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Babbage’s difference engine is really, really pretty

Hands up if you knew there was a working replica of Babbage’s difference engine in California.

(My hand is not up.)

This glorious machine lives in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. A company called xRez Studio, which specialises in taking extremely high resolution gigapixel photos of things, has taken some extremely high resolution gigapixel photos of the difference engine. They’re so lovely that it feels wrong to be looking at them at work.

The photos are only avaiable on xRez Studio’s website, or as part of the Babbage exhibit at the Computer History Museum, but xRez has also released a video of the machine in action, which we can embed here.

Phwoarrrr.

More information

Gigapixel photos of the difference engine

The Computer History Museum

The Babbage Engine at the Computer History Museum

via Mike Stay on Google+

(will not be published)

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