Re-birth of the Phillips Machine
Friday, May 09, 2008
by Geoff Riley
The Guardian today carries a piece on the restoration of the famous Phillips Machine. I would love to be able to take my students to see this in action. Does anyone know if this is possible?
“It is 2 metres (7ft) tall, 1.5 metres wide and a metre deep. It runs on water and most of the time it is screened off at the back of a lecture room in Cambridge. But when the nine members of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee announce their latest decision on interest rates today they will owe a debt of gratitude to the computer built in a garage in south Croydon by Bill Phillips - an engineer turned economist from New Zealand - almost 60 years ago.”
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Comments
According to Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC, 14 of these were built. The Science museum has one on display: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/computing_and_data_processing/1995-210.aspx but I don’t think it works anymore. Apparently the working one in Cambridge has an annual outing so get in contact with Allan McRobie? There was actually an exhibition just across the river at the Tate Modern, with a working one shipped over here from America which someone told me about it just after it finished! http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/theirresistibleforce/michael-stevenson.shtm I asked around at the LSE but to my great surprise nobody knew what I was talking about…
Posted by on 05/10 at 05:43 AM
I found this article, but it appears the Cambridge one is non-operational. My son is currently at Cambridge and I’m going to get him to investigate. If I have any luck, I’ll get back to you
http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/enginuity/issue12/article2.html
Posted by on 05/10 at 02:45 PM
