8/+1Will it play Crysis?
- heliox, on 04/19/2008, -0/+4Enough of the the ***** "Will it play..." "Will it run..."
  They were done read the ***** comments.
68024, on 04/19/2008, -1/+2Nice picture of his brain there...
seantubridy, on 04/19/2008, -1/+16Babbage 1864 hath detected an error. Please Rebuild.
OK
melllvar37, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1skip the blog crap direct link to his brain:
http://www.matthewzickus.com/Images/babbageBrain.j ...
- heliox, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1They will try to interface the Difference engine and his brain soon.
mrfunktastic, on 04/19/2008, -4/+1Um, San Francisco isn't "across the pond" from London.
- HappyScrappy, on 04/19/2008, -1/+1And it's going to Mountain View, not San Francisco.
  
  Hell, it'll probably off-loaded in Oakland, not San Francisco anyway.
etx313, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1This is awesome!!! I hope I can see it.
stonebear, on 04/19/2008, -0/+9It's a Steampunk wet dream. Don't forget your great-coats and goggles, kids.
OffPiste, on 04/19/2008, -0/+3FTA.... "it was completed in 1991", yeah "just" completed my ass.
snolan1990, on 04/19/2008, -0/+6Babage put deliberate mistakes in his plans for the Difference Engine so that no one but Babage himself could produce it. Unfortunately he died and cause misery for the science museum worker who had to try and figure out where his mistakes were and fix them.

I know thats true cause i saw it on a Jeromy Clarkson program a couple of years ago :)
fernly, on 04/19/2008, -0/+2This is way-old news. Diff. Engine #2 has crossed the pond & the continent and been installed at its temporary home, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA where it will be on public display for a year starting next month. For pictures search at Wired or CNET news. Tim Robinson has built not one but two Meccano difference engines, google for pics.
- baylat, on 04/19/2008, -0/+2I just hate 'this is old' comments. Obviously this is for the people who have not heard the news yet.
copypastry, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1Sure the difference engine is great, but can it tell why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?
DulcetTone, on 04/19/2008, -0/+0If they build a supercomputer version, can it be called BigDiff?
DigitAl56K, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1And the video of it doing some calculations is... where??
bastawhiz, on 04/19/2008, -6/+3Video of the machine calculating to seventeen digits:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RnOt4aN2uyc
- fuze44, on 04/19/2008, -0/+5You bastard
- gak001, on 04/20/2008, -0/+1I'm not going to click, I'm just going to assume - and it has to ***** stop. DARR - Diggers Against Rick Rolling UNITE!
sproket, on 04/19/2008, -2/+1Can it play Quake?
- gak001, on 04/20/2008, -0/+2No - it does basic calculations and there's not GUI.
Disarticulate, on 04/25/2008, -0/+0Interesting fact, that Babbage worked on the difference machine with Byron's daughter.
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Babbage's difference engine completed

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