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by yourapostasy 3840 days ago
Will a Lego reproduction [1] of Difference Engine No. 2 computing 2nd order differences to 3 digits (the reproduction in the UK [2] evaluates 7th order polynomials to 31 digits, true to Babbage's design) suffice?

[1] http://acarol.woz.org/LegoDifferenceEngine.html

[2] http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/modernsequel/

1 comments

Only if I can buy/steal it! But seriously, I went to see the reproduction at the Science Museum in London and it's an amazing piece of machinery. They have also plenty of other mechanical computation devices (for integration, derivation, approximating polynomials, Fourier transforms, etc.), worth paying a visit.