Somehow I'm expecting to see Nathan Myhrvold’s home as the setting for a future Michael Crichton novel...
The all-mechanical Difference Engine adds with numbers that are 31 digits long and it can calculate polynomials up to the seventh order. However, it is the printer that appears to be even more strikingly modern. It will produce an ink printout, but also has the capability of producing a mold for a printing plate. It automatically typesets results in columns as well as employing two separate font sizes.
The 11-feet-long by 7-feet-high machine will be on display at the Computer History Museum here until May 2009, and then moved to the former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold’s home in the Seattle area. Mr. Myhrvold, who led the creation of Microsoft Research, was a benefactor of the Science Museum project and purchased a working replica for himself.
Charles Babbages Proto-Brain Comes to America - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
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