Wind-up radios (Score 1)

If memory serves, during an interview with BBC's 'Tomorrow's World', Trevor Bayliss (inventor of the clockwork radio) declared an intent to produce a clockwork computer. Trevor had a huge struggle before anyone took his radio seriously. He didn't get recognition until Tomorrow's World broadcast the story. Now, his radio is manufactured in South Africa, by the South Africans, (primarily) for the South Africans.

FWIW, I don't think that he had the Pentium chip in mind for his proposed computer. After all, the Psion PDAs can go weeks or months on just one set of alkalines. Is it unreasonable to expect a clockwork computer to run for an hour or two on a single wind?

Trevor already has the technology to power such a machine. To my mind, all that remains is to obtain the funding

//shady