The very latest in steampunk

[unixronin]

REAL steampunk, that is.  The Difference Engine (or a full-size, working model thereof) will be on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California for six months, beginning May 1.  The machine was commissioned from the Science Museum in Kensington, London by Nathan Myhrvold, but Myhrvold agreed to let it be displayed at the Computer History Museum for six months before it takes its permanent place in his home.  Construction of the Difference Engine took three and a half years at a cost of a million dollars.

Horton said that Myhrvold — who is expected to be on hand at the May 1 exhibition ceremony at the Computer History Museum — is a collector interested in, among other things, historical computers.  And as someone with the resources to pay for a difference engine, he did so.

(Richard Horton is metals and engineering conservator at the London Science Museum, and the lead engineer on the construction of the difference engine.)

Comments

[hrrunka]

I went to have a look at that towards the end of last year. Mechanical ingenuity taken to a mind-boggling limit... :)

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

Dang. I'll be there just 2 weeks too early to see it.

That Museum is worth the visit AND do take the guided tour - it's the tales of the stuff that are amazing.

[danjite.livejournal.com]

One of the archivists tending the beast in the US is the disarmingly charming, Hugo nominated (Best fanzine, best fan writer) johnnyeponymous.

He knows more about bad films and Mexican wrestling than any other person I know.