r/interesting • u/Difficult_Trip1 • 1d ago
HISTORY No Computers. Just Gears, Dials… and a Spinning Earth
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u/Clumsy_Marshmallow 1d ago
Steampunk Google Maps hits different. Meanwhile my phone dies if I open two tabs
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u/corgi-king 1d ago
Are you using a North Korean phone?
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u/Clumsy_Marshmallow 1d ago
It’s just a metaphor – I’ve got a budget Redmi 13, which cost $200; after two years it’s already playing up. As soon as I’ve got the money, I’ll definitely buy a new phone with the proceeds from selling my work – I’m a budding artist.
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u/SUNTZU_JoJo 1d ago
When was the last time you reset it to factory settings? A full wipe? Phones are like computers..you need to be wiping them completely every so often.
It will run like brand new once you do that...
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u/Clumsy_Marshmallow 22h ago
Never done a factory reset in my life. Honestly, it's a budget Redmi, not an iPhone—a full wipe isn't going to magically upgrade the hardware. Might help for a week, but at the end of the day, you just need a proper phone with a normal microchip. Soon as I sell enough of my work, an upgrade is definitely happening
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u/SUNTZU_JoJo 21h ago
Sure thing buid still give it a try. You might be surprised.
Same for PC formats every now and then.
All systems need a good wipe every now and then. Get rid of legacy code and clutter.
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u/Clumsy_Marshmallow 21h ago
Alright, fair point—I'll actually give the full reset a shot and see if it breathes some life back into it! Honestly, I'm not much of an iPhone guy anyway. Feels like every single app and VPN requires a paid subscription. The only things I really envy are the zero lag and the camera—my Redmi doesn't even have digital stabilization because I intentionally cheaped out on the camera to save cash. Fun fact: I actually bought this phone using crypto from the 2024 Notcoin airdrop. I made about $3k off that, so I could have bought a flagship, but basic safety and survival were way higher on my priority list than flexing an iPhone
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u/SUNTZU_JoJo 20h ago
Neither am I an iPhone guy my friend. I'm on the Xperia line. Best phones I've had for a long long time.
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u/corgi-king 1d ago
I never ever factory reset my iPhone unless I need to sell
It. Every time I upgrade my iPhone, 3–4 generations newer, I just use the built-in migration app to update it.Note: I have more than a few hundred games and apps installed on my iPhone.
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u/SUNTZU_JoJo 23h ago
My post wasn't for you. It was for the guy buying a budget phone. So he can keep it going for a few years.
All phones are capable of this with a fresh wipe.
But you are already lost, buying iPhones and actively supporting a company that is doing everything it can to take away your right to repair your own devices.
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u/Panzer4183 23h ago
Yes we know and keep doing that.😉
-Your designated watchers from Langley -
Ps. Please stop the midget porn's, Jack is doing a PTSD therapy and he is a family guy, a full blown American patriot, who just happens to be the video guy designated for you browsing history.
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u/Wansido_Empirian 1d ago
American...Trump golden Iphone...
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u/corgi-king 1d ago
That POS is made in China.
I am not going to trash Trump here. Because these people are so ok being lied to and being fooled so many times, it is on them.
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u/picturepath 1d ago
This thing is likely not accurate at all, like how many square miles belong to the cross point. No wonder they keep hitting schools and hospitals.
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u/RetinaJunkie 1d ago
Ive seen watches with better gears
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u/altpirate 1d ago
I highly doubt that, even a tourbillon movement is "only" like 200 parts.
Is that impressive? Yes
Does it do differential calculations? Absolutely not, it counts seconds
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u/Alert-Dark-8239 1d ago
Steampunk Google Maps has an entire Victorian-era computing department behind it. Meanwhile my phone starts sweating when I ask it to keep two tabs open.
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u/thael_mann 1d ago
There's no combustion, no "engine" - sooooo... Gearpunk?
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u/Clumsy_Marshmallow 22h ago
Fair enough, you got me! It really gives off ancient Atlantean technology vibes—like finding a 2,000-year-old mechanical supercomputer in an ocean trench. As a mechanical guy, I’ll always have endless respect for pure clockwork brilliance like this
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u/ChristVolo1 1d ago
I want one.
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u/MrWigggles 1d ago
That is a computer.
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u/corgi-king 1d ago
They used to called the ladies who do calculation computer.
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u/Myriachan 1d ago
Nothing in the word “computer” says its thinking process has to use electronics. After all, the word “computer” originally was a human profession.
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u/pornborn 23h ago
Here’s something most people don’t know is a computer. Inside an automatic transmission is a part called a “valve body.” It is a hydraulic computer.
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u/PedanticQuebecer 1d ago
Yes, an analog computer. Although the math it does is far less impressive than WW2 era battleship firing tables, but then again it is far smaller.
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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 1d ago
It is closer to a fancy clock. You set up some orbital parameters manually (they would get these from the ground after launch, and then it aligns the globe to that and moves the globe to track your position. But it does not do any of the operations that we see from mechanical calculators. Here is a good video about it https://youtu.be/dmHaCQ8Ul6E
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u/lo9314 1d ago
So you put in data, the machine computes a solution and gives you the result. This is a computer.
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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 23h ago
You set the time and data and the clock spins. This is a clock.
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u/Ybalrid 23h ago
Both are true.
In fact you will be hard press to find a computer that does not have a clock in it.
Ticking forward is a requirement to following instructions one after the other.
Every computer is clock.
Most clocks are not computers.Though today if your clock has a digital display of any kind, then it probably actually is a computer (because it probably has a microcontroller of some kind somewhere.)
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u/possiblyquestionabl3 1d ago
I wouldn't say it's just a big fancy clock either.
From how I understand it, the state space consists of two angles (parameterized by the angle of the spacecraft on its current orbit and the current angle of the rotation-of-the-earth). The angular velocity of both are more or less modeled as constants once the craft is in orbit, so the actual state transform is basically a simple clock - the integrator of both of the state variables is just
\theta_i + \omega_i \Delta twhich IS basically a fancy clock.The projection from that state space back to latitude/longitude isn't trivial though (especially since both lat/long are read out as number dials on the right too, so there is a numerical solver too). That said, the cams to compute the asin(sin(c)sin(\theta)) and atan(cos(c)tan(theta)) do sort of operate like giant (high precision) lookup tables.
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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 23h ago
But it doesn't really calculate these things either. It just displays them my mechanically rotating the globe. There is plenty of clever engineering here, but it does not perform any general calculations.
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u/QuasiSpace 21h ago
A computer doesn't have to perform general calculations to be a computer. Computers can be far less complicated than this device. Source: computer science degree.
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u/Traveller9536 1d ago
It is a computer. Just because it doesn’t have electrical components doesn’t mean it isn’t a computer
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u/oneseventwosix 1d ago
Flat earthers, what is your response to this?
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u/ButterscotchNo7292 1d ago
We have a version of this with a disc for the earth
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u/oneseventwosix 1d ago
I’m sorry, how does that explain how cosmonauts were able to navigate with this device… which used a spherical representation of earth?
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u/movzx 1d ago
A key part of the conspiracy is that all world governments, including the space agencies, are involved in keeping the secret. Their response would be along the lines of we've never been to 'space' (it's all a hoax), or that this is just bunk used to hide the truth.
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u/oneseventwosix 1d ago
Yeah I understand.
Can you imagine the WHOLE world coming together to agree to work together keeping one giant lie?
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u/chichicha99 1d ago
Is this real? Because, as a watch enthusiast, this shit kinda turned me on.
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u/QuasiSpace 1d ago
It's real, and the presenter is mistaken about something: it wasn't limited to use by Soviets. It was last used in the Soyuz in 2002, well after the end of the Soviet Union.
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u/ZuckerbergsSmile 1d ago
They had such great engineers and scientists and threw it all away. Such a shame
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u/Superdry_GTR 1d ago
Yes Russians before are quite something…now however
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u/thatsocialist 1d ago
Not Russians. Soviets. There was a pride in the Soviet times, to be a progressing nation on the forefront of technology and considered equally the most powerful and respected nation, all that was lost along with any prosperity during the '90s.
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u/Unknown-Meatbag 1d ago
Russian history can be summed up as "And then, it got worse."
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u/VegetableProject4383 1d ago
I believe that is a Russia saying and their humor is pretty dark like that.
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u/herpafilter 21h ago
Yeah, there's a reason why the USSR dissolved. It wasn't because it was too awesome.
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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 19h ago
Soviet Central planning and price controls completely choked the economy
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u/NiobiumThorn 20h ago
The illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the soviet union is one of the greatest tragedies of the era.
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u/GreatService9515 1d ago
Cool gadget but demonstrating how it works won't convince the flat earthers that the Earth is a sphere
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u/codikane 1d ago
They still have stuff like this as backup navigation and guidance systems on the ground in case of EMP or EMI attacks
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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 1d ago
For those interested, this video and the other ones in the series shows how the mechanism works in detail. https://youtu.be/dmHaCQ8Ul6E
From the way it functions I think it most closely resembles a clock and not a computer. You need to manually input your orbital parameters and then a clock will make the globe spin gradually to show your track. The landing site predictor is a preprogrammed distance from where you currently are. As far as I know, these have never actually needed to be used in flight as most Soviet spacecraft do their maneuvering by themselves. For the flight of Vostok with Yuri Gagarin, he didn't control the spacecraft at all. It was all done from the ground.
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u/herpafilter 21h ago
Curiousmarc is one of the best youtube channels out there. Those guys cobbled together the only working apollo guidance computer in the world. Legends.
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u/Jonny7Tenths 1d ago
Hah. A mere bauble compared to the Acro Vulcan's Navigation and Bombing Computer:
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u/impact_ftw 1d ago
But it is a computer
Globus IMP instruments were spacecraft navigation instruments used in Soviet and Russian crewed spacecraft. [...] This instrument is a mechanical computer for navigation [...] It mechanically computes complex functions and displays its output through mechanical displacements of the globe and other indicator components. It also modulates electric signals from other instruments.
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u/LivingHighAndWise 16h ago
Except the Cosmonauts didn't do any navigating when this unit was in use. It was essentially a clock that would track the amount of time passed since the launch, and then use that to calculate its place in space, in orbit around the Earth. Cosmonauts played no part in controlling or navigating the ship.
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u/El_Matt-El_Grande 1d ago
Pfff, stupid, they should clearly see where they land from that high above /s
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u/M4RK3R3D 1d ago
And now we haven’t made regular cell phone in last 30 years I think my grand grand parents would be disappointed if they knew this
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u/FrostyRoams 1d ago
How much for one of these? I would love one with see through panels to see all of the gears working
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u/Massive-Challenge273 1d ago
This just reminded me of the Astro-inertial Navigation System used in the SR71.
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u/Background-Mode-4036 1d ago
While a computer doesn’t require electronic components, and I do believe (know, really) that this is feasible with just mechanical parts…are there not clearly resisters, capacitors, and wires visible when they take the cover off?
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u/moseley101 1d ago
What a gorgeous piece of machinery. If I had money I would definitely like to buy one of those, although it is probably rare enough that it would have to be given to a museum
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u/Repulsive_Sherbet548 1d ago
No I can't believe that cause like he just said in that era there was no chance you are able to do everything right. It's highly unlikely that it's even possible nowadays
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u/iceganjahman 23h ago
Aí eles descobriram que se tiver um lança míssel no sol ou na lua dá pra acertar o mundo todo.
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u/vinnymarchegiano 23h ago
That's fuking amazing!! Immediately reminded me of the Antikythera Mechanism.
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u/Ybalrid 23h ago
Would be nice to credit CuriousMarc instead of freebooting the content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmHaCQ8Ul6E
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u/___NowYouKnow___ 22h ago
Fun fact. On the Soviet spacecraft , there were instructions on the outside of the spacecraft in English on how to open the door and free the cosmonauts because one of the emergency landing sites was Nebraska
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u/Foreign_Implement897 22h ago
Have people forgotten about electronics? That thing is not only mechanical. I can see capacitors.
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u/CurrentlyHuman 12h ago
Oh right, this is what I need for my time machine to work, can someone DM me if they have one.
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