[MrMon]

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I'm going to go with the self-winding pocket watch. I have a beautiful one my wife gave me with the guts all exposed behind the crystal, and that thing is astounding.

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It's got to be something like this. I can't find a picture of the internals, but the H4 watch that solved the longitude problem was something to behold.

Precision mechanical clocks/watches are amazing technology that you can hold in your hand and are only as complex as they need to be, yet are very complex, and they do work. Babbage's engine may be complex, but it didn't work, or at least it couldn't be built, so that's kind of a strike against it. Watches work.