More than 1,600 people have affianced allowance and encouragement to erect Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.
Although elements of the engine have been built over the final 173 years, a full working model of the steam-powered appurtenance has never been made.
The promotion hopes to accumulate donations from 50,000 supporters to kick-start the project.
"It's an inspirational square of equipment," mentioned John Graham-Cumming, writer of the Geek Atlas, who has championed the idea.
"A hundred years ago, before computers were available, [Babbage] had envisaged this machine."
Computer historian Dr Doron Swade mentioned that rebuilding the appurtenance could answer "profound chronological questions".
"Could there have been an data age in Victorian times? That is a really engaging question," he told BBC News.
The methodical engine was written on paper by mathematician and operative Charles Babbage. It was envisaged that it would be built out of pewter and iron.
"What you realize when you read Babbage's credentials is that this was the initial actual computer," mentioned Mr Graham-Cumming. "It had expandable memory, a CPU, microcode, a printer, a plotter and was programmable with punch cards.
Although other automatic machines might predate the Analytical Engine, it is regarded as the initial pattern for a "general role computer" that could be reprogrammed to bring out not similar tasks.
It was the inheritor to his Difference Engine, a outrageous pewter number-cruncher.
"The Difference Engine is a calculator," mentioned Dr Swade, who was segment of a group that outlayed 17 years painstakingly office building a replica. "It is not a P.C. in the broad clarity of the word."
He mentioned that it would be "astounding" if the Anaytical Engine could moreover be built.
"The Difference Engine is already a mythological model, but it is dinky compared to the Analytical Engine," he said.
He mentioned Babbage's many designs is to device referred to that it would be "bigger than a steam locomotive."
"That is with only 100 variables," he said. "He talked about machines with 1,000 variables, that would be an inconceivably considerable machine."
No a has built an whole Analytical engine, nonetheless assorted people, inclusive Babbage's son and Dr Swade, have combined elements of it.
Dr Swade mentioned the many intricate - nonetheless deficient - recreations of elements of the appurtenance have been built using Meccano by Briton Tim Robinson .
Mr Graham-Cumming aims to reconstruct a pattern well known as Plan 28 if his promotion is successful. However, he said, there would be a lot of work to do before then, inclusive digitising Babbage's credentials that are hold at the Science Museum in London.
Dr Swade mentioned that a assistant professor would moreover be indispensable to interpret Babbage's drawings and nomenclature.
"We would then must be erect a 3D computer graphics of the engine [on a computer]," mentioned Mr Graham-Cummings. "We can then debug it and it would make it existing to everybody around the world."
Dr Swade, concluded that this was the scold draw close and mentioned a practical distraction of the appurtenance could compromise "95% of problems" and enable them to use P.C. to pattern the thousands of particular tools indispensable to make the behemoth.
"Building a practical engine is the only highway of faith to see the engine built in our lifetimes," he said.
When he built the Difference Engine, this highway was not existing he said.
First, however, Mr Graham-Cumming needs to elevate the allowance to set up the non-profit Plan 28 organization to manage the work .
"I was a small disturbed either sufficient people would caring about a steam-powered computer, with 1k of mental recall that was 13,000 times slower than a [Sinclair] ZX81," he said.
However, he told BBC News, an progressing online promotion had helped convince him that it was possible.
Last year he launched a request on the No 10 website mission on the supervision to make a post-mortem reparation to World War II code-breaker and P.C. colonize Alan Turing for his treatment by the authorities for being gay.
In Aug 2009, then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote a e-mail in the Daily Telegraph adage that he was remorseful for what had happened .
"That gave me the confidence that there are sufficient people that caring about computing to obtain this type of thing done," he said.
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