Esteemed Fellows and Members of the Imperial Brotherhood of Auto-Mobile
Mecanicians, Associate Brothers in France, Germany and the rest of Europe,
and Friends in the various parrts of America, I send you my greetings on this
day of Easter Monday.
I present my humble apologies to our emminent Master of the Telegraphic
Magazine, Lord Veritas Johnothan, for sending here a Telegram not directly
related to the Work of our Brotherhood, but the matter is of Importance to
all of us as we all use Difference Engines to read this Magazine:
I beg to inform the Brotherhood that my Difference Engine has been sent a new
(and very nasty) Modus relayed through my Engine's Telegraphic Connection
from the Engine of Master Mechanician Lord Belshy (Sir Martyin before
his recent accession to the Peerage ) PhD Mech. KCBE, SSGB, who also is a
subscriber and a well-known contributor to this Telegraphic Magazine.
The Modus comes disguised as a Kinotropic Display, with the revealing title
"Temperance_lecture_part_one.pps.scr" on the paper-tape leader.
The length of the paper tape is 284' 5"1/4 (86 metres and 696.5 millimetres
for our Worthy Members in those countries that are Metricated).
It appears to emmanate from the British Empire League Against Alcoholic
Excess, but a spiining of the Police Engines quickly showed that the real
originator, first thought to be a Luddite clacker, has been linked with the
Manhattan Red Commune, and uses various telegraph account codes in the
Republic of Texas..
If it is spun on a Babbage Difference Engine with the Standard Gears, the
Modus first attempts to re-send itself by Telegraph to all the Telegraphic
Codes of other Engines stored in its internal adress-card-stack, after which
it then renders the Engine unusable by exploiting a little-known defect in
the Ada Byron Standard Gears: Any Engine will of course refuse to accept to
run a division by zero, but the Ada Byron Standard Gears do not notice the
fallacy when the Modus sets the Engine to divide a prime number by the cubed
root of zero. It then spins endlessly attempting the impossible operation,
and can only be restored to spinning order by a complete dismantling and
rebuilding of the System Gears.
I have not been personnally affected, as I run a Babbage Engine with the
Finlandish Modified Gears, which I can highly recommend to the Brotherhood,
as they run much smoother, use less steam for the same gear yardage spun, and
are not succeptible to the Blue Gear-lock of Death.
It does not affect Grand Napoleon Engines either.
But anyone on the list who uses a standard Babbage Difference Engine with the
Ada Byron Gears must take appropriate measures immediately.
You should immediately upgrade your Norton Anti-Modus card-stack/paper-tape
to the latest published edition
The Engine at messrs. Norton Anti Modus Gear Works can be reached directly by
Telegraph at the adress 27182818284590,
I thank all you Brothers for your patience and have the honour to remain,
your obdt. servant,
Master Ydnar Eel,
MScMech (Universidad de Constipacion), YMCA and Bar,
Island Bespoke Gears Design.
Telegraph: 4523536028750.
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Nurse !! Randolph is hiding his medication again, he needs some of those pills.
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Er, Randolph - I'm just going to put the kettle on, and come back and read this again!
Ian
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What a shame Randolph. Hope you feel better soon and that you can get back to some slightly loopy postings (always enjoyable), instead of this REALLY DAFT one.
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I've seen dafter messages on this site, not on April 1st!
Not so enjoyable, though.
Cheers, Tomo
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I am already at max dose for my dried green frog pills.... I do hope they come up with something more efficacious soon
Ydnar Eel
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Randolph,
Not just the standard Babbage Difference Engine affected but the old Land Rover 2.25d as well, that can be the only reason I'm spending Easter with the head off the rebuilt engine again after less than 200 miles.
I thought it was poor workmanship but I'm happier to know it's down to a modus.
David
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It is April Fools day and we did all read it!
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aaah... I see David,
that would be due to the Jaquard cards for machine tool operation generated by the diference engines of the time... they were prone to 'double feed' problems hence skiping an instruction or three... this resulted in much hand fitting of the parts... hence your problems of today... I see many of the same problems in my 1948 CJ-2A Jeep
~Ydnar
DAMM Another pill just rolled under the workbench....
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David
What went wrong?
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Richard,
I'm going to shamelessly paste in a mail sent to a friend that tells all!
...after my rebuild the Land Rover was displaying some odd engine traits, smoke-poor starting-poor power. To keep to a minimum budget I'd rebuilt (not reconditioned) the engine from two complete ones and some already machined parts purchased from a chap who'd given up on his.
I didn't expect an "as new" job but the result has been very disappointing. Because I kept assuming the basic engine condition was OK my mind wandered to a completely shot injector pump......but then I just happened to borrow a diesel engine compression tester. The figures were quite even but all around 300psi instead of the expected 450psi....seriously bad and enough to explain my running faults.
While I had the tester adaptor in the glow plug holes I put each cylinder in turn to TDC on the firing stroke (checked there was clearance on both valves) and pressurised the cylinder with my air line. On every cylinder there was a whoosh of air from the inlet trunking, no sound from the oil filler or exhaust. Terrible seal on the inlet valves, but why?
I had done this engine work in fits and starts over many months, I remembered having new exhaust valves in stock when I first started the head overhaul work but I had to mail order the new inlets. I had ground in the exhaust valves but then left the job for some weeks after the inlet valves arrived. I guess when I got them I dropped them into the guides as the head lay on the bench then came back to it ages later, just completing the assembly without ever grinding them in...stupid stupid mistake. Anyway I've just popped off the head and taken the valves out to confirm this is indeed the case.
To make a 100% job this time I'm using a spare head I have that is in good basic order. I've fitted a new set of inlet/exhaust guides and bought all new valves, just popping it over to the local engineering shop in a minute to ream the guides and re-cut the valve seats plus replace the core plugs.
If at first you don't succeed.....
David
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Randolph,
Wonderful posting, keep them up
Ian L.
ps Have you tried reading 'The Difference Engine' by
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling? A wonderful novel about a
Victorian Computer Age spawned if the Babbage Engines had actually worked in a practical form...all steam powered of course.
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Yes Ian it was where I got the idea from A great book... But I am starting to get a bit woried about Ian Cook... he has been off making that tea a long time!
BTW it turns out that this warning was a bit of a hoax... as most of you witt machines built in the last 10 years or so will have had the XINU diferental gearset as standard equipment which would have blocked the effects of this tape.
~R
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Sorry, Randolph - I got sidetracked. I Decided to have a beer instead. Might even have another one!
Ian
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