Re:On the lack of progress reports from the Mill project
by Animats on Sunday July 25, 2021 @02:55PM
(#27951846)
Oh, I thought it was about the people claiming to be building a replica of Babbage's analytical engine, where the CPU is called "The Mill" [1] 11 years on, it's still all hype. They haven't even posted design documents, let alone built anything. Or even posted an annotated archive of the original documents.
When that started, I contacted them and asked how many part numbers the Analytical Engine needed. That's a basic number for sizing the build job. They didn't have an estimate.
(In manufacturing, a part is one object, and a "part number" is the term for a part design from which many parts are made. Engineering and tooling effort is driven by the number of unique part numbers.)
If they were serious, they could start posting drawings and getting people to model them in SolidWorks or Fusion 360. Somebody would probably CNC machine the parts and make a sample storage register.
When that started, I contacted them and asked how many part numbers the Analytical Engine needed. That's a basic number for sizing the build job. They didn't have an estimate. (In manufacturing, a part is one object, and a "part number" is the term for a part design from which many parts are made. Engineering and tooling effort is driven by the number of unique part numbers.)
If they were serious, they could start posting drawings and getting people to model them in SolidWorks or Fusion 360. Somebody would probably CNC machine the parts and make a sample storage register.
[1] http://plan28.org/