Magazine Babbage's Difference Engine built entirely in Lego

(via Wired)

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This working computer uses bits -- of Lego. Andrew Carol created a version of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, built entirely from plastic building blocks. Babbage planned it in the 1840s but never realised it. Carol started six years ago and drew on his 15 years' experience as a software engineer at Apple: "I would work on one adder unit, modifying it until I could get as many of the bugs out as possible," says the Cupertino-based 47-year-old. "When you get one working, you can use it everywhere in the engine." The finished iteration uses about 2,000 Lego parts but the crank-operated computer is not as powerful as Babbage's would have been. "His would have been accurately made of brass. Mine's made out of a children's plastic toy."