[Leica] Babbage Difference Engine Funeral

[Jim Nichols]

Hi Herb,

I can understand your getting somewhat emotional at a time like this.  
Though I'm an engineer by training, I was never exposed to devices of 
this sort, and can't really understand all that's involved.  You grabbed 
some nice images, in particular the last one.  I'm sure many folks hate 
to see it go into isolation.

Thanks for sharing.

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA

On 2/24/2016 7:52 PM, Herbert Kanner wrote:
> Over eight years ago, at the instigation of Bill Gates, the Science Museum in London approached Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft, for financial help in completing the Babbage Difference Engine. The Museum had built the larger component, the one that did the actual arithmetic. The additional financing was to enable them to build the smaller but very complex component that would print the results on a paper roll and, most important, create a mold in soft plaster of paris, that when hardened would enable the creation of a full-page plate, ready to go into a printing press, by pouring molten type metal into the mold.
>
> Nathan made the London Museum an offer the just couldn’t refuse. He said he would finance the building of two copies of the missing part and one more copy of the original part, saying that he wanted to have that (five ton) machine in his living room.
>
> It never got there. Len Shustek, the Chair of the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) Board of Trustees persuaded him to lend it to us for a year. Every December 15th we asked for an extension and got (exactly) a one-year extension. For eight years, I’ve done the lecture part of a lecturer-demonstration of the machine at exactly 1:00 every Saturday with rare exceptions. I’ve also been a member of a six-person maintenance group doing monthly maintenance: mostly lubrication but occasionally solving problems which at best caused the machine to jam and at worst, broke parts.
>
> A gentlemen named Tim Robinson has been head of the maintenance group. Without him, we could not have operated this equipment. He not only had a deep understanding of this amazing mechanism, even having built a version out of a Mechano set, but more than once he created a solution to a problem by making a unique fix over a weekend in his home machine shop.
>
> This December 15th the blow struck. Nathan said he wanted his machine back. As far as we knew, it was not going to be in public view, but was going to sit in a laboratory building that is part of his company: IV (Intellectual Ventures), known to a lawyer friend of mind as a patent trolling firm.
>
> Tim’s initial reaction was to prepare a one-page summary of suggestions for safely starting the machine without breaking anything. Then he met Mike, that head of the instrumentation shop of Nathan's laboratory. When it became clear that Mike was highly competent and very proactive—he joined our crew in hours of work mothballing the machine and even took some precautions we had not thought of. Immediately after meeting Mike, Tim produced a ten-page detailed document on start-up recommendations. I should mention that Mike was hired away from the University of Washington, where he was the head of a similar shop.
>   
> I got to talk to Mike for about a half-hour while waiting for the roughly 300 people to clear out after the last-ever demonstration. I got the impression that Nathan delves in anything that interests him—ain’t money nice—and that the patents he collects are licensed out to selected companies that are doing things in the hoped for public good, e.g. climate change, internet access in developing countries, etc.
>
> The day before the mothballing of the machine for shipment, a professional video crew spent the day filming Tim explaining the machine. I believe this crew are employees of our Museum though knowing the history of our CEO, they could have been liberated from PGS. While a number of volunteers were watching from a distance, I braved a carefully walking on the set with my M even though the working crew appeared to have a still photographer using a fearsome looking SLR. I walked with great care not to get in anyone’s way and to freeze between when the director said “action” and when he said “cut”. I was surprised to find myself tolerated. So I found out later were the other observers. It was difficult shooting, partly because of floodlights aimed in all directions. I shot over eighty frames and finally selected six. I’ve no idea what that other still photographer got.
>
>
> Tim is fully visible in all but of these shots. He has a beard, a pony-tail, and is wearing a red shirt.
> I also took some shots the next day of the month-balling of the machine, but haven’t yet looked at them. If any good, I’ll post a few later.
>
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004486.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004486.jpg.html>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004502.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004502.jpg.html>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004515.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004515.jpg.html>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004529.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004529.jpg.html>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004527.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004527.jpg.html>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004559.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1004559.jpg.html>
>
>
>
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
>
> Question Authority and the authorities will question you.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>