On 10/4/2011 1:08 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> And, again, its a
>> matter of "size" and "complexity". Heck, even Babbage ran into the issue
>> of, "I think this will work, but there is no way in hell I could ever
>> build this thing."
>
> No, that wasn't the problem. Babbage's problem was that he kept
> tinkering with the design. Always thinking up new ways to improve it.
> Eventually the workmen got hacked off with trying to build a design that
> changes every five minutes. Plus, I gather Babbage was not a patient
> man, and rather awkward to work with.
>
> In a way, he seems to have been like me: Full of good ideas, but an
> incurable tinkerer, and never actually finished anything...
Sounds like the guy that worked for Twain, when he was trying to help 
fund a printing press. The "simpler" model won out, despite the fact 
that the one they where funding could do vastly more. The guy making it 
kept taking it apart, to "improve" the thing, instead of ending up with 
a fully working model.

Still, its been argued that it would have been problematic mass 
producing the thing, at the time, too. Or, at least I read that some place.

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