Lore: Analytical Engines
Analytical engines are complex mechanical computation devices. They are most commonly found in areas that favor Technology, and are sometimes used in regions that have no strong relationship to Magic, but are never found in Magical areas - analytical engines are sufficiently Technological in nature that even low levels of ambient Magic are sufficient to disrupt their function.
The first modern analytical engines were invented in 232 CR, based on earlier designs found in surviving Ronkan texts, though there is no evidence that any Ronkan analytical engines were ever built. Similar devices had been invented in earlier epochs by the Arkeyans, but were significantly bulkier and less efficient, with few samples surviving to the present day. Analytical engines are entirely mechanical in nature; while they can be - and are - used to control other types of systems, such as electrical power grids for spacecraft, analytical engines have remained entirely analog in nature.
Over the course of time and with advances in dwarven engineering, analytical engines have both shrunk in size and improved in computing power. Early systems used large metal drums for data storage and had more in common with printing presses; over time, the drums were replaced with magnetic tape, allowing for significantly more data storage and faster data retrieval. The introduction of magnets into analytical engines also led to the invention of user-friendly interfaces: specifically, analytical engines use what is known as a "pin panel" to display information. Pin panels are typically composed of a metal frame and thousands of small iron pins inserted into a metal mesh. Through use of magnets and a "driver" device attached to the analytical engine, the pins are manipulated to allow for the display of shapes and characters. In combination with a typewriter (and an accompanying "driver" device to attach it to the engine), using the typewriter displays the characters entered onto the pin panel.
While typewriters and pin panels are the most common peripherals for analytical engines, others exist. Phonographs that have been miniaturized and fitted with drivers to interface with standardized docks that have become commonplace in analytical engine design exist, and can be used to record and replay audio; this technology was invented after magnetic tapes were, and thus are incompatible with older analytical engines.
The introduction of other Forces into the field of analytical engines, called "differential science," also revolutionized their use in some places. The application of Time to the analytical engines allowed for faster apparent processing speeds, though chronological studies on the functioning of the device revealed something more powerful. Calling this breakthrough "quantum differentiation," some epochents found that if an analytical engine attempted to calculate something, then there was guaranteed to be an alternate timeline in which that calculation had already been made by that same device, resulting in the processing time effectively becoming nil. Unfortunately, the amount of quanta - temporal energy - required for this process was absolutely staggering and impractical in almost every scenario, but the concept would eventually be used with success in the End of Time. Meanwhile, regions with a mix of Temporal and Technological ambience have produced analytical engines with hasteners, which gather ambient Temporal quanta and use it to speed up the device's processing power.
While Time could be used to speed up the device's processing speeds, the Blue was found to be able to increase the data storage on an exponential scale. Mememticists found that the way in which the analytical engine functioned was eerily similar to their understanding of the underpinning metaphysics of reality; however, this similarity could be turned into an advantage, and while magnetic tape became the standard data store for engines, memeticists developed caching algorithms that, when combined with specially-treated magnetic tape, resulted in engines that could store significantly more data on the same volume of tape.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of these modifications, a given analytical engine cannot make use of Temporally-enhanced processing speeds and Memetically-enhanced data storage. Given that gnomes are aligned to both the Blue and Technology, while no known race is attuned to both Time and Technology, the general trend in the analytical engine community has been towards using engines with enhanced data stores, rather than faster processing power.
Over the first several decades after their initial invention, analytical engines became increasingly complex: while at first they were only capable of mathematical computations, their rapidly increasing complexity gave rise to the notion that they could do more. In 251 CR, the field of reckoning was born: by feeding data into an analytical engine in a very specific way, the device could run predetermined calculations and perform additional functions that, while at their basics could be reduced to mathematical functions, resulted in begin able to do much more than just math. The value of having devices that could perform complex operations autonomously, accurately, and quickly was not overlooked by the Technological parts of the world, and these reckoners quickly found themselves in high demand, both in governments and in educational institutions to pass on their knowledge.
These advances in differential science came to what is arguably their apex in Ada Fralizte's invention of artilects in 357 CR. Built around a core of an incredibly dense and miniaturized analytical engine, along with inconceivably complicated reckoning scripts, artilects are true mechanical intelligence, sentient and equipped with free will. The exact means by which Ada reckoned the scripts that allow for this were unfortunately lost with her death; while artilects are capable of replicating them when producing their "children," the independent genesis of a new line of artilect-like automaton is unlikely without the rise of another differential genius on Ada's level.
While it is unlikely that the core of the technology needed to produce artilects will be replicated, their existence did spark a number of advances in usage of analytical engines. Specifically, the fact that artilects natively spoke the "language" utilized in analytical engines led to the ability to issue primitive voice commands to analytical engines equipped with phonographs. Advances in this technology eventually led to being able to issue almost any standard command to a properly-equipped analytical engine simply by speaking to it. Such hardware is still designed to only understand Assembly, as it was found that the grammar and syntax of natural languages was simply too much for such technologies. Likewise, some analytical engines are also capable of replying verbally to commands, or otherwise relaying information in a verbal format. While the "voice" used for this is almost universally tinny and clearly not intelligent - and also subject to the limitations of only being able to communicate to the user in Assembly - this has made usage of analytical engines significantly easier on the populace at large, at least in regions where teaching Assembly is relatively common, though such machines tend to be rather expensive.
In 276 CR, the idea of using radio technology to allow two analytical engines to share information was conceived. This idea rapidly resulted in the creation of the Analytical Network: throughout some parts of the world, massive analytical engines were constructed alongside radio towers, serving as nodes to which a user could tune their radio-enabled analytical engines to, allowing for much broader communication and also solving the resonance problem. The Analytical Network, or "ananet" as it has come to be called, has become a valuable information-sharing resource for those regions that can access it.
Since the Omega Event, several Arkeyan ruins have surfaced that have Arkeyan analytical engines that have survived and continue to function, though most discovered are practically immobile due to their sheer size and bulk, and most seem to be malfunctioning in some fashion.
The Omega Event also impacted the future of analytical engines. Evidence from future timelines suggested that, at some point, analytical engines would become electrical, with digitization happening at some point. While that future will now never come to pass - the "playing out" of the actual Omega Event disrupted the future sufficiently to ensure that the timeline is now along a different path - some examples of technology from that lost future were still in the present. Research and experimentation with these small hints have led some to believe that the cause of this digitization was not due to advances in Trinity, but instead were the result of uncovering or encountering truly alien technology.
While this "electrification" of analytical engines is a slow process and only began in 13 AO, many believe that it will result in analytical engines capable of even greater processing speeds and larger data storage. However, given that by this point there had been over two hundred years' worth of development and refinement on existing technologies, it seems unlikely that this process will take root and supplant the already-existing analytical engines. Instead, most modern focus on analytical engines in the post-Omega world are interested in attempting to miniaturize the engine, along with a typewriter and pin panel, into a device fully integrated with its peripherals that can also be carried easily by a single person.
