Re: Any ADA tutors out there?

[Mark Eichin <eichin@cygnus.com>]

>Charles Babbage. Babbage designed a mechanical computer, but could never
>build it, because 19th century Britain just did not have the precision
>machine-tooling necessary to fabricate the fine gears it would require.

I just double checked this, and the "Difference Engine 2" that was
replicated in 1991 was built with 1830's technology; to quote a paper
by Ralph Merkle, http://nano.xerox.com/nanotech/mechano.html,

> ... Remarkably, it was designed in the early 1800's. A working model
>of the simpler Difference Engine No. 2 was recently built by the British
>Museum of Science from Babbage's original blueprints using parts that would
>have been available in the 1800's, both in terms of the materials used and the
>precision of the milling[31].

While this doesn't indicate that the more advanced Analytical Engine
could have actually been built at that level, it does seem to pave the way...