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Mechanical Computer (All Parts) - Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers

Excelsior10000 · 483.4K views · 2011-07-13 · 41:53

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Overview

A 1953 US Navy training film explaining the basic mechanisms in mechanical fire control computers aboard ships. It shows how gears, differentials and cams solved mathematical problems in permanent mechanical form.

On Hacker News

HN commenters repeatedly recommend it as a beautiful, approachable explanation of analog mechanical computation, and many have rewatched it.

Recommended by 13 HN people across 12 months · HN mentions 2014–2025

Topics

Mechanical & precision engineeringHistory of computingMilitary history & warfare
Search by tags
fire control computersanalog computingus navymechanismsgears

What people said

kibwen · 2024-10 · Strong recommendation

Everyone reading this right now needs to check out this 1950s naval training video on the mechanical fire control computers of battleships: [VIDEO] For fun, before you watch, think for yourself how you'd implement addition, multiplication, squaring, etc. with only gears and other mechanisms.

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boomlinde · 2018-11 · Strong recommendation

The whole training film on mechanical computers, for navy mechanics I believe: [VIDEO] It illustrates the problems and solutions near perfectly, and I've watched it way too many times.

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Bjartr · 2018-11 · Strong recommendation

I did not see any link to the full training video[0] the clips in this article were taken from. I highly recommend it. It's a fascinating trip into engineering, computing, and the past. [0] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Excelsior10000, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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