back to article Is the world ready for a Raspberry Pi-powered Lego Babbage Engine?

A proposal for Lego to build an Analytical Engine staffed by Babbage and Lovelace characters has received just under a third of the support it needs to be considered for production. The pleasantly designed product was proposed to Lego's internal Ideas programme, and at the time of writing has amassed 2,972 supporters of the …

  1. Steve Gill

    Is the world ready for a lego babbage engine?

    Yes, yes, I really hope it is :)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Working model ?

    A working model would be a tribute to their ingenuity.

    A non-working model would be a lump of plastic.

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: Working model ?

      The Raspberry Pi angle and the references to Victorian appearance and steampunk strongly suggest that it won't be a working model. Also, look how much time and trouble the Science Museum expended on the construction of the Difference Engine No 2.

    2. Scott Broukell

      Re: Working model ?

      Surely a non-working model would be . . . . . 'bricked'.

    3. hplasm
      Alien

      Re: Working model ?

      "A non-working model would be a lump of plastic."

      Her name is Casey!

  3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Sorry but..

    This is an example of everything that is wrong with Lego, computers today and the modern world (bah humbug)

    A kit of the technical Lego with shafts and gears to make even a single 1/2 adder would be worth supporting but this is the equivalent of "today in IT lesson we are going to learn to draw a logo of what a web site about women in computers would be like"

    1. Teiwaz

      Re: Sorry but..

      "today in IT lesson we are going to learn to draw a logo of what a web site about women in computers would be like"

      <4YorkshiremenMode>

      I know I was first fascinated by pictures of computers in encyclopedias (which were probably 10 years out of date) as a youth. I know I'd have loved to have the kind of creative possibility kids today have at the achievable cost of some lego and a raspberry.

      When I were a lad, we only got to do restaurant menus in wordwise, which sounds like learning to draw a logo to me.

      </4YorkshiremenMode>

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: Sorry but..

        Wordwise? Luxury. In my day we had to write a BASIC program with VDU 2 and carefully choosing PRINT statements.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Sorry but..

          Kids today. We had to cut out the holes in punch cards with knapped flint. And we had to make the cards out of newspaper and starch paste....

          1. Fungus Bob

            Re: Sorry but..

            Knapped flint? Oooh aren't we fancy! When I were a lad we had to punch holes in stone tablets with our fingers *and* had to gnaw the tablets out of the quarry with our teeth.

            And get eaten by dinosaurs every night. Every last one of us. No survivors.

        2. Teiwaz

          Re: Sorry but..

          BBC BASIC? Luxury,

          We often had to content ourselves with making our calculator read '5138008' upside down.

          1. DaLo
            Headmaster

            Re: Sorry but..

            "We often had to content ourselves with making our calculator read '5138008' upside down."

            Surely you were typing in 5318008 to read 'BOOBIES' when upside down?

            1. Teiwaz

              Re: Sorry but..

              Yeah, but I'm numerically dyslexic.

              (took me five minutes to try to work that out, and I still got it wrong)

          2. divhide

            Re: Sorry but..

            We had to settle for 55378008 ... you're lucky getting down to 5318008 ;-) ...

            Then again, we were all at a Boys-only school. Sigh.

            1. Teiwaz

              Re: Sorry but..

              You're lucky, some of us could only afford calculators with 7 digits not 8 (I think the one on my ruler only had 6, hence only (1) 318008 ).

              Plus, 55378008 pretty much sums up most of the girls in our school anyway, and a lot of us were 35380. (http://www.presentandcorrect.com/blog/250-words-you-can-spell-with-a-calculator).

              1. divhide

                Re: Sorry but..

                Possibly down to being 7735808 when buying calculators? Economic apartheid again ;-) !

              2. MrT

                7 digit display...

                ...problem solved by putting two calculators side by side...

                1. Dan 55 Silver badge

                  Re: 7 digit display...

                  Two calculators side-by-side? You were lucky to have two calculators side-by-side. In my day, we'd've been glad to have half a calculator. The half without the display.

                  1. MrT

                    Re: 7 digit display...

                    Definitely, and what's more, we did have a girl called Debbie in my class, and calculators with a memory function too...

      2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Sorry but..

        I know I was first fascinated by pictures of computers in encyclopedias (which were probably 10 years out of date) as a youth.

        Hell yeah. Time Life Science books, so mysterious. Those were the times.

        There are a number of Lego Turing machines (TM#1, TM#2) but they cheat, coming with an integrated Universal Turing Machine already. Would LEGO DIFFERENCE ENGINE make the same error?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sorry but..

      half - adder? http://www.randomwraith.com/halfadder.html

      The Technic boys (and girls) are already all over such stuff and an individual set - as opposed to a huge set that allowed you to build various logic circuits in bricks - probably wouldn't get the votes.

      The successful Lego Ideas project is half build experience, half art when finished.

      This one might play to the STEM lot, the set with three women scientists sold proverbially well.

    3. Whiskers

      Re: Sorry but..

      My childhood bricks were 'Minibrix'; they were good for building houses. If you got more bricks you could build either more houses or bigger houses. That was more or less all they were good for. But now you can use virtual Minibrix on your computer! <http://www.virtual.minibrix.com/>

    4. Lamont Cranston
      Facepalm

      Re: Sorry but..

      It's a toy, you mug.

  4. Anonymous Custard

    On the case

    He's missed a trick here - with a few minor modifications it would also make a superb geeky Pi2 case (as another way to market and sell the project).

    OK so a Babbage engine with a micro-USB and an HDMI cable coming out of it is not entirely historically accurate, but it would help get the thing funded and into production.

    Anyway at least one more vote (mine) added, and I should admit my Pi2 at home is currently sat in a case made of Lego, albeit one nowhere near as well constructed or cool-looking at this one.

  5. Mage Silver badge
    Boffin

    Adder

    even a 4 bit adder would be a huge amount of technic.

    But interesting. In theory a 6502 can be made from cogs, pegs and levers and program run from Lego sheets with dots to indicate punched holes.

    A babbage machine like lego toy with Ada and Charles minifigs is at least a tribute. A working lego mechanical computer might fill a room.

    1. Anonymous Custard

      Re: Adder

      Judging by the couple of simple examples below, it would probably be quite a large room too...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UulJaoDAflw

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfFbX2GgPnE

      Maybe one for the turbine room at Tate Modern, which would sort out the funding aspect too (if calling it "art" isn't too pretentious).

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: Adder

        "Maybe one for the turbine room at Tate Modern, which would sort out the funding aspect too (if calling it "art" isn't too pretentious)."

        It would be a vast improvement, considering some of the pretentious nonsense I saw when I last visited.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Adder

          'if calling it "art" isn't too pretentious'

          If it isn't too pretentious it isn't art.

          1. Teiwaz
            Devil

            Re: Adder

            See? You've been brain-washed into accepting this bourgeoisie conspiracy.

            When comrade Corbyn is in power, we'll have good honest works commissioned like fine earthy english breastfeeding mother fending off security guard in Primark...

            1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

              Re: Adder

              You can make the not-quite-a-computer difference engine from lego

              http://acarol.woz.org/

              Or with rather more Victorian meccano

              http://www.meccano.us/difference_engines/rde_1/

              1. Captain DaFt

                Re: Adder

                "Or with rather more Victorian meccano"

                Meccano? Pfft! Try Tinkertoy: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X39.81

                And It could kick your arse at naughts and crosses.

                1. Andy Davies

                  Re: Adder

                  Try Tinkertoy: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X39.81

                  And It could kick your arse at naughts and crosses.

                  When I was a lad, B'ham Science Museum had a noughts & crosses computer made from recycled Strowger phone relays.

          2. Martin an gof Silver badge

            Re: Adder

            If it isn't too pretentious it isn't art.

            I have a mate whose attitude towards art (and we have quite a lot of temporary exhibitions at my place of work) can be summed up as, "if it needs a label to explain itself, then it isn't art". He has a point. Some of the things we host have 200 word explanations and you still don't really know what the heck it's meant to "be".

            M.

    2. Carl Zetie
      Unhappy

      Re: Adder

      Sadly, you're right. My first reaction to the headline was to assume it would be a working model... and then I thought about it more carefully / drank more coffee and realized that I wasn't thinking very clearly.

  6. Bigbird3141
    FAIL

    Waste of time

    Working mechanical Lego model=interesting; Pi stuffed in a Lego box=pointless

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Waste of time

      pointless

      ...until you step on a lego brick with your bare foot.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: Waste of time

        Duplo is more painful...

        Meccano - a trip to the hospital for stitches.

        Playdough - strangely arousing.

    2. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: Waste of time

      re: Pi stuffed in a Lego box=pointless

      But sometimes being completely pointless is part of the charm

      1. stairway

        Re: Waste of time

        Dont show it at school. They might think it a bomb.

    3. Lamont Cranston
      Thumb Down

      Re: Waste of time

      I got the Lego BTTF set, a couple of Christmases back - would it surprise you to know that it can't actually travel through time? ECTO-1 in the Ghostbusters set doesn't even have a working engine!

  7. Frumious Bandersnatch

    not proper Victorian

    The legs on the engine are bared for the whole world to see. Needs some nice lace doilies to preserve their modesty.

    /Victorian Dad

  8. Teiwaz

    The curved legs are exciting me, Mother, fetch some stout hessian.

    1. TRT Silver badge
      Pint

      I'd prefer...

      a hessian stout.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: I'd prefer...

        Odd choice, I usually prefer to wait for the morning after to experience cloth mouth.

  9. d3vy

    This is a glorified case for the pi?

    Why not something like this:

    https://youtu.be/i_u3hpYMySk

    1. Dadmin
      Thumb Up

      It is?! Good, then I only need six of the damn kits.

      I'm on board, but my Ye Olde Lego Shoppe Username is not. Just need to re-reg with the first party plastic people and I think I can click this into existence.

      If my kid says "who's that" then the job is done! If not, I will add them to the Lego Ferrari Pit Crew. ;)

  10. Tom 7

    Whatever happened to lego?

    When I was a kid you had some lego and you built anything you wanted with it.

    Now you get a kit that will build one thing and that's it.

    Now someone wants money to built a computer out of lego ... driven by another computer.

    1. Dadmin

      Re: Whatever happened to lego?

      They had to keep up with modern kids who want more specific toys, like MindStorms, Star Wars, pirates-o-plastic, Friends, etc. You can still buy big boxes of the multi-coloured normally shaped bricks, or even any brick design available in unit form. We have several of those simple kits for building just stuff, some pink bricks for the little gals(she does not like the Friends), and lots of Star Wars and other co-branded kits for us big kids. The shop is very modern, but you can still get some classic items and big boxes of just bricks if you search around.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Whatever happened to lego?

      "Now you get a kit that will build one thing and that's it."

      After building it once - the kids usually add to their pool of components and their imagination takes over. We learn by imitating. Like programming in a new language it is useful to work through an example before you create your own.

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

        Re: Whatever happened to lego?

        I disagree. my Meccano 'set' was a bunch of cast offs that older relatives had lost interest in (quickly). I never built any of the intended items (I had no instructions anyway). Instead I started building bridges - cos I always liked bridges. I learned about things like triangulation, maximum unsupported span, and suspension by trial and error. I not only learned what they were but also why they were.

      2. Joe Shmoe

        Re: Whatever happened to lego?

        @AC - I was reading recently an interview with a former Lego designer. She recommended taking and _printing_ pictures after assembling the "primary" model and adding them to a physical book that is made easily accessible and the kids can look at any time. Apparently this prevents the feeling of loss of the effort and accomplishment. Then you disassemble the model and add the bricks to your pool ...

    3. John Bailey

      Re: Whatever happened to lego?

      "When I was a kid you had some lego and you built anything you wanted with it."

      Well.. Be honest. With a rather liberal dollop of imagination, you could build something that suggested anything.

      And I can remember trees, police car models with the word "POLICE" written on them, And I have a very vague recollection of diggers with specially made buckets, and tractors with loaders that were not your regular shaped bricks.

      Not to mention the sloped transparent windscreen bricks headlight bricks, radiator grille bricks.

      "Now you get a kit that will build one thing and that's it."

      No whiny.. now you get SOME kits with special blocks that are made for one model, but can, by merit of being lego bricks, and with said dollop of imagination be used in other models.

      "Now someone wants money to built a computer out of lego ... driven by another computer."

      No. They want votes at the lego site that will cause this particular set to be assembled, packaged and sold in retail outlets by the Lego company.

      Costs you nothing unless you buy the set. So you can stop clutching your wallet now.

      If it spurs some kid on enough to find out about Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, then great.

      If not, they have more Lego. So win win for some kids.

      You however, will still be a miserable git.

  11. Deryk Barker

    Oh no!

    Another promulgator of the Ada myth.

    Read Doron Swade's The Difference Engine.

    If you want the world's first actual (as opposed to imagined) female programmer then Grace Hopper is your woman.

    Ada was a legend in her own mind and nutty as a fruitcake.

    1. ScissorHands
      Coat

      Re: Oh no!

      Just like most die-hard geeks, then...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh no!

      Ada was a legend in her own mind and nutty as a fruitcake.

      I'm ok with that!

      It beats nutty as a fruitcake modern workplace women who have to flaunt their "feminism" (more like hysteria, amirite) at the slightest occasion, making the workplace a toxic environment.

  12. harmjschoonhoven
    Childcatcher

    Let them read the book

    The Thrilling Adventures Of Lovelace and Babbage, a graphic novel by Sydney Padua, more fun than playing with Lego.

    BTW The only nice thing about Lego is that it dissolves in acetone.

    1. Dr. Ellen

      Re: Let them read the book

      It's a very good book, but if we were to take it as canonical we would need an Isambard Kingdom Brunel figure.

  13. BobRocket

    Custom pieces

    Are there any custom pieces in the kit (apart from Chuck & Ada) or can it be built using currently available parts ?

    With a bit of customisation (yellow led in the gas lamp, frankensteinian flashing blue leds under the windows and a bit of 10mm polished copper piping to hide the cables) it would be an awesome replacement for the bare pi hanging over the back of my telly.

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