I was reading “The Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson just now, and came across a very interesting bit. A conversation between one of the main characters and Alan Turing (the one and only) who has recently discovered radio tubes, and intends to build a computer using them.

“I cannot believe the number of years I wasted on sprockets! God!” “Your zeta-function machine? I thought it was beautiful,” Lawrence says. “So are many things that belong in a museum,” Alan says.

Truer words …

Some of the most beautiful things ever crafted by man can be found in Museums across the world. Old artefacts, mementos of times long passed. Items that are outdated, replaced by better versions or alternatives and often forgotten.

One of those things is a “computer” like the one discussed above: an enormous calculator that works with just mechanical forces. Cogs and sprockets on drive shaft operated by a hand-crank, Charles Babbage’s difference engine.

Babbage only ever managed to start building one, a project he had to abandon. (It was finally completed in 1991, after five years of work by a British team), and spent the rest of his life designing a better version. Now, long overdue, A second group of people has picked up where Babbage left: the construction of the second difference engine, a complete assembly according to his latest plans, including a primitive printer.

Built using modern machines, but old techniques, the curators and engineers of the London’s Science museum (their article on this matter) have completed a fully functional difference engine No 2. It took them six years, and the results reflect that, the device is magnificent, and can be seen here, in an article by wired magazine)

This magnificent piece of machinery which was once supposed to be a landmark in mathematics has now been transported to California, and will be in display as of today (10^th of may) in the the computer history museum in Mountain View, where it will at long last perform it’s intended duties: calculating long series of numbers for trigonometric-, logarithmic- and other tables.

It’ll be on display for a year before being shipped off to the person who funded its construction, one Nathan Myhrvold, a Microsoft multimillionaire. Oh how I envy the man, oh how I wish I could shake his hand and thank him for helping to preserve such a beautiful piece of history.