I guess the Galton box qualifies as a mechanical calculator for a Gaussian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_machine Also, Fredkin's billiard ball computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard-ball_computer And then there's those wonderful 1960's mechanical desktop "calculators"; I recall seeing one in the 1950's multiply two large numbers; they were amazing to watch! Some of IBM's early punch card machines were deliciously electromechanical, with grease everywhere. Also, some of their disk drives and printers I used in the 1960's had _hydraulic_ mechanisms; the IBM CE's looked more like car mechanics than computer engineers! At 11:39 AM 9/11/2014, Dave Dyer wrote:
I nominate Turing's analog computer to find zeta function zeros, described in the Hodges biography.
Also, obviously, the concept of physically realizing Turing machines using punched tape and mechanical reader/writer mechanisms.