Tony Duell wrote:
>
> > > The other nice thing is that, with the possible exception of custom cams,
> > > it's generally pretty obvious what broken parts should be like. And then
> > > it's possible to make them without too much equipment. But a dead custom
> > > chip is almost impossible to figure out, and hard to reproduce.
> >
> > That is very true - a stripped gear is a stripped gear is a stripped gear!
>
> Yes, and you know the diameter (since you have the stripped one) and the
> tooth pitch (from whatever it meshes with. So you can either work out the
> number of teeth, or maybe even see the remains of the teeth on the
> stripped one.
>
> After that, all you need is a milling machine and a dividing head. Not
> that imposible to get (a lot easier than an IC fab line).
Of course, manufacturing parts for mechanical computers is now made
so much easier with silicon-driven machine tools. We now have the
technology to _really_ build an Analytical Engine, one that would
perform as Babbage hoped. Not as fast as (say) an HP-65, but it
would work.
--
Ward Griffiths
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows.
Of course, the main reason they cuddle up is to screw somebody else.
Michael Flynn, _Rogue Star_
Received on Wed Jun 17 1998 - 23:22:23 BST