Least fantasy Steampunk invention?

Is there any least fantasy steampunk invention? I don't quite like the robotic-giant with steam engine plus gatling gun creature. Is there any realistic thing that can be invented in steampunk time?
 
Is there any least fantasy steampunk invention? I don't quite like the robotic-giant with steam engine plus gatling gun creature. Is there any realistic thing that can be invented in steampunk time?

The Analytical Engine would change a lot, and it was almost built IOTL.
 
What "The Analytical Engine" is? Is it like super-calculator? Or a computer?:confused:

A computer, yeah. It was mechanical, so it would have been rather slow by modern standards, but it was an actual computer and not just a calculator.
 

Susano

Banned
The Analytical Engine would change a lot, and it was almost built IOTL.

Ian had an essay on the site (before it turned into forum-only) on why the AE wouldve made little impact at all...

Also, "robotic-giant with steam engine plus gatling gun" is not fantasy, just steampunk weirdness ;) Fantasy would be "the other steampunk", that is, industrial mechanics in a fantasy (magical) setting... okay, just being pedantic here :p
 
Is there any least fantasy steampunk invention? I don't quite like the robotic-giant with steam engine plus gatling gun creature. Is there any realistic thing that can be invented in steampunk time?

Mechanical computers could have led to a number of inventions that are all plausible and all steampunk. The whole area of creating, copying, transfering and servicing punchcards, frex, the telegraphic transfer of data, and the transition between data and image would be interesting fields for applying Victorian ingenuity. Automatic punchcard copiers, autopantographs, analytical coin counting/assaying machines, early ticket vending machines, maybe even programmable 'telegraph spamming machines' (put in a spool of punchtape with names and another one with text, wind up the mechanism and have the same message go out all day to different addresses).

They there is the fashion aspect of it - pseudo-'analytical' locks, music machines, makeup tables, stage machinery etc.

Beyond that, a lot of the more interesting Victorian inventions practically *were* steampunk. They were met with scepticism and often did not fulfill their potential, but a more gadget-happy age could easily produce even weirder ideas.
 
maybe even programmable 'telegraph spamming machines' (put in a spool of punchtape with names and another one with text, wind up the mechanism and have the same message go out all day to different addresses).

Spam is 145 years old this year - using telegraphs, yup.
 
Mechanical computers could have led to a number of inventions that are all plausible and all steampunk. The whole area of creating, copying, transfering and servicing punchcards, frex, the telegraphic transfer of data, and the transition between data and image would be interesting fields for applying Victorian ingenuity. Automatic punchcard copiers, autopantographs, analytical coin counting/assaying machines, early ticket vending machines, maybe even programmable 'telegraph spamming machines' (put in a spool of punchtape with names and another one with text, wind up the mechanism and have the same message go out all day to different addresses).

They there is the fashion aspect of it - pseudo-'analytical' locks, music machines, makeup tables, stage machinery etc.

Beyond that, a lot of the more interesting Victorian inventions practically *were* steampunk. They were met with scepticism and often did not fulfill their potential, but a more gadget-happy age could easily produce even weirder ideas.

Why the engine wasn't built?
 

wormyguy

Banned
Why the engine wasn't built?
Babbage got his funding from the British government. He received a tremendous amount of funding (for an independent scientist) from them, yet produced absolutely nothing, so they cut his funding off.
 
Why the engine wasn't built?

Two reasons, really:

1) Babbage never had enough money to physically construct the thing;
2) Babbage couldn't stop tinkering with the design. I mean, his first design was clever, and his later designs were just downright brilliant - but at some point you need to pick a plan and start attaching gears to driveshafts.

Between the two of them, Babbage kind of screwed the pooch. After a while, all his investors realized that the money they were giving him was going down a hole, and stopped giving it to him. So #2 exacerbated #1, and #1 provided the excuse for continuing with #2. Babbage never got near building the thing.
 
Two reasons, really:

1) Babbage never had enough money to physically construct the thing;
2) Babbage couldn't stop tinkering with the design. I mean, his first design was clever, and his later designs were just downright brilliant - but at some point you need to pick a plan and start attaching gears to driveshafts.

Between the two of them, Babbage kind of screwed the pooch. After a while, all his investors realized that the money they were giving him was going down a hole, and stopped giving it to him. So #2 exacerbated #1, and #1 provided the excuse for continuing with #2. Babbage never got near building the thing.

Babbage got his funding from the British government. He received a tremendous amount of funding (for an independent scientist) from them, yet produced absolutely nothing, so they cut his funding off.

How can the engine built then?

Maybe he threaten to leak the info to other country if the government deny him the required fund?

Or maybe the government decided to built following the blueprint after Babbage death?
 
How can the engine built then?

Maybe he threaten to leak the info to other country if the government deny him the required fund?

I doubt he'd do that - he was too much the patriot. He broke codes for the government during the Crimean War. The problem wasn't lack of funding per se so much as lack of incentive to get down to work.

Or maybe the government decided to built following the blueprint after Babbage death?
That might work... the other option I see is if the government actually contracts him to build the 'Engine, rather than just funding his research... that might get a model built. Then it's all up to the government - artillery tables and codebreaking away!
 
The "Babbage Builds the Analytical Engine" is the premise of the book "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It's somewhat ASB as an alternate history book, but it's quite realistic as a steampunk book. I'd recommend it if that's what you're interested in.

Kind of a tangent, but does anyone else who's read it think it could make a great Christopher Nolan movie?
 
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