Question by caillet: Can a laptop be constructed with Victorian elements (like the Babbage replicas) but with the…?
…capabilities of today’s PCs?
I’ve been on a ‘steampunk’ kick since 1980 — and recently’ve discovered that a lot of people are into ‘steampunk’ — producing modern day technology look really 19th century. I’ve seen articles where some men and women have made cosmetic alterations to their PCs to make them look very old, like anything from fantastic grandpa’s attic. (Do a Google search/pictures for Steampunk if you never know what I am speaking about).
Though functional, these antiquifications are largely cosmetic. Underneath, it is nevertheless clear somebody just produced a new computer appear old.
I’ve also noticed the well-known two replicas of the Babbage distinction engines where functioning replicas of 19th century computer systems (made from original drawings) were built. These are much a lot more authentic, but do little much more than crunch numbers.
My question: Can a laptop be built using 1890s-like elements, that does far more than crunch numbers? Maybe one particular that functions as/ compatible with our most contemporary 21st century PCs?
Best answer:
Answer by mike1942f
No. You can not even make a personal computer employing 1950 or 1960 elements that is compatible with the energy of 2010 PC’s. I lived by means of that period and when I entered college in 1960, computers were just altering from getting all tubes to getting individually mounted transistors on bases replacing the tubes or on circuit boards. It is probably that ALL of the computer systems (IBM 709, 7090, 704, etc.) that have been installed in 1960 in the USA were much less potent, had much less memory, and less storage than 1 Pc today and certainly significantly less than in a high college laptop class room.
Mini-computers constructed with transistors that could be put in a big cabinet in an office did not come about till the mid-60’s and integrated circuits of the simplest kind led to massive scale integration and microprocessors by January 1975. My first laptop was an Apple IIe in 1978 and it had 48K of memory, a single floppy disk drive and low resolution Television good quality display – it cost $ 2500.
The modifications just because then are thoughts blowing to somebody who has lived with all the changes.
In truth, if you are not conscious of it, Babbage spent lots and lots of money on his engines and by no means constructed one that worked simply because the machining abilities necessary to make the thousands of identical components that have been needed to make it. It appears probably to me that the modern day replicas could not have been produced with out modern computers controlling machines to make the parts.
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