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Rigorous Science

The Babbage Probe

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I'm currently exploring a setting where humans have managed to create traversable wormholes with one critical flaw - something in the wormhole both kills multi-cellular life and destroys electronic systems. The exact cause is unknown, the probes sent in are otherwise undamaged and even a mechanical pencil left in a maintenance hatch survived the trip unscathed.

(If it helps I'm leaning towards the idea that while inside a wormhole everything develops nigh infinite magnetic permeability, erasing all electrical and electrochemical data)

It was this mechanical pencil that inspired the idea of building a probe that utilised a mechanical computer rather than an electronic one. My mind immediately went 'steampunk' but steampunk stories are 'steampunk stories' which was not the intention when exploring this concept (though I'm more than happy to borrow the technology, if not the themes). Not to mention otherwise the tech level is set to today, it's more a revival of technology rather than an alternate path of technological development.

So my question is this, are there any examples of what amounts to a modern version of Babbage's Analytical Engine available today?

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/23235. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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