Steampunk Scientists Plan Mechanical Chip
By Charlie Sorrel July 26, 2007 10:13:11 AMCategories: Innovations
Mechanical adding machines have given way to silicon, right? Wrong. A group of US researchers have gone all steampunk and outlined a design for a tiny nanomachine the size of a computer chip, which will contain moving parts. The chips will be slow and simple compared to their silicon brethren, but they will be a lot tougher, so they can be used in hostile conditions, like a car engine.
Mechanical adding mac
hines are not new. Charles Babbage's Difference Engine was never built in his lifetime, but recently researchers made replicas which worked just fine. We even showed you the home made six bit marble adding machine a month ago.The new mechanical chip uses modern manufacturing techniques to make it smaller. One of the researchers, Professor Robert Blick from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the BBC that "It's inspired by Babbage's ideas but these days we can scale it down"
Antique engines inspire nano chip [BBC News]
